Twin Bridges, CA – Adding to the mountain experience this season, California’s Sierra-at-Tahoe Resort introduces Huckleberry Cat Tours, The Burton Riglet Park and new additions to the ski area’s Blizzard Mountain tubing park.
Sierra Resort’s new backcountry snowcat tours take expert skiers and riders straight to the edge of Huckleberry Canyon, allowing backcountry enthusiasts to save energy, and 30 to 40 minutes, for those deep powder turns by bypassing the one and a half mile hike out to the gates. Huckleberry Canyon, first officially opened in 2008, offers cliff drops, cornice drops, rock chutes, open bowls, gladed runs and powder pillows to those ready to unlock the extreme.
The tours are appropriate for expert skiers and snowboarders seeking an in-bounds backcountry style experience and will run on select days throughout the season, weather and conditions permitting, from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. Along with cat rides, each tour will include a Professional Ski Instructors of America-certified ski and snowboard instructor who will guide and educate riders on backcountry safety, teach them how to properly use avalanche equipment (shovel, probe, avalanche beacon, and backpack will be provided), and a lunch for $79. The Sierra snowcat can hold up to seven people or can be rented out for private tours by groups of five or more. A valid season pass or lift ticket is also required.
In partnership with industry leader Burton Snowboards, Sierra Resort’s new Burton Riglet Park is a mini snowboard park designed to introduce kids as young as three years old to the sport of snowboarding. Sierra Resort is the only resort on the West Coast with a Burton Riglet Park and program that gives young children the opportunity to experience snowboarding.
Adding to the revolutionary Learn to Ride program, introduced at Sierra Resort in 2000, and the Burton Progression Park, Sierra will utilize Burton’s Riglet Reel technology. A specially designed attachment is secured to the nose of youth snowboards and allows instructors to tow kids onto features and around obstacles, introducing them to the sensation of sliding on snow and snowboarding.
Guests this winter can take the all-new Blizzard Mountain Snowcat from the base of the mountain straight to the Blizzard Mountain entrance. Revamped and relocated in 2010-11, the snow play and tubing area features two rope tow-accessible tubing lanes, an expanded snow play area, a bounce house, snack bar, fire pits, picnic tables and sledding.
Blizzard Mountain has amenities for people of all ages and sizes to enjoy, including young children just starting to explore the outdoors in wintertime. It is the perfect place for little (and big) ones to explore the winter outdoors at their own pace while offering fun for the entire family at the same time.
Robert “Booie” Alward has been named Sierra-at-Tahoe’s new Ski School Director. Alward comes to Sierra Resort from Loon Mountain in New Hampshire, where he acted as the Snowsports Director, and before that was the Ski School Director at Vail Mountain in Colorado. Sierra Resort is home to Easy Street offering 11 acres of sculpted “Smart Terrain” that helps improve the learning curve for beginners. The gently banked turns and shaped features naturally guide skiers and snowboarders into turns and stops so that they are able to learn the fundamentals of skiing and riding more quickly. Two dedicated conveyor lifts make it a breeze to get up the hill, so beginners can focus on coming back down.