LAKE TAHOE - Skiing Memories

Kirkwood Ski Area

Picture courtesy of Wikimedia

Roman Fuchs under CC-BY-SA license

Lake Tahoe is a very special place for me. It was my annual Spring Break destination for a week of skiing and...uh...other activities while in my younger days.

Lots of memories from those days...winning over $400 on roulette starting with a dollar and treating my friends to a midnite Billy Preston concert at Harrah's with the money; nearly skiing off a cliff while following someone we thought knew what they were doing (he did go off, we didn't...luckily it was deep powder at the bottom); being there the year over 240" of snow fell in just a few days setting off a deadly avalanche at Alpine Meadows; and sitting in a hot tub when it was five below.

Now that this year's storms have arrived, the snow around the lake is better than it's been in years. Tahoe is home to over a dozen ski areas.  Here are my favorites:

1. Kirkwood - about 25 miles southwest of Tahoe.  Simply the best place I've ever skiied.  Very challenging with some remote open bowls and skinny chutes.  Worth the effort to get to.  Limited adaptive skiing available (mostly for blind skiers).

2. Alpine Meadows - Large, open bowls.  Great crowd, little attitude.  Skiing available late into the season...I've skiied here in June.  Full adaptive ski program.

3. Mt. Rose/Slide Mountain - Scary steep slope with unbelievable views of Reno on the Slide Mountain side of things.

4. Sierra-at-Tahoe - Known as Sierra Ski Ranch in my Spring Break days.  Mellow, fun place.  Not too challenging, but this is where we almost went off the cliff during a run through the trees.

5. Heavenly Valley - Massive.  Expensive.  And a bit overrated.  I do like the extremely long runs and being able to start in one state and end in another.

6. Squaw Valley - Eh, I didn't really have too much fun here.  Much better at any of the resorts above.

-Darryl