Our ski passes are blacked out for the holidays, so Nancy jogged a 3-mile loop on our snowy trail.

I tried to go another way with Ryder, but Ryder would not let Nancy out of his sight, so I ended up following on my XC skis.

Finishing at sunset.

Bringing wood from the piles in back to the wood bin on our deck.

I got three untracked runs on Christmas Day at Squaw Valley, a remarkable feat given the limited terrain open and the crowds hungry for tracks after four years of drought.

After getting tracks on Siberia Ridge, I skipped a huge lift line at Broken Arrow and waited about 45 minutes at the bottom of Bailey’s Beach for the Land Bridge gate to open. I was rewarded with some knee-deep snow on Tower 16.

There’s enough snow on our trail for me to ski down to Martis Creek on my XC skis.

Despite the storms, there is still only about a foot and a half of snow on the ground at the 6,000’ level.

We got another few inches overnight. Still no single big storm, but the little ones keep adding up.

Weird night last night. First I was woken by an earthquake that made me feel like I was on a waterbed, and then a couple of hours later I was woken again by a coyote killing a cat in our backyard.

Driving home from Northstar on a wet snow day.

I went to Squaw for some cold, dry skiing on the upper mountain. Fun, but windy on the ridges.

We came out to Squaw early for a minor powder day, but it was marginal conditions—pockets of fresh snow on top of an ice sheet.

The recent storms have whitened our backyard, though not a whole lot of accumulation.

Squaw finally has some fun tree skiing. They thinned the trees next to the Olympic jump hill a couple of years ago, but there was never enough snow last year to ski it.

Here I am venturing farther east, hacking through the underbrush above the golf course.

The upper mountain opened at Squaw, barely. Lots of people lining up hoping for freshies, but only Gold Coast and Shirley Lake got going.

We keep getting small storms that are building up our snowpack, little by little.

There’s enough snow on the trail next to our house to try out the XC skis, as long as I stick to the flats.

Nancy parks the car inside at work to let the snow melt off.

After skiing Squaw, I went out to Donner Lake to blow the Nelsons' driveway and dock. Heavy, heavy snow.

I eventually gave up with the blower and shoveled the dock in the dark.

Doing some snow removal at the house.

Mark came up for a couple days of early season boniness. We met Mitch, another old Squaw employee from the 80s and 90s, on the Funitel.

We took the shuttle over to Alpine Meadows for a couple hours of man-made groomers. This is the snow fence at the top of the Summit chair.

The upper mountain at Squaw has very little going for it, so you’re mostly stuck to the man-made groomers on Red Dog and Squaw Creek.

We came out to Squaw for our first day. Shirley Lake is open, barely (pun intended), with lots of weeds and rocks showing. It’s pretty much impossible to not hit a rock at the bottom.