Someone here mentioned "Snow" the other day...

I saw it similar to that - but only about half as deep - in the Mammoth area of California one year. The top of the snow alongside the road was about 5' above the roof of the '77 Ford F250 I owned at the time.
Another year we were on vacation and stopped at Crater Lake in Oregon (about 6200' elevation). There was an overlook to the lake that you had to walk through a 12'-diameter pipe to get to. I asked a Park Ranger about it and he said it was so tourists could get to the overlook through the snow in the winter. We also noticed some of the cabins in the area had two sets of entry doors - one set at ground level and another set on the second floor. And, no, the second floor doors were not just to go out onto a deck.
Having lived in SoCal all my life it was something I just couldn't relate to.