Within minutes, Jen Lang-Ree realized her mistake.
Her commute from her home in Tahoe Donner to Truckee’s Tahoe Forest Hospital is just 4.3 miles. But with thousands of skiers crowding the roads to north Tahoe’s ski resorts the morning of Jan. 28, the drive took her 66 minutes.
She forgot it was a Saturday.
“I was pretty stressed out,” said Lang-Ree, who works as a nurse practitioner in pediatrics. “I didn’t know when I would get there.”
Lang-Ree has lived in the Tahoe Basin for 31 years. She’s dealt with her fair share of tourist traffic over the years. But that weekend was the worst she had ever seen. She watched as drivers traveled in the wrong lane on Donner Pass Road, trying to bypass the gridlock.