Western Railroad Discussion > The Weather Cleared, but the Problems Persisted on Donner

Friday, February 20, 2026, was a bluebird day on Donner Pass. After a multi-day storm dropped over 9 feet of snow at Soda Springs, things were trying to get back to normal. Things weren't quite there, however.

Interstate 80 was turned into a rolling parking lot as it opened for the first time in over 24 hours with chain controls in effect from Colfax to the Nevada State Line. I'm sure it would have been an epic day to ski or snowboard at one of the Tahoe area resorts, but when I tried to head to Sugar Bowl myself I discovered traffic on Donner Pass Road stretching from Sugar Bowl nearly 4 miles down to Interstate 80. I ended up making a U-turn to head back up to Serene Lakes when I got down to Soda Springs Road at Donner Pass Road. It turns out it was the busiest day in Sugar Bowl's 86 year history. I'm sure the roads leading to other Tahoe area resorts had similar traffic.

The railroad wasn't faring much better. As previously reported, there was a broken rail on Main 2 near the summit. There were 9 trains, I believe, trying to move east between Roseville and Donner Summit when I shot the westbound MSPRV in the early afternoon as seen below. They managed to get one of the east bound trains over the mountain, and then things were quiet until well after nightfall. The IOANP, ZLTG2, Amtrak 6, AMICX, a stalled BNSF stack train that needed a UP unit to continue, and what I'm guessing were the MRVSP, MRVNP, MRVGR and/or an empty grain were all waiting to go east. There were signal and cross-over problems between Colfax and Emigrant Gap. The railroad was short on crews and having difficulty getting crews to trains due to the snow on the roads and remote locations that trains were stopped.

None of these problems seemed evident, however, when the MSPRV rolled past me at Soda Springs shortly after beginning its long descent to Roseville in the post storm sunshine.

Photos 1 through 3: UP 9646 and 5 other units are on the short train that moves power and Sparks traffic down to Roseville on what I believe is still a daily basis.

Continued...

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Video: I had time to grab a video of the train as it passed. There are often short runs of international double stacks tacked into this train, but this day's train only had empty wells with an assortment of freight cars.
Photo 4: The noise in the background was coming from a CAT 950M front end loader with a large two stage snow blower attached. It was working on clearing the overflow parking lot for Soda Springs Mountain Resort. Go big, or go home, as they say. Placer County and Caltrans have even larger machines than this that they use to cut back the snow banks after the plow trucks or plow equipped road graders come through. It’s like watching the highway equivalent of a rotary.
Photo 5: I could have used a snow blower myself. The southeast facing second story deck is relatively shielded by the beak in the A-frame roof and by the house itself, given that most storms are out of the north or west. Despite that, I still had over 6 feet of snow to contend with along the railing. I refer to this Donner Summit activity as Serene Lakes Cross Training. No cardiac arrest this time.

Cheers,
Sean

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First and second shots are Awesome and that's a lot of snow!

Thank you broken_link. 

As always your work speaks volumes.  

Chuck 

I like that buzzing sound, some of those freight
cars were making as the train passed by

Jerry Martin
Los Angeles, CA
Central Coast Railroad Festival

Not so dumb question.  Living where the leaves fall and the tree tops are open,  where does the 6 feet of snow go in the densely for rested areas?

Gorgeous!

Posted from iPhone

Hope you had fun shoveling that

broken_link wrote:

>> I ended up making a U-turn to head back up to Serene Lakes when I got down to Soda Springs Road at Donner Pass Road. It turns out it was the busiest day in Sugar Bowl's 86 year history. I'm sure the roads leading to other Tahoe area resorts had similar traffic.

Great summary of the post-storm conditions.  I bet that the lifts at all the resorts were "parking lots" as well for the many skiers and snowboarders waiting for their rides.  The resort operators surely had to be smiling for a change!

Jeff Gast
Greenwood, Indiana  

Thanks all.

I've noticed that well cars, both loaded and unloaded, seem to hum as they roll down the rails. I don't know if it's something with the frame design, etc., that tends to make them do this. I could probably tell that a stack train is passing just from the sound of the cars.

GP25 Wrote:
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> I like that buzzing sound, some of those freight
> cars were making as the train passed by

santafedan Wrote:
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> Not so dumb question.  Living where the leaves
> fall and the tree tops are open,  where does the
> 6 feet of snow go in the densely for rested areas?

The snow will build up and then sluff off of the evergreens.

It can create a dangerous condition called tree wells. The trees create a snow shadow around the trunk that can be quite deep when you get 5-10 feet of snow with a multi-day storm and median snowfall of 30 feet. Light blowing snow can drift in and fill up the wells, hiding them. It creates a dangerous trap that skiers and snowboarders can then fall into and become immersed in, dying of suffocation or exposure. It's especially dangerous if you get inverted. There was a skier that just died last week after falling into a tree well at Northstar, near Truckee.

My daughter and I were trying to explain to my wife, who is a cross country skier, how these tree wells trap skiers. The next day, on Saturday, I stopped in a glade run (steep trees) at Sugar Bowl to wait for my daughter to catch up with me. As she passed by her left ski suddenly dropped from under her as it fell into softer snow near a tree. She started to barrel roll to her left. I was able to get a hand on her to push her up and out. (I was on my snowboard that day and had a more stable footing than I probably would have had on my skis.) Had I not been there, she likely would have rolled inverted into the tree well. This is the reason you're encouraged to ski with a buddy on off-piste terrain after a storm.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/23/26 19:33 by broken_link.

Geez, that's scary. Surprised we haven't heard anything on here about last week's tragic avalanche as that's the news down here in NWP country. I was watching a few videos on youtube including one of a really minor looking avalanche where someone gets submerged in the snow then located by a partner who skies down the course of the avalanche going back and forth until the beacon started pinging. I think it was about 3 minutes until the skier is located and then uncovered in what appears like short order but was probably a lifetime for the parties involved. The trapped skier was totally immobilized in the snow arms akimbo. Really terrifying.

This tree well thing is scary especially this situation you outline where the kids haven't been trained fully yet on avoiding them. 

Another video I was watching was about a historic snowfall event somewhere in the Rockies all sorts of low interval avalanche events were occurring alongside human-caused avalanches via helicopters and what not. This video mentioned the danger of roof-avalanches. I mean my goodness...but this photo of the snow on the deck makes you think about that, too. How much does that volume of snow weight do you think? 

One of the more interesting things I learned from the avalanche videos, as someone who doesn't spend any time in the mountains at all, is how cracks propagate through the snow layers and the weak layer issue and the dangerous types of snow. All interesting stuff but also scary. 

 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/23/26 19:40 by phthithu.

Parker, you raise some points about snow on the roof that our kids are well aware of. When they were younger, and to this day, they are prohibited from being along the sides of the house or letting the dog on the sides of the house during and after a storm until after the snow comes off the roof. When it goes it sounds like a train is rolling off the roof, and it violently shakes the entire house. It usually gives a tell that it's going to slide as it starts to creep, as the slide is usually proceeded by a series of deep cracking sounds.

​The Placer County building code ground level static snow loading requirements for my location requires that a flat structure can handle 430 pounds per square foot. Think of that, that's over 21 tons for a 100 sq ft area. This is then adjusted down based on roof pitch, roof material, etc., which impacts the structure's ability to shed snow, etc. For instance, my place has a smooth metal roof that has a fairly steep pitch, so it readily sheds snow. This system broke down, however, in winter 2022-2023 when we had over 60 feet of snow during the season. The snow level on the ground was above the second story roofline, and there was no place for it to go. A cross gable above a third story bathroom was starting to split at the peak due to snow load, so my wife and I snowshoed up onto the roof and shoveled it off. Based on the depth of snow and the amount we shoveled, I'd guess we easily removed more than a couple of tons. I shared an image of what that snow looked like on my place here: https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,5640798,5640824#5640824

I was asked about the avalanche a couple of days ago in another thread here on TO. Of the six women that died, most of them had places in Serene Lakes, and their kids were involved with Sugar Bowl Academy. I know the husband of one of the victims, though not really well, as I met him last summer while doing mountain bike trail clearing and would run into him around the neighborhood, we follow each other on Strava, etc. He and his wife are/were avid backcountry skiers. When I heard that the husband of one of the victims was involved in the search, I was hoping it wasn't him, as I new he worked with TNSAR. It wasn't until two days later that I found out it was. I also recognized several of the other victims or their spouses from seeing them around the neighborhood and at community functions. It's super sad and a huge loss for the Serene Lakes community.

Incredible photo of your house with all that snow built up around and on it. Makes it look like a toy. Where are the vents for combustion, exhaust and sewer lines? I'm guessing they're located under the eaves? 

 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/23/26 21:26 by phthithu.

broken_link Wrote:
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> The snow will build up and then sluff off of the
> evergreens.
>
> It can create a dangerous condition called tree
> wells. The trees create a snow shadow around the
> trunk that can be quite deep when you get 5-10
> feet of snow with a multi-day storm and median
> snowfall of 30 feet. Light blowing snow can drift
> in and fill up the wells, hiding them. It creates
> a dangerous trap that skiers and snowboarders can
> then fall into and become immersed in


I mean my goodness...I'm sure you've seen this video but this is a visceral illustration of the phenomenon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D9LK_MMzfY
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/23/26 21:52 by phthithu.

Venting for the main heating is at the very top of the roof. You can see the metal vent pipe sticking up in the image. The hot water heater vents through a PVC conduit on the outside of the house that runs about 18-20 feet above ground below the cross gable. I had to make sure it was shoveled clear of snow in the winter of 22-23. Normally it's above the snow because it's partly protected by an overhanging roof. (22-23 was unusual for the amount of snow that fell and was on the ground.) The sewer vent is on the cross gable roof, about half way up. It had a cap that would get sheared off almost every winter. I finally gave up on it. So far the pipe has held up ok, but it's not ideal.

phthithu Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Incredible photo of your house with all that snow
> built up around and on it. Makes it look like a
> toy. Where are the vents for combustion, exhaust
> and sewer lines? I'm guessing they're located
> under the eaves? 
>
>  

Nice!