Journeys›Photograph

Waking Up to Heavy December Snow in Truckee

·Truckee, California·#winter#tahoe#snow#home#snowstorm
Snow-covered evergreen trees, a string of colorful lights, and a white ski lift chair under a pale blue sky.

Woke up and the back door wouldn't tell us anything — snow packed against the glass higher than my head, just a strip of sky and buried pine branches visible at the top. That was the first clue about how much had come down overnight.

Outside, the string of Christmas lights across the yard had turned into a rope of snow with bulbs poking through, still lit — a pink one, a red, a couple of teal ones glowing through their own little snow caps. The big pine behind the porch swing was carrying so much weight that whole branches hung straight down like sleeves. Down the road the aspens had it worse: one arched all the way over until its top touched the drift, a full hoop of tree.

The hot tub was a white mushroom, lid invisible under a cake of snow taller than the tub itself. Didn't even try to dig it out today. The Snow Lab over in Soda Springs will have a number for this storm eventually; from the yard the number felt like a lot.

Still snowing lightly when I came back in. Shoveling can wait until it stops, or until it doesn't.

Heavy snow blankets pine trees, a ski lift chair, and colorful string lights in a winter landscape.Multiple trees are heavily laden with fresh white snow covering branches and ground under a pale blue winter sky.A deep pile of snow almost completely fills a window, with snow-covered trees and a grey sky visible above.Deep snow covers a wooden hot tub and numerous pine trees in a wintry landscape.

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