We probably got ~6 inches of snow while we were in Reno on Monday-Tuesday. We were happy that we didn't have to drive a car over the (Donner) pass and Tahoe on the way back-- but our Zephyr return journey to Sacramento turned into quite the adventure.
The train left more than a half-hour later than its original time of departure... and things seemed to be going relatively well. However, just west of Truckee, the train stopped.... and then didn't start going again for over four hours! Due to the incredible amount of snow that Tahoe got (feet, and including a devastating avalanche that cost some skiers their lives), there were delays in both directions, and the "dispatcher" considered our train less important than some freighters and an east-bound passenger train, so we just had to sit tight. There also was also need for a "spreader," a machine that removed snow from the train tracks, but which only moved at 2 miles per hour, so, once we got going again, we had to stop to not be too close to tailgating the sweeper....
What was supposed to be about a ride of about six hours took us... ELEVEN.
The Amtrak conductors were very apologetic and explanatory at steps along the way (including the unknown time of stoppage) and we even got complimentary snacks, water, and dinner around 6:30, which was kind.
The kids played a lot of cards in the observation car...
... we listened to some podcasts....
... and I read the better part of a book The Magnificent Ruins on Kindle. We also met an interesting trauma surgeon across the aisle, who was also quite the magician with card tricks.
Truckee River
The snow was lovely... but we got sick of looking at it after a while!
We got into the Sacramento train station at around 9:30 p.m., six hours after our expected arrival time, and then we planned to drive north to Mount Shasta for the remainder of our "ski week" (to ski, of course!) However, yet another winter storm was moving into this area, and it soon became clear (after checking CalTrans and the daily/hourly weather report) that it would have been very risky to be putting on chains and trying to go over the pass near Dunsmuir after midnight...
We decided to ride out the night in Redding, where we slept at our go-to lodging, Home2Suites, and the next morning woke up to it snowing hard in Redding! We originally planned to stay in a Mt. Shasta AirBnb rental from Wednesday until Sunday.... but the ability to enjoy this "plan" was becoming more and more uncertain due to the weather events before us (ironically, Mt. Shasta had to close their resort last week due to not enough snow this season and had just reopened !).
We thought there may be a window of time on Thursday -Friday that we might be able to make it up the mountain and still do some skiing, but then we risked getting trapped again in the snow, as the HWY 299 between Redding and home was also a snowy, icy mess with more snow predicted later in the weekend (just before/at the time we’d need to return). There were already a lot of accidents on the I-5, a major interstate (including one car hit while putting on chains), and elective driving in snow and ice is just not something Kelvin nor I are very comfortable doing.
After a quick family meeting, we decided that we'd rather cut our losses and just head home rather than risk the possibility of getting stuck in snow.... again, more than four hours from home. We took the snowstorms as a "sign" that the universe didn't really want us to ski this week. I like skiing, but I don't love it, and I don't particularly like skiing in blizzards or risk getting injured (Kelvin is the same way and we were on the same page). Iver's quite the enthusiastic skier, and Niall was excited to get back on skis after his lessons last season, so we felt bad crushing the kids' ski dreams, but they rolled well with the change in plans (just as they had the day before, and even though I don't think any of us wants to get on a train for a long, long time).
Due to the condition and storms on Hwy 299, we drove back south to Sac, then west and up, taking about six (rather than three) hours to get home (this reminded me of the time Kelvin and I had to drive hundreds of extra miles after not being able to traverse the SoCal snowy Sierras [
1000 miles and a night in Bakersfield] and a re-route, ironically
on the 299, during the 101 closure during
Coastal Snowmageddon 2023). However, there were no chains required nor blizzards to drive through on the route we took. It was a lot of relief to find sunny skies and a pickleball court awaiting us in Arcata, which filled Iver's cup enough to not be too disappointed in the pivot in our plans.
The end of "ski week" 2026 didn't end with any skiing, but we are safe and secure in our own beds, which is the most important thing (I also really dislike the cold, even though I had packed all my winter gear including gifted heated socks and heated vest, and I was pretty travel-weary so I was fine with it all). We are great planners, but the practicing of pivoting is also an important life skill. Maybe the universe will let us down the slopes later in the spring or next season but for now we'll watch the professionals tackle the downhill in Milan-Cortina 2026 from the comfort of our (relatively) warm, coastal house!
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