Snowed-in Shaver Lake businesses hoping to reopen next week

FRESNO COUNTY, Calif. (KFSN) -- Workers spent most of Friday conquering mountains of snow outside Shaver Lake businesses and doing what they could to gear up for an unknown reopening date.

"Today we shoveled in as you can see, we got our paths cleared and we're just going through inventory and save what we can and trying to get a game plan together of when we can open up," said Janie Beck, who works at Shaver Coffee & Deli.

She says up until the roads shut down last week, business had been steady.

Now, reopening depends on Caltrans and the California Highway Patrol but they are also at the mercy of Mother Nature.

"There's a lot of patches of still frozen snow, there's very limited space for the roadway and there is zero place to park anywhere along the 168," said California Highway Patrol Officer Mike Salas.

In some areas, the roads were clear on Friday - in others, they were still slushy and slippery.

The wall of plowed snow along Highway 168 was so tall, you could barely see over it.

For now shops and restaurants are holding onto a winter dream of a spike in business after some of this clears out.

"We're going to be busy the whole time, I'm counting on it," said Beck.