Shortly after we moved to the Bay Area at the end of 1998, we drove up to Skyline with the boys to enjoy some snow up there. Coming from France and having lived in Switzerland too, playing in the snow was rather customary for us. What we didn't know id that, with the series of droughts, this would become very rare occurrences in the next quarter of century. Which makes this week's episode quite remarkable!
Despite good rain precipitations so far this winter, we are certainly not out of the rut, drought wise. Assuming the acceleration of extreme measures, and optimizations on the use of water in our strategic local agriculture industry in particular, it will take decades to replenish the aquifers, and also assuming rain doesn't stop for good with our climate change patterns. But at least it's a much better year on the surface: reservoirs fill up again and high mountains ranges received an outstanding level of snow pack (which hopefully won't melt too fast at once, or all this will wash out straight to the ocean).
And there are our our little hills which have joined the party this week, thanks to very weird weather pattern across the US: record high temperatures on the East Coast, and record lows on the West Coast, go figure! I should be tapering before the 100-mile Road Nationals next week but I couldn't resist the temptation of experiencing that snow, a rare phenomenon in an area blessed with sun and blue skies most of the time otherwise.
It had been more than 5 months since I ran with the Stevens Creek Striders along the reservoir: what a change all this rain makes, it's almost full and the water district is even letting a good flow through, toward the Bay.
In addition to 3 wineries, there are probably 50 houses or so on Montebello Road. The traffic is usually very light, the biggest danger being the cyclists zipping down the winding road, some yelling at me when we cross path as I'm running up against the traffic on the left (the way it should be anyway). Despite quite a few trees and cables down, the Rangers had decided to let some traffic through, which makes sense for the people living and working on that road.
Except that, as some might have expected, it was onlookers who created a bit of a mess along the road; despite the "road closed ahead" signs, I've never see so many people on Montebello, even on weekends! For one thing, there is no allowed parking neither at the top, nor along the 5 miles, so you are supposed to have a good reason to drive up (either because you live there, or you visit a winery).
Thankfully, the higher up I was going, the more snow there was, and less cars too. What a wonderful beauty to see this fresh snow at the top! With temperatures in the 40s, the snow was quite wet.
I wasn't equipped to run the trails in the snow, nor did I wanted to go the full ultra distance, so I turned back shortly after the top of the paved section of Montebello Road, still regretting not seeing the white top of Black Mountain this time. Only 21 miles for the out and back, that time.
Overall, a super cool experience, so close to the heart of Silicon Valley. As you can see on pictures and the Relive fly-over (click on the above image or this link), there was even more snow on the higher peaks of the East Bay. One fresh memory to lay on paper to make it crisper when our future is likely to become too hot for such white blanketing of our nearby Black Mountain. A white coat which even resisted more than 24 hours, and counting! And one which France 24 highlighted on prime time this Saturday on its standard global coverage. As I said at the beginning of this post, something really special!
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