Sunny day draws families from near and far to snowy hills to play

After a long dry spell, snow and all the smiling and spending that come with it settled thick on the hillsides this weekend.

“It’s amazing,” said Diane Dunigan, surveying the packed lunch crowd Saturday at The Rock Pub & Restaurant she runs in Twain Harte. “I think people haven’t been able to see snow. It’s been so long,” she said. “Everyone’s excited to come up and play.”

Everyone, or at least enough visitors to tie traffic into a bumper-to-bumper crawl Saturday along many sections of Highway 108, starting miles before Jamestown. Even the passing lanes were packed solid heading east. Dunigan’s usual 10-minute ride to work took half an hour that morning – a first, she said.

Mounding snow along the roadside could be seen in earnest just past the 3,000-foot elevation Saturday, the remnants of a late-week storm that brought a white Christmas. Dodge Ridge ski area east of Pinecrest reported getting 16 inches of fresh powder from the storm, adding to a base pack of about 55 inches for the resort.

Saturday’s slower-than-normal driving gave the mountains a chance to show off their holiday side. Evergreens frosted with puffs of white surrounded Christmas card cabins. Wheel tracks wound through the marshmallowy layer spread on driveways.

The middle Sierra Nevada snowpack stands at 122 percent of normal, not that it mattered to kids running through the fluffy stuff or mounding it into snowmen.

“What a way to spend Christmas!” said Michael Ady of Guam, watching his grandkids throw mittens-full of powdery snow toward a brilliantly blue sky. The extended Ady family was staying at his sister’s house in Sonora, taking advantage of the sunny morning to play in the snow at Eproson Park in Twain Harte.

On the other side of the short rock fence, Juanita Mitchell of Modesto watched her family at play. “We haven’t been up here in about four years,” she said. They picked Twain Harte because road restrictions Saturday started just east of there, Mitchell said. “We didn’t have chains.”

A few yards away in the parking lot, Clint Elsholz of Escalon wiggled dry shoes onto his 4-year-old son Kai’s feet, dangling off the tailgate of the family pickup. Twain Harte’s friendly play place meant the town would also get their business. “We plan to eat here and spend a few bucks,” Elsholz said.

Further up the road near Sugar Pine, around the 4,500-foot elevation, hundreds of people clustered in parking lots, level fields or slopes to play.

“I made angel,” said Sebastian Lopez, not quite 3 years old. It was Sebastian’s first time in the snow, said Ignacio Lopez of Richmond. The Lopez family, with his brothers from Oakland and Manteca and their families, were making a day of it. While Sebastian got used to sinking into the drifts, older Lopez children sailed down the hillside, flipping at the bottom in a spray of white to halt their plunge.

Holding a plastic sled at the top of the hill, Ivan Padilla of Modesto said he and his brother try to come to the snow once or twice a year.

“Lately we haven’t,” added Tony Padilla. “Really, there hasn’t been any snow.”

The clear sky should last, said National Weather Service meteorologist Johnnie Powell. “It all fell yesterday,” Powell said Saturday.

“There’s a slight chance of something coming in Sunday night, but it doesn’t look too impressive,” he said adding, “Get out and enjoy the weekend.”

This story was originally published December 26, 2015 at 6:42 PM with the headline "Sunny day draws families from near and far to snowy hills to play."