Jeremy Fuentes and Jarad Baldwin packed up their Ford Explorer and left the San Francisco Bay Area Friday morning as the blizzard in the Sierra Nevada was taking hold. With winds howling and snow blowing sideways, they hit white-out conditions near Donner Summit on Interstate 80. But the white-knuckle payoff was sweet.
When they finally arrived, the snowboarding friends were rewarded with a crowd-free experience at Northstar ski resort, where the heavy snowfall that plagued them on their trip up meant epic powder conditions.
“It’s amazing,” Fuentes said, after a run Friday afternoon. “I don’t think I’ve ever ridden like that before. It’s perfect.”
But Fuentes was one of the few to make that treacherous journey. Of the 15 largest ski resorts in the Lake Tahoe area, 11 were closed on Friday, citing heavy winds, low visibility and dangerous conditions.
“Our team gave it their all, the weather won in the end,” officials at Sugar Bowl resort posted on their website. “Will try again tomorrow.”
Other closed resorts included Palisades, Alpine, Kirkwood, Homewood, Boreal, Sugar Bowl, Mt. Rose, Donner Ski Ranch, and Sierra-at-Tahoe. Heavenly was open, but its gondola was closed. Northstar had only 5 of 19 lifts open Friday afternoon.
Ski resorts rarely close because of winter storms. It happens in the Tahoe area only once or twice every few years, usually because fierce winds make ski lifts unsafe to operate.
The reason this week: The biggest winter storm in the past 12 months continued to batter the Sierra Nevada, crashing in from Alaska and dumping 1 to 2 feet of snow on the Sierra Thursday night, with heavier amounts forecast for Friday night and Saturday morning. A blizzard warning remained in effect until 10 a.m. Sunday, with another 3 to 7 feet of snow expected by Monday.
“The heaviest snow is yet to come,” said Craig Shoemaker, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Sacramento. “People should not be traveling. There’s a good chance the roads will be closed Friday night and they will be turned around.”
Winds Friday and Saturday were forecast to hit 60- to 80-mph at higher elevations. One gauge at the highest elevations of Alpine Meadows ski resort recorded a gust of 143 mph Thursday night.
During big snow storms winds stronger than 35 mph or 40 mph can make it unsafe to operate chairlifts. Ice can form on their cables and gears. And if the snow is deep enough, it must be dug out by crews with shovels to allow people to even access the chairs at the lift stations.
In addition, heavy snow can bury rope lines and signs, parking lots, and dirt roads on mountainsides that are used for snow cat equipment that plows snow and grooms trails.
“When the snow comes in this quickly with this kind of wind it requires almost a full mountain reset,” said Mike Reitzell, president of Ski California, an industry association.
Getting each lift open after a heavy snowfall can take an hour instead of a few minutes, said Northstar lift operator Santiago Piñiero, who worked hard with a pickaxe, rake and shovel to smash ice, clear snow off chairlift seats and smooth out the entry passage to open the Village Express lift Friday morning.
With snow continuing to fall heavily, “the whole day we’re just trying to keep the area as clean as possible,” said Piñiero, 23.
Some resorts also were planning to set off explosive charges — a few shot by World War II-Howitzer-type guns — to reduce avalanche risk.
The Sierra Avalanche Center in Truckee issued a backcountry avalanche warning for the Lake Tahoe area on Friday, saying that “high to extreme avalanche danger is expected in the backcountry through Sunday.”
Avalanches rarely harm people inside the main areas of ski resorts. But earlier this year, on Jan. 10, an avalanche on the upper mountain at Palisades Tahoe swept up four skiers, and killed one, Kenneth Kidd, 66, an experienced skier who had homes in both the Point Reyes and Truckee areas.
With large amounts of snow at resorts, even areas safe from avalanches pose a different deadly hazard: tree wells, the gaps around tree trunks that can trap people and lead to suffocation or death by exposure.
“They can always be a risk,” said Amy Ohran, Northstar’s general manager. “It’s really important that with these big storms that people are aware of deep-snow safety. The most important thing is riding with a buddy, and keeping your buddy close to you and within sight.”
Ohran said she expected Northstar to have limited lifts open Saturday, with conditions returning more to normal Sunday and later.
To the south, safety issues prompted the National Park Service to close all of Yosemite National Park, about 80 miles away from Lake Tahoe on Friday. Visitors in campgrounds and hotels, including the stately Ahwahnee Hotel, were evacuated from the park, and given refunds if they had reservations for the weekend, said Scott Gediman, a Yosemite spokesman.
“We were concerned about keeping up with lots of snow on the roads, high winds knocking down trees, and the safety of our visitors and our employees,” Gediman said. “Closing the park wasn’t a decision that was made lightly. We felt it was the most prudent thing to do.”
For beginner skier Jaco Geldenhuis of San Francisco, the heavy snowfall made for fun skiing at Northstar, though not always easy. “The powder was challenging,” said Geldenhuis, 53, an applied scientist at Amazon. His friend Alex McDonald, 35, another beginner, said he “got lost in the powder a couple times.”
Geldenhuis said he planned to drive home Sunday. “I’m a little apprehensive,” he said, “but last year we were here during a blizzard and the roads were manageable.”
Oakland venture capitalist Michael Matly and his son John, 10, were having an “amazing, incredible” day at Northstar on Friday.
“This has probably been the best ski experience We’ve had, and we’ve come to Tahoe for seven years,” said Matly, 42. “You’re kind of the only people on the runs.” The pair skied an advanced “black diamond” run, a first for John. “It went very well,” the boy said.
The Matlys planned to drive home Sunday, but might extend their stay if the predicted massive snowfall makes driving conditions hazardous, Matly said.
Fuentes, 32, a coordinator at UC San Francisco Medical Center, can attest to the hazard of travel during a severe snow storm. While driving up Friday morning he kept a good distance from other cars, especially those without all-wheel drive whose tire chains spun over the slick roadway. Still, there were times when he was blinded for up to 30 seconds at a time.
“You can’t see black cement, all you see is white and ice. You couldn’t even see the reflectors,” he said.
“I’d be frightened to come up here with two-wheel-drive,” he said.
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