After mid january, not a day passed without news of the pandemic sweeping across the world. Every day, instead of checking the stock market, well along with checking the stock market, a new page was bookmarked. The COVID tracker. Every day, the numbers just went up and up, as we all watched the death tolls mount up. Our way of life, our view of life, and the entire concept of reality was being turned around its head. In all this mayhem, many important news just got ignored. One of them was about our winter. Or lack of it. Well it was cold, in some places, but it was dry. Everywhere. Except a tiny corner of the southeastern desert counties, the winter had just said "nope", I am going to do social distancing from you guys. Our normally wet february, which is somewhat wet even during the drought years, was totally dry. Even when March came, a high pressure ridge parked right across the coast, blocking all storms, and deflecting them towards Seattle and Canada, which were having a wetocplypse.
So, California had an unusual winter this year. Around mid January, as the world slowly awoke to Covid, the storm tap ran dry. The wettest months did not even have a light shower. It could very well be a cold June. Finally, mid march, the long range models started showing a powerful storm approaching the Sierra's. This was the first big storm of the year, and at that time, maybe the last one. And all of us in our Norcal GX group knew, that this is the time, for one trip. Our first, and probably the last for this winter season. Heck strike out probably. As the day approached, we knew it was going to be the last storm. So as the models concurred, we decided to go on a snow wheeling trip up the Sierras. Our offroad group is mostly Lexus GX, and is the Norcal chapter of GXOR - GX Off road.
And as the D day Saturday came, we awoke to rain and wind delightfully so. It had already started snowing in the mountains. This storm was delivering as promised, well a bit more. The ridge had gone northwards to give the Pacific northwest some much needed sunshine, which meant, the storm could unleash its fury on the entire state.
After an early morning start, it took us around 2 hours to hit rally point, a small suburb of Auburn off highway 80
Our trips usually have around 4-5 rigs max, but thanks to the big storm, a lot of people, even non GX owners joined up.
All set and ready to go
From here it was a rainy ride to Georgetown, up the famous Uncle Tom's cabin road. Uncle Tom's is a small "restaurant" in the mountains, a popular pit stop for the Rubicon trail. Thought the rubicon trail is closed in winter due to snow, we had planned to hit Uncle Toms cabin, and then merge with Ice house road, which eventually goes to the trailhead. The idea was to go as far as we can atleast till the loon lake
A few miles past Georgetown, the rain started turning into sleet, and then snow. No flurries yet, but the white was laying down, after a gap of over 2 months
We decided to take the half a mile detour to the cabin where we would air down to around 15PSI to give us more traction
At 5000 feet, the snow really started pouring down after the cabin
There was a good 2-3 inches of fresh powder on the road
Even though soft snow gives decent traction, no big snowfall for past 2 months and frigid cold meant all this powder was under slick ice. So progress was quite slow
A short pit stop
We were climbing now, and at around 6400 feet, the storm was shaping up quite nicely. That said, traction was missing due to the ice underneath the snow, and we had no idea what we will be up against very soon
The loon lake reservoir
![Storm-riding at Ice house! Snow-wheeling trip up the Sierras in 4x4s-img_4934.jpeg](https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/attachments/4x4-excursions/1993925d1688602673t-storm-riding-ice-house-snow-wheeling-trip-up-sierras-4x4s-img_4934.jpeg)