The rains are welcome—part of keeping the city lush and green—so long as they don’t flood city streets as happened this weekend. The Mission’s Rainbow Grocery experienced minor flooding, as reported by CBS News, thanks to the atmospheric river’s over-generous dumping. The Haight and the Marina both experienced street flooding as well.
But there’s a silver lining to this cloud—a glinty one like the way frost looks when the light hits it—because as we all know, when it rains here, it snows there.
Yes, grab your gear, the mountains of Tahoe are already dusted with snow. The region’s snowpack levels are currently 99 percent of normal, according to the Lake Tahoe Snow Report. Some of us are still thinking about autumnal weather, and we’ll hold out until after Thanksgiving, but for those who are already ramped up for winter and its sports, you’ll be happy to hear that many Tahoe resorts are already open for the season. The resort that benefited the most from our rain is Boreal, which got eight inches of snow in the last 24 hours. It currently boasts 26 inches of nature-given powder. There, three out of seven lifts are open, serving five out of 34 trails—which translates to being two percent open.
Heavenly has 22 inches of machine-made snow depth (with three inches having fallen in the last 24 hours). Five of its 27 lifts are open, and five of its 114 trails, translating to four percent open.
The resort that’s most open is Mt. Rose, with 27 percent of its terrain open (four out of eight lifts and 18 out of 67 trails). Its snow pack is 20 to 40 inches of powder although it didn’t receive anything fresh this weekend.
Other resorts that are currently open are Kirkwood, Northstar, Palisades and Sugar Bowl. Opening dates for the rest are as follows:
Sierra-at-Tahoe: November 29
Soda Springs: November 29
Homewood: December 5
Tahoe Donner: December 6
Diamond Peak: December 12
Donner Ski Ranch: December 21
For those of you who, like me, love cross-country skiing, Royal Gorge (the nation’s largest such facility) opens November 28. See you there this winter!