By February, the snow made many neighborhoods here feel subterranean.

Twenty-foot walls of white, corniced by the wind, leaned over the plowed roads. Residents worked feverishly to keep the snow from swallowing their homes. They dug tunnels and narrow passageways to the street, opened portals to get light through second-story windows, shoveled dangerous weight off their roofs.

Unoccupied homes were so buried that a child might unknowingly sled down one. On still nights, when the wind stopped and the plows had passed, the silence was absolute. Only the streetlights and spirals of smoke from unseen chimneys suggested human life.

This year’s record-setting February and continued storms have reconnected residents to a historic rite of passage in California’s highest town, a place that largely came to be because of its monumental snowfall.