Truckee, CA – Every ski resort has a Dark Side. You know, that trail sends shivers up your spine, starts your knees knocking, and makes you wish you had hit the restroom more recently. Some resorts feature the Dark Side prominently: the Front Four at Stowe, Paradise at Mad River Glen, Alf’s High Rustler at Alta, and at Squaw Valley, well, pretty much everything. Some resorts almost try to hide their Dark Sides, but the Dark Side is still there, hiding, waiting to be discovered. The Dark Side won’t be on the trail map at every resort, but if you search long enough, you’ll find it. Or maybe it will find you.

What little I knew of Northstar, or more precisely, Northstar-at-Tahoe, was limited to “family resort.”  compared to nearby Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows, Northstar pitches itself as the family-friendly alternative. Not that’s there’s anything wrong with that.

Like Squaw and Alpine, Northstar is near the north end of Lake Tahoe. Unlike Squaw and Alpine, Northstar doesn’t have any open bowls, just lots of trails cut through a forest of huge evergreens. This gives it more of an eastern feeling and makes it a good place to ski when the visibility is near nil.

The visibility was very good when I pulled off route 267 onto the access road. The mountain wasn’t really visible from that vantage point, but the plethora of Northstar signs left no doubt that I was on the right track. The signs also left no doubt that this was not to be anywhere close to a “wilderness” experience. As I drove in, I passed signs for lodging, restaurants, dog sled rides, horseback riding, a gas station, and more. Suddenly I had the feeling I was at Disneyland. Could this be Northstar’s Dark Side? An over-developed, homogenized, theme-park instead of challenging skiing? There was only one way to find out.

The April sun was shining brightly as I made my way to the ticket booth, and it was pleasantly warm at the base. It looked like a beautiful day of Spring skiing was in store. What wasn’t in store was any kind of discount on the lift ticket. I looked around Truckee, in the local papers, and on-line, but didn’t see any deals – unless I wanted to drive to South Lake Tahoe or the Bay area. What is this? A pricing policy to discourage people who are staying locally? I’d like to have a word with the marketing genius who thought  this one up.

From the base area, I rode the gondola up. Well, “up” is being generous. The gondola runs between the base and the “mid-mountain” area and doesn’t cover much vertical at all. It took a bit of poling and skating to ski down under the gondola at the end of the day. The mid-mountain area is where the action begins. From here, three main lifts fan out over one  side of Mount Pluto. Over the ridge line to the right (looking up) are two more skiable faces of the mountain, so I started on the leftmost lift, the Vista Express.

“Well, that was a short ride,” pretty much sums up every lift on the main face of the mountain. This side of the mountain faces somewhere around north or northeast, and despite the bright sun and warm temps at the base, the trails were still in the shadows and pretty much frozen solid.

The kids seemed not to mind the hard snow and went right at the terrain park jumps. There seemed to be quite a few of them, and there was almost always someone willing to sacrifice themselves for the entertainment of the rest of us.

For the bark-eating crowd, the trees between the trails were wide open and would be great in several inches of snow. However, everything off this lift is of a pretty mellow pitch, despite the blue-square rating, and in a big heavy dump you’d be hard pressed to plow your way downhill. Still, the cruising wasn’t bad except for the multiple trail crossings and the relatively short duration of each run.

Looking for sunnier trails where the snow might have softened up, I tried the rightmost chair: the Pioneer lift. It’s an old, slow double chair, and that’s just fine with me. Slow chairs give my legs time to rest, give any snow that might be falling time to accumulate on my jacket, and gives me time to talk to whomever is sharing the ride with me. Somehow, high-speed detachable lifts make me feel like I’m in a rush. I don’t have time to relax and appreciate just being outside doing something I love.

Now, where was I? Oh, yeah. The first drop under the Pioneer lift actually has a good pitch to it (it’s a black diamond on the trail map). It also had a few small moguls that looked enticing. Unfortunately, it also was still pretty frozen. It was nonetheless much less frozen than where I had been skiing earlier, so I took a few runs on trails like Pioneer, Hoot Owl, and The Gully before growing bored with more blue cruisers…short blue cruisers.

Could this be Northstar’s Dark Side? Nothing but nearly identical short blue cruisers? I sure hoped not.

Compared to the Vista Express trails, these cruisers were even easier – at many resorts they’d be rated with a green circle. I found them more fun to ski, though, because they had fewer trail crossings and fewer people enjoying them. I could build up lots of speed and carve nice big arcs without worrying about getting tangled up in a crowd.

Next up is the center lift rising from the mid-mountain area: the Arrow Express. I was expecting this to take me to the top of Mt. Pluto, but had I looked at the trail map more carefully, I would have seen that it only went part of the way up. The only descent from the top of the Arrow Express is directly under the lift, which is a short green cruiser, so I got in the line for the Comstock Express that actually does go to the top of Mt. Pluto.

From the very top of the mountain, I followed the East Ridge trail along the ski resort boundary as snow flurries began to fall. This reasonably long blue cruiser brought me to the top of the Vista Express. From there it was back to mid-mountain, and a two-lift ride back to the top. Following the sun, I headed in the opposite direction along West Ridge. I passed a few mobbed trails before the crowds thinned out and I hung a right onto Flying Squirrel.

Now this is what a cruiser should be. The sun was shining on the Squirrel, the snow was softening up nicely, the crowds were gone, and the handful of people on the trail seemed to nod to each other, silently saying, “Isn’t this wonderful?” Like most other trails on the front side of Northstar, Flying Squirrel has been given a more difficult rating than I’d expect. It’s rated a black diamond, but it’s not particularly steep, it’s fairly wide, and without crowds there’s plenty of room to turn. From West Ridge, Flying Squirrel gives you a bit of a swooping ride down to the Arrow Express.

After another cruise down Flying Squirrel, I stopped in at the mid-mountain lodge for an early lunch. Yes, despite racking up quite a number of runs, they were all quick, and the cafeteria was just getting the lunch service going. Standard ski resort fare at standard ski resort prices. ‘Nuff said. There’s also another lodge at  the top of Mt. Pluto with pretty much the same fare and prices as the mid-mountain lodge, but at least you’re treated to some pleasant views.

After lunch it was time to head back up the Pioneer lift to digest. The snow was pretty soft by now, and the sun had started moving around to the other side of the mountain, so I followed it to The Backside.

The Backside is a relatively new addition to Northstar. It’s home to about eight relatively easy black diamond runs served by one high-speed quad. The trails all drop nearly straight down the fall line and have a very consistent pitch for (I’m guessing) 1,500 vertical feet. These are appropriately rated, in my opinion. It’s not that they’re really steep or narrow, but they’re much longer than the trails on the front side. If you have trouble on the front-side black diamonds, you’re going to have more trouble, and a lot more of it, on the backside.

The ride up the Backside Express revealed moguls. Moguls, moguls, moguls. Nothing but moguls under the lift from the very top to the very bottom. Not too steep, but if they were frozen it would a long, miserable, teeth-chattering descent. There’s a view of Squaw Valley off to the right as you ride the lift, and a peek at Alpine Meadows – pretty cool to get a bird’s-eye view of them.

I’m glad to say that the snow wasn’t frozen solid everywhere, just in the shade. By staying to my right I was able stay in the sun and have an enjoyable run. Folks, if you’re not a mogul expert, this is a great place to practice. It’s not too steep, it’s straight down the fall line, and the moguls were pretty rhythmic.

Meanwhile, next to the trail stood acres and acres of large evergreen trees. With lots of space between them. Absolutely perfect western tree skiing terrain. It was all I could do to not venture in, but between the frozen snow, edges that hadn’t been sharpened in months, and skiing alone, I knew that even if I had survived the skiing, I’d fall victim to my wife’s wrath. Someday I want to be here for an epic Tahoe dump. While the folks at Squaw and Alpine are following little day-glo flags as they creep along in a whiteout, I’ll be ripping up seemingly endless glades at Northstar.

A few more runs followed to explore the area a bit more. Sierra Grande to Challenger: beautiful views toward Squaw. Railsplitter: cruiser. Burnout: cruiser. Follow Me: cruiser. Actually, without the views on Sierra Grande/Challenger, I would have had trouble telling them apart. Polaris was the most difficult trail I could find. It was heavily mogulled and didn’t have the consistent pitch of the other trails. I flailed, I thrashed, I didn’t look good or feel good, but I sure had a grin on my face as I coasted back to the lift.

Polaris was too easy to be the Dark Side, but I knew where to look next: Lookout Mountain. Not really a mountain, Lookout is Northstar’s newest addition. On an appendage to Mt. Pluto, between the Backside and the Pioneer lift, Lookout has Northstar’s steepest trails. Access to Lookout is via a short handle tow from the top of Pioneer or a long cruise and traverse from the top of Mt. Pluto. There’s a great view of Lookout as you drive toward Northstar from Truckee, and it looked to me as if there would be some truly gnarly tree skiing between its trails. That’s what I was searching for. That would be the Dark Side.

That was not to be. The lifties were warning everyone who approached the handle tow that conditions were “extra firm”, completely ungroomed, and the sun hadn’t even thought about softening things up yet. The skiers returning from Lookout agreed with the lifties: it’s not worth it. Sadly, I turned back.

There was time left for a few more runs, so I explored some more. One find: short but steep glades between the trails off East Ridge. There are signs here warning of a “road” below, but it sure looked like a cat track to me, a normal woods skiing hazard. Another find: people were mobbing the Comstock Express to the summit, but the snow was softer and the trails much less crowded off the Pioneer lift.

In the last pitch near the bottom of the Comstock Express (apparently worthy of it’s own name, Cascade), I felt like a duck in a shooting gallery as skiers and boarders, barely in control, whizzed past. Perhaps they were thinking that if they were the fastest on the mountain, no one could hit them from behind.

A third find: when the snow is soft, the Village Run from mid-mountain is a slog. Boarders might want to download on the gondola. Heck, skiers might want to download too.

And that wrapped up my stay at Northstar. I can’t say “mission accomplished” as I didn’t find the Dark Side. Instead, I found a bit of an enigma. As well laid out as the back side is, the front side layout is equally poor. It’s obvious that Northstar targets the cruising and terrain park crowd, and does a good job of it at that, but the front side cruising is just too darned short. The wacky lift layout doesn’t help things, either. The mid-mountain area is a natural meeting point, but you have to ride two lifts to get back to the summit. If you’re into cruising, try Northstar and see for yourself, but by all means also give some of the other local areas a try. Tahoe has one of the greatest concentrations of ski areas in the USA, if not the world, so do  yourself a favor and try the whole bunch.

As I left I wondered a bit if Northstar even has a Dark Side, and if lack of a Dark Side is a Dark Side, but I know that Lookout Mountain still harbors its secrets from me, and there’s a vast glade on the Backside to explore. So maybe it’s there, waiting for me. If it’s waiting for me, it’s also waiting for you. Find it, and give in to the Dark Side.

Time to Eat, Time to Sleep

There’s plenty of lodging at Northstar or in the nearby towns (Truckee, Tahoe City, King’s Beach) in just about every price range. For dirt-cheap, stay in Reno at a casino. It’s about an hour drive to Northstar from Reno and I paid $20/night for a large clean room with two queen beds (and that wasn’t the cheapest I found!).

Like lodging, there’s something for every wallet when it comes to dining. Take a stroll around one of the nearby towns and see for yourself. One recommendation: go to the River Ranch, at the base of the Alpine Meadows access road, for après-ski and dinner. They’ve got a great patio on the Truckee River for drinks and a cozy dining room. The food’s terrific and not exceedingly expensive.

If you’re looking for new ski gear, there are several wonderful ski shops from Truckee to Tahoe City. I could spend a lot of time and money there… You’ve been warned – leave your Visa card at home!