Failed Trip to Castle Peak. . . Parking is Crazy, WTF.

[Flamingo]

Hi All,

I had a disappointing experience this weekend, and I'm curious to hear what other HST members think about it. The plan was to snowshoe up Castle Peak on Saturday (1/14/2017). Long story short, the parking situation was impossible and we had to change our plans. Is this the "new normal" for California? Or was it simply a convergence of fresh snow + great weather + three-day weekend?

We left Oakland a bit after 6am, and arrived at exit 176 (Bunny Hill Drive) around 9am. There was a very long line of cars waiting on the offramp, and it took 45 minutes to physically exit the interstate. Unsurprisingly, the Donner Sno-Park lot was filled, but I was disappointed to see that Bunny Hill Drive was also totally full. On top of this, several dozen vehicles were illegally parked; many people had stashed cars in places with obvious "No Parking" signs. Anyway, the place was a zoo with people everywhere and cars in gridlock. It took one hour simply to drive along Bunny Hill Drive, down to Donner Sno-Park, and then back to the offramp. Overall, the parking situation seemed impossible this weekend. Although I was expecting crowds, I was not expecting this level of crazy. I'm curious to hear what other HST members think about this whole situation.

Did anyone else have crowd problems this weekend?

[TahoeJeff]

Welcome to Tahoe/Truckee on a holiday weekend. Yes, South Tahoe was a zoo all weekend. A normal 20-30 minute drive across town took an hour and a half due to traffic. Any place to park (legal or otherwise) near a snow play area was jammed.
I think you summed it up perfectly: "fresh snow + great weather + three-day weekend"
Too bad they leave their broken plastic saucers and sleds all over the place....

[wildhiker]

We also found heavy traffic and high use in the Donner Summit area this last weekend due to all the skiers hitting the great snow. We did ski (cross-country) at Royal Gorge on Saturday and Tahoe Donner on Sunday by getting there very early. The trees were just coated in heavy snow and very beautiful.
-Phil

[maverick]

Or was it simply a convergence of fresh snow + great weather + three-day weekend?

[fishwrong]

I think it is the new normal. The cost of living in a place with 38 million other people. South Lake Tahoe continues to be a circus on Holiday weekends and that isn't going to change. Every time I get frustrated by traffic I have to remind myself I'm one of "them".

Then again I moved up to the mountains so I can blame all the "flatlanders and city folk". Sorry you had a rough trip. Hope you were able to find an alternative way to enjoy the mountains.

[TahoeJeff]

It was an absolute zoo here this past non-holiday weekend too...

[SSSdave]

Skied at Kirkwood Saturday. Easily biggest day for the resort all season including any of the Christmas / New Years holiday days. Suspect the same elsewhere. Another factor to those already mentioned is that this coming weekend is the Super Bowl so many groups opted to go last weekend since they had SB plans for this next weekend. The fact the storms and all the snow has been front page news since storms ended Monday, gave many people several days during the week to organize and set up their plans.

Although SB is this weekend, I expect there will still be significant numbers of visitors on Saturday while somewhat fewer Sunday because there are significant numbers of people that don't belong to the dominant army of weekend football viewers and that is especially true of snow sports enthusiasts. Also lots of borderline football viewing people that did go up last weekend, had a great time with the great conditions and weather, and have likely now talked to like others to join them instead of watching SB...yawn.

David

[Vaca Russ]

Why am I having such a difficult time posting a reply?

John Snow Depth.JPG

OK, that worked. I have to post and then edit....?

What is up with that?

-Russ

[Vaca Russ]

OK, I figured out I can't post from work. I wanted to thank VHSVHS for posting this information. I read this post and was able to convince my crew to leave an hour earlier than planned. Even though we got to the Sno Park at 10 AM, we barely found parking. It is a ZOO!!!

But, well worth the work...just LEAVE EARLY!

Thanks,

-Russ

[Flamingo]

Russ, your photo of the snow wall is incredible. Wow. I can say that despite my recent disappointment at Donner Sno Park, I have since enjoyed successful trips. It's a fantastic year for snow, but yeah, you gotta get ahead of the crowds.