Tahoe City, CA – Wax your skis, buy your pass and plan on upgrading your gear at area ski swaps as winter around Lake Tahoe is right around the corner.nSome ski resorts surrounding Lake Tahoe welcomed more than 50 feet of snow at their higher elevations last year, and many plan to open for the 2010-11 ski and snowboard season in November and December. On Donner Summit, Boreal Mountain Resorts already opened for skiing and riding this past Friday.
One of the most anticipated winter events is North Lake Tahoe’s 11th Annual Learn to Ski and Board Weekend, December 11-12, when beginners can get up and turning for bargain prices. For just $25, novices get ski rentals, lesson and a lift ticket at a handful of downhill resorts located throughout the Lake Tahoe region. Another marquee event on the Tahoe winter calendar is North Tahoe’s 30th Annual SnowFest, March 4-13, 2011, a 10-day winter carnival that attracts thousands for its opening night ceremonies, laser show, torchlight parade and fireworks, polar bear swim and The Great Ski Race.
Lake Tahoe ski resorts have spent millions of dollars in upgrades to enhance the skier and boarder experience this winter. Mt. Rose – Ski Tahoe has installed top-to-bottom snowmaking on the Silver Dollar Trail at the Slide Bowl, allowing for early season access to the new Winters Creek Lodge. The resort is also unveiling a new Chute Gate named Miller Time. New savings include 3rd Day Free ($138 for three consecutive lift tickets) and $39 lift tickets on Bonus Mondays.
Alpine Meadows announces several resort improvements, including the Magnestick, a magnet that is adhered to the back of kids’ ski school vests that literally sticks them to the magnet on the resort’s chair lifts. Alpine is one of the first resorts in the U.S. to use the Magnestick, which unsticks as children disembark from the chair at the lift’s end. Also new is the Flake GPS, a tracking device worn by kids in ski school, a redesigned children’s center complete with automated registration kiosks and interactive educational stations for kids, and an outdoor play area with a new magic carpet surface lift. Those breaking for lunch will enjoy Alpine’s redesigned outdoor seating area at its base lodge, which offers a 75,000-foot sundeck, slope-side seating and a new fire pit.
Diamond Peak, based in Incline Village, Nev., opens its new Skier Service Building this winter, a two-story building with the bottom level hosting ski patrol, child ski center, ticket windows, and ski and snowboard school with operational departments upstairs.
Northstar-at-Tahoe enjoyed a record-breaking season on the mountain last winter. New this year, under the new ownership of Vail Resorts, guests will have more room to move through the rental process and select gear they’d like to try with a newly expanded demo equipment shop in the Village at Northstar. Kids can get creative off slopes as All Fired Up! pottery-making studio makes its debut at the village along with The Marketplace for groceries, deli, wine and beer, joining 35 village shops and restaurants. Building on the success of its summer stargazing tours, this winter Northstar Resort will for the first time partner with star guide and poet Tony Berendsen, president of the Nevada Science Coalition, for stargazing snowshoe tours complete with telescopic viewing. And, don’t miss the resort’s Snow Bar, accessible by ski, board or your own two feet, serving Sierra Nevada beer at the summit.
Guests ride free to Squaw Valley USA via the resort’s new shuttle buses that depart from Reno, South Lake Tahoe, Truckee and the North and West Shores of Lake Tahoe. Squaw will also continue to offer its popular free mountain tours with Chief Mountain Host and Olympic Gold Medalist Jonny Mosley. New this year, the resort added “Ski with Julia Days,” when skiers and boarders can ski for free with Olympic Gold Medalist and hometown hero Julia Mancuso. Squaw has also transformed the Ford Belmont Park into a Kids’ Fun Zone with snow forts and kid-sized jumps.
On the West Shore, Homewood Mountain Resort now offers private skiing through its South Lodge Rental Program, giving guests exclusive use of the mountain’s 3,000-square foot South Lodge and the Quail triple chair lift, which accesses more than 1,200 acres. This private experience is the first of its kind in the Lake Tahoe Basin.
Back for its second year of operation, the Backcountry Adventure Center at Sugar Bowl Ski Resort, operated by Alpine Skills International and located in the Village Chalet building, offers professionally guided back and sidecountry tours, educational programs about the science and safety of snow, a full fleet of backcountry rental and retail gear and current snowpack safety conditions from the Sierra Avalanche Center.
One of the most exciting new ventures in North Lake Tahoe is Pacific Crest Heli-Guides, which is offering helicopter skiing in Lake Tahoe in partnership with HeliTahoe. This is the first time ever that a helicopter skiing operation has launched in the Sierra Nevada. The company will host a maximum of 16 guests per day with a cost structure based upon flight time rather than the traditional vertical feet, giving skiers the opportunity to customize their experience. Full day trips start at $899 per person.
On the South Shore, Heavenly will debut a new 14,980-square-foot on-mountain restaurant called Tamarack Lodge this February, joining a new terrain park beneath the Tamarack Express, two new Prinoth Beast X snow groomers and water upgrades to its snowmaking operation this winter. Heavenly’s owner, Vail Resorts, has acquired a South Lake Tahoe property management company, Accommodation Station, to further vertically integrate their vacation sales.
Now that Vail Resorts has acquired Northstar, Sierra-at-Tahoe will function independently this winter. Double Whammy season passes are now convertible to Vail Resorts’ Epic Pass and will continue to include skiing privileges at Northstar, as well as at Heavenly.
Kirkwood Mountain Resort’s new ZipTahoe Treetop Canopy Tour seeks to offer new thrills high above the slopes this season through more than 10 zip lines, aerial spans, bridge networks and a final zip line that will whisk guests over skiers and snowboarders while descending over 1,100 feet. This new offering is one of a number of new family-focused attractions housed in the resort’s new High Alpine Adventure Center including tubing, cross country skiing, snow shoeing, dogsledding, evening snowcat tours, sleigh rides and snowmobile tours. The resort also offers a new “Daycare Dilemma” lift ticket allowing parents to split shifts on the slopes and a new “Intro to Snow” program that gives toddlers an active alternative to traditional daycare.
Improvements aimed at increasing resort capacity include upgrades to the resort’s food and beverage outlets, new parking lots and a facelift to the resort’s chairlifts. Kirkwood will once again host the North American Freeskiing Championships and the North Face Masters of Snowboarding showcasing many of the best skiers and snowboarders in the world. New this season, Kirkwood will also be one of the stops on the new Banzai Series inspired by U.S. Olympian Daron Rahlves that blends skier/boarder cross with a traditional downhill race.