Fun in the snow

Although my friends in Seattle probably aren't too sympathetic, I'm a little burned out on all this rain we've been getting. We just set a record for number of days in March with rain (26), and it doesn't look like it's going to let up for at least two more weeks. The one upside to all of this rain, though, is that it's turned into lots of snow in the mountains. Last weekend we were happy to head up to the mountains and enjoy some of that snow.

We spent a couple nights in Truckee and went snowshoeing near Lake Tahoe Saturday and Sunday. It was nice to get away for the weekend and spend some time in the outdoors. And one of the nice things about snowshoeing is that even though Tahoe is overcrowded this time of year, we hardly saw anyone, especially the first day when we tried to get to the top of Martis Peak. We didn't quite get all the way to the top, but we had a nice day in gorgeous, fresh powder. Except for a couple on a snowmobile and a pair of ski tracks we kept intersecting, we felt like we had the whole mountain to ourselves. The second day we went to a regional park in Kings Beach where we saw more people, but very few of them ventured more than a couple hundred yards beyond the parking lot and onto the cross-country ski trails.

The main reason we chose Truckee over our usual trip to Mount Shasta was because we wanted to try going snowshoeing for the weekend entirely on public transportation. Since we got rid of my Jeep, we don't have a reliable car for driving in the winter, which would mean renting a 4WD if we want to go play in the mountains. When we learned that there was a system of shuttles and public buses connecting Truckee to various points around Lake Tahoe, we thought we'd give it a try. Although the system had its quirks, it worked out reasonably well. Unfortunately, the shuttles are mainly designed to get people to and from the ski resorts, so you have to rely on the charitability of your driver to drop you off at a trailhead on the way (and more importantly, to pick you up on the way back). Nevertheless, we didn't have any problems. The only serious inconvenience is being beholden to the bus schedule, which is part of why we didn't make it all the way to the top of Martis Peak.

The only near-mishap we had was on Sunday afternoon once we'd gotten back to Truckee and were preparing to leave. We went into the train depot to see if there was a place we could store our bags for the hour and a half before our bus left. The depot wasn't staffed, so the surly woman in the adjacent chamber of commerce office tried to help us. But when she said "I'm confused why you want to leave your bags here when your bus is leaving in 20 minutes," we began to get a little nervous. At this point, she and a helpful stranger informed us that Sunday was daylight savings time, and we'd forgotten to spring forward. Luckily we had just enough time to run across the street to the deli to get some food for the trip home before our bus (the last of the day) arrived. We were relieved when we got onto the bus, but a little shaken over how closely we'd come to being stranded in Truckee overnight. Of course, if that had been the only public transit mishap from the trip, it would have been our own damn faults (and yours, too, Benjamin Franklin). So I'm happy to report that we had a lovely weekend away, made the lovelier by not having to drive.