Loading…
We use cookies. We use cookies, including analytics, to improve your experience.
JOURNAL
LOCAL INTELLIGENCE
When a storm clears, the whole ridge goes white and the hill fills with day-trippers hauling sleds up from the valley. It is the busiest the mountain gets, and it is the one time of year when where you park matters as much as where you play.
Use a designated snow play area, or go east along Highway 18 to the ski resorts, which sell lift access and tubing and have the lots to handle a crowd. What you should not do is pull onto the shoulder of the highway because there is a nice-looking slope beside it. It is unsafe on a road with limited sight lines and cars still fitting chains, it blocks the plows that are trying to keep the road open, and on a busy weekend it gets ticketed and towed. Most of the ground next to the highway is either private property or forest land with its own parking rules.
The other thing worth saying plainly: snow up here is a storm event, not a season-long guarantee. Some winters the ridge is white for weeks and some winters it is bare between storms. Nobody can promise you snow for a specific weekend booked in October.
Caltrans can put chain controls on Highways 18, 138 and 330 during and after a storm, and the requirement can change hour to hour. Carry chains that fit your car and know how to put them on before you are kneeling in slush on a shoulder. Check your rental agreement too, because a lot of rental companies prohibit chains outright, which quietly makes the mountain off limits in a storm.
Time the trip for the day after the weather rather than the middle of it. Roads clear from the highways inward, which means the main route can be running clean while the residential street to your cabin is still untouched. Ask your local manager what the street and the driveway look like before you commit, and ask where you are meant to park, since plowed driveways are narrower than they look and street parking rules tighten in snow.
Budget more time than the map does. On a holiday weekend after a good storm the climb up the hill can be a crawl, and the descent in the afternoon is worse as everyone leaves at once. Go up early, come down early, or stay put and let the day-trippers do the queuing.