Breakfast Sunday morning was the usual coffee, juice and instant oatmeal. Quick and easy, with no clean-up. Then packing of the personal and group gear, all of which was hauled by sled back out to the trailer by the highway.

First leader out was instructed to leave the keys in the ignition of the Tahoe, but being properly paranoid of leaving keys in the ignition of a vehicle along a highway, he instead left them in the cupholder. And being properly paranoid of locking the keys inside a vehicle at such a great distance from anywhere, he carefully tested the power door locks before shutting the door, listening for the solid "ka-chunk" of the other three doors opening.

Little did he know that Tahoe doors go "ka-chunk" no matter which way you push the power lever.

You guessed it. Keys locked inside.

A half hour later, the door was opened again, through the use of two leatherman tools, a screwdriver, a rag, a couple small pieces of duct tape, and a radio antenna swiped off another truck parked in the lot.

Guilty party swore the power locks on his SUV only go "ka-chunk" when they are changing from locked to unlocked. Others were skeptical, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Once gear was loaded, most of the crew went off to destroy the snowcaves, while a few cleaned up the lodge and prepped it for the next group (you always leave firewood ready for the folks to follow). The marauders reported they were unable to destroy my second cave, nor the one next to it.

Would have been great if we'd had time to finish them.

The drive home was the reverse of Friday night, looping around the south side of the mountain range.

This route actually takes us out of our state, slipping down to pass through a piece of Herworship's, Hooligan's and The Finn's state.

Impressive, snow-covered mountains.

Now remember, this was the day before the Saint Patrick's Day blizzard. Those are mountains with 68 percent of normal snowpack on them.

Imagine them now, at 100 percent.