A week of one storm after another dropped 81inches (that's nearly 7 feet)  of snow on Heavenly Ski Resort at South Lake Tahoe prior to this President's Day weekend.  By Sunday grooming crews had miles and miles of runs groomed.  For the power hounds there was still acres of   untouched snow.  It was a beautiful sunny day with clear skies. The crowds did not arrive until about 2:00 in the afternoon leaving the early birds uncrowded slopes.  Skiers and snow borders rejoiced.  

One of the options for outdoor ice skating in Sacramento is the Downtown Sacramento Ice Rink on Seventh and K streets next to Westfield Downtown Plaza. There are weekly events (like Family Skate Night on Tuesdays and Ice Skating Lessons on Saturdays), and I stopped by on Thursday (Theme Night) to check out the “Ugly Sweater Party.” People started coming in after 6 p.m., and it was fairly busy, with a good mix of families with young children, middle-aged couples and groups of teenagers. I saw a couple of tacky sweaters out there, but I have no idea if they knew about the theme beforehand or not. Several skill levels were represented on the ice, with the large majority of patrons getting

The first storm of the season started blowing in on Friday.  It is amazing how quickly the landscape can change in such a short time when the weather starts to cooperate.  The first blessed white layer covered everything in the first few hours, and for the next 3 days cloud after cloud dropped the precious, precious snow all over all of Tahoe.  By Sunday night we had a bonafide foot on the ground, and the snow shows no signs of slowing down, with big dumps on Monday and more forcasted for the rest of the week. Only Exhibition at Squaw is spinning right now.  Not even Exhibition actually, but it's the newly constructed midstation. Fritz Renner, who just walked in claimed "pow day" and "kne