Hitting Tahoe as the first stop on our winter ski tour was obviously a risk. If the last three seasons have been any indication, we were not confident that we would have good conditions, or even any snow for that matter, in the early season. However, due to the starting location of our trip (the Bay Area), it really didn’t make sense not to go to Tahoe first. (As a reminder, our pass gets us two days at Squaw/Alpine, Mammoth, Alta/Snowbird, Aspen/Snowmass, Jackson Hole, Lake Louise, and Whistler.) We figured we would get our California skiing done, and move on to steeper and deeper terrain as the trip progressed. I love Tahoe. I consider myself a semi-local as I’ve lived there on and off for the last four years. I just really hope that winter can come back again like it used to. During the 2010-2011 season, Chelsea and I picked up skis for the first time, bought our first season pass, and were rewarded with deep powder during our stay in December, and 100” of snow in the week we were there over spring break. 80 closed and no one could get up to the mountains, or everyone was in Cabo, and we had the mountain to ourselves. It was glorious.
Back to the present. We prepared for the worst (I pictured mud skiing and got out my rock skis), yet were very pleasantly surprised to have two great days of skiing. Squaw wasn’t fully open when we went in mid-December, so we got our passes and headed up the funi to the top of the mountain. It had snowed a decent amount during the week before so we were pretty excited about the conditions.
The day was pretty socked in with low visibility and having never skied Squaw before, we weren’t entirely sure where to go. In a stroke of luck, on our second chair we ended up riding with a super friendly local named Michael. He was slightly shocked that we had never skied the mountain before and quickly took up our case. “You’re coming with me!” he exclaimed. We spent the rest of the morning diligently following Michael all over the mountain to all the best spots. After he determined that we didn’t fully suck, he took us to ski the Attic, which turned out to be the best powder stash on the mountain that day. Seriously, it was actually pretty deep. Around mid-day, Michael had to return to work, and we met up with our friend Eric and enjoyed following him around for the rest of the day.
The holidays came and went, I was held hostage in my hometown due to a 12-day jury summons, but once I was finally released, Chelsea and I were officially on the road and the trip was fully on. We headed back to Tahoe and were greeted with spring conditions- sun and temperatures in the 50’s. We took the dogs out on a long snowshoe (we were wearing t-shirts), scoped out a couple of rock climbs on Donner Summit to see if they were dry and decided to check out Alpine the following day. Alpine is a really user-friendly mountain. You drive up, park, and you’re on the lift before you even lose feeling in your toes (is this a personal problem, or just an accepted truth about ski boots?). We cruised around the mountain, and were once again really happy with the conditions. Sure it got a little soft by the end of the day due to the high temps, but the mountain was mostly covered, and the snow was quite nice. We met up with Eric again and it was a super enjoyable day of skiing groomers. With that, our two days of skiing in Tahoe were complete. 
Before heading to Mammoth, we got a last minute invite to hike out to the Bradley Hut in the Tahoe backcountry. We had a great time with our college friends, Matt and Kelley. The weather was gorgeous, we got in a lot of snowshoeing, tuckered out the dogs, ate well, and played Bananagrams and Yahtzee in front of the fire. Satisfied with a fantastic time spent in one of our favorite places on Earth, we got in the van and headed to Mammoth (with a short stop at the Bridgeport hot springs of course!).
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