Journeys›Photograph

Snowy Shorelines and a Mountain Inversion at Tahoe

·California, United States·#winter#california#tahoe#skiing#snow#cloud inversion
Piles of snow in the foreground, with a large lake, distant snowy mountains, and a dramatic cloudy blue sky.

Between storms up here, and the whole basin showed it. Started at the Tahoe shore, where the plow berms have grown taller than the dock railings — you look out at the lake over a wall of snow now. Blue overhead, but a grey band sitting on the far mountains that turned out to matter.

Over at Donner Lake the sky had gone flat white. New snow still on everything from the last storm — pines bent under the load, one small tree by the water folded almost to the ground. The lake was mostly open, just a skin of ice pushing out from shore near the buoys, and the houses across the water sat doubled in it.

Then up the mountain in the afternoon, and somewhere on the climb we came out the top of it. Cold air trapped under warm, the classic between-storms inversion, and from the runs the whole basin was a white floor with the far ranges standing out of it like islands. Sun on the snow up top while everything below stayed under the cloud. Apparently it can hold like that for days.

Tall pine trees heavily covered in thick white snow fill a dense winter forest under a grey sky.Snow-covered pine trees reflect in a calm body of water under an overcast sky, with deep snow in the foreground.Snow-covered pine trees frame a partially frozen lake with a distant forest and cabin under an overcast sky.Snow-dusted pine branches frame a lake reflecting a snowy forest and houses under an overcast sky.A snowy winter landscape features a calm lake, snow-covered mountains, evergreen trees, and a chain-link fence in the foreground.A winter landscape with a partially frozen lake, snow-covered mountains, and pine trees under an overcast sky.Panoramic snowy landscape features ski tracks, evergreen trees, a cloud inversion, and distant peaks under a blue sky.Blue sky with contrails above a vast sea of clouds, distant mountains, and snow-covered pine trees in the foreground.

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