Sierra Nevada Foothills Snow

At 3100 feet in the Sierra Nevada Foothills The Golden K receives three or four meaningful snowfalls a year. We welcome each and every one of them.   Up the hill just a few miles the elevations steadily increase to 3650 feet in the community of Twain Harte to about 5000 feet in Long Barn.  Both these communities are just 10 to 15 minutes from the Golden K but see significantly more snow fall.   Another 15 minutes from there is the Dodge Ridge Ski area at a base elevation of 6600 feet where under normal conditions skiing is available from late November through as late as May.

As an ex-suburnanite from the San Francisco Bay Area there is still something very “cool” (pun intended) about a snow fall.   It’s still very special to wake up in the morning to a blanket of white as far as the eye can see.  Living in the San Francisco Bay Area one has to drive two to three hours to reach the snow.   Now, as a resident of the foothills, during winter months, snow is never very far away and sometimes as close as my front door.

There is a certain calmness watching and feeling an approaching storm that will bring snow. This past week it began in the late in the afternoon.   The combination of the cloud cover, the falling snow, and the approaching evening darkness created a natural black and white backdrop to the Golden K.  And then as if on queue the black tail deer entered the scene; this time two does and a young buck with antlers barely visible.   At first we watched out the window but that wasn’t close enough for me.

I snuck outside briefly to capture one of these special moments of a romantic perspective of life at 3100 feet.