Journeys›Photograph

Early Winter Sets In Around Tahoe

·Placer County, California·#winter#california#snow#lake tahoe#landscape-photography
Lenticular cloud over a snowy rocky shoreline, dark water, and distant snow-capped mountains under a cloudy sky.

First real snow of the season landed this week, so today was for going out to check on it. Started down at the lake — the shore rocks held a thin crust that gave out at the waterline, and a lenticular cloud sat stacked over the west shore mountains like a pile of plates, barely moving. Twenty-two miles of water out there and none of it freezes; it just goes darker.

From the shore, up into the trees, where the snow was the real thing — enough to bend the pine branches down over the trail. Followed the creek in, still running black between white banks, and crossed the old concrete bridge, snow packed into the round openings along its rail. A downed trunk midstream carried its own ridge of white.

Finished at the meadow below Squaw Valley. The peaks had their coats back on, clouds still dragging over the ridgeline, and one person out on skis in the middle of the flat. The split-rail fence wore an inch on every rail.

A large lenticular cloud hangs over a lake with distant snowy mountains and a rocky, snow-dusted shore.Bright sun illuminates a winter forest with snow-laden evergreen trees and a snowy ground with deep shadows.A winding river flows through a snow-covered forest with tall evergreen trees under a bright blue sky.A snow-covered river winds through a dense, snowy forest, viewed through a circular, snow-dusted opening.A snow-covered landscape with a winding river, a buoy, evergreen trees, and a distant mountain under a blue sky.A snow-covered landscape with mountains, a large field, a wooden fence, and a person in the distance under a cloudy sky.A snowy field with a wooden fence, a distant person, and forested mountains under a cloudy blue sky.Snowy field with a wooden fence, evergreen-covered mountains, and a partly cloudy blue sky.

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