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Making Up For Lost Feet
by Dale Brown, 2007

ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED AT TheBigFiveOh.com Blog @ Yahoo.Com, Sunday February 25, 2007

After an incredibly mild winter so far, Mother Nature is making up for lost time by doing a massive snowfall total catch-up. She started last night with about 12" of snow at lake level, then added 3" this morning. Now it's mid-afternoon, and I'm looking at another 4-6 inches out there, and it's coming down heavier than ever. Winter storm warnings are posted for the whole Lake Tahoe area and the Sierra until early Tuesday morning.

The forecast is for a total of 2-3 feet of snow at lake level by Tuesday morning, and 3-6 feet in the upper elevations. Good news for the ski areas, who have all been praying for snow to salvage what's left of the winter ski season before spring conditions--the warm but slushy "Sierra cement"--begin.

I'm originally from Buffalo, New York, and grew up in an era where snowblowers were a luxury item most couldn't afford. But I was strong and tough, and shoveling snow was both a challenge, good exercise, and payment for living on the beautiful Niagara River in western New York.

When we bought our first house in Tahoe over 11 years ago, the first thing I did when I drove up to our new place was get stuck in 2 feet of snow in the driveway, after my 5-month pregnant wife warned me not to try to make it all the way into the garage from the street. We were stuck just 4 feet from the garage, but it took us an hour to dig out enough to get the truck all the way into the garage (yes, us--I had to not only listen to "I told you so" but bear the hurt of watching my pregnant wife shovel snow).

Three hours later, my first big Honda snowblower was being delivered, and that night I happily cleared the driveway for the first time.

I knew I was going to stay in Tahoe after that. It's amazing what having a tiny bit of control over the elements can do for your psyche. Big snowstorms were no big deal when you had a machine that could toss snow 30 feet away!

I'll be firing up the snowblowers again here in about 20 minutes--I try to get it done every 4-6 inches so the smaller deck blowers can handle it OK. This will be my third snowblowing session today. I may have to do it again tonight if it keeps on coming down like it is now.

Besides the snowblowing, I have to shovel snow from the upper deck and off the hot tub cover by hand, and I use a roof rake to remove snow about 10 feet up from the drip line in places where the roof slopes down towards a deck or driveway. You can't ignore these little tasks. You may think leaving 4" up on the roof is no big deal, but if it snows overnight you may be looking at 16" or more up there by morning, and then it's avalanche time. When that much snow comes sliding off the roof and hits the deck or driveway it compacts, making it even harder to remove--and if 16" of compacted snow slides onto 12" of snow sitting on the ground, the resulting berm will be like a concrete Jersey wall blocking the front of the garage that the snowblower can't handle.

Then it'll be like my childhood in Buffalo again: get out there with my shovel and ice scraper, and attack.

I often ask myself the obvious question: why put up with this? I'm an author; I can write anywhere, especially in this day and age of powerful wide-screen laptop computers and almost universal wireless Internet access. My wife is a real estate agent, so she's not tied to any particular area either--as long as she can get licensed, she can work anywhere too. They certainly have writers, real estate agents, and elementary schools in southern California or Florida.

But come up here any time of the year except during a winter storm, and you'll understand why I stay. Clear skies, clean air and water, small town, little traffic, the mountains, and the big beautiful alpine lake that still takes my breath away sometimes when I see it as I come over the pass, especially if I've been in L.A., San Francisco, or Las Vegas for awhile.

A few hours behind the snowblower is a small price to pay for the privilege of living up here the rest of the year, believe me.

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