Today was a great day to get my shredding on, and I’m glad I came up to get my fix in. The rest of this week should have amazing spring-like conditions until the mountain gets more snow showers this weekend so definitely come on up and get your turns in.
Reported by Rene Jerez
Today was an absolute blast of a day to be hitting Palisades. Temps in the parking lot this morning were crisp and in the mid 30s with bluebird conditions and barely any wind. With how much sunshine was hitting Tahoe today, it felt like a Spring skiing day, albeit a little cold. Like last week, there weren’t too many guests, and it felt like you had the entire resort to yourself!
I started off by riding the Base-to-Base gondola up to the KT-22 midpoint and got off to ride down Saddle and down Saddle Face. The face was easily my favorite part of the trail today, and I was getting in some high-speed and sharp carves going down. What little wind we had today was breezily wind buffing and grooming the pow all over the trail, which was totally awesome and a joy to shred on. The face especially had a ton of fresh wind buff. The snow was more dried out than last week and was perfect for riding fast. The groomers also had done an outstanding job from the night before in getting the snow ready for guests. After this first lap, I did my usual hot laps up and down KT-22, going faster and faster each time I got into the groove of things. There was a lot of serious-looking construction going on at Alpine, and I loved seeing the construction helicopter, and its crew doing their work. KT definitely was on point today, and Saddle is a fantastic place to warm up if you want a more advanced run than Mountain Run.
On my last KT run, I was surprised to see the Olympic Lady spinning, a rare occasion. I quickly skated to the Red Dog lift to get to that lift via the Champs Élysées trail since I’ve never had the opportunity to ride this storied lift. Upon getting to the bottom of Olympic Lady, I was scouting out the lines of Women’s Downhill very intently as I’d never ventured to this part of the resort before and wasn’t familiar with traversing over from KT-22. I had a lot of second thoughts as this was new virgin territory for me, and I felt like punching above my paygrade, but I stuck with it and rode the lift up. The lift ride was gorgeous, and I was treated well with new views of the lake and Tahoe I’d never seen before. The ride down from the lift to Women’s Downhill was a bit narrow and mogul-y, but it wasn’t too bad and I dropped into the center of the gully and was rewarded with tons of fresh pow that was almost untouched! Unfortunately, the upper parts of the run had some serious moguls that were tough on a snowboard, but I could see this being a blast if you’re on skis! I want to try the traverse next time from the KT-22 lift to see how that is on a snowboard.
After my Women’s Downhill run, I broke for lunch and then rode the funitel back up to the upper mountain for some fun in Shirley Lake. My favorite run in the backside, Shirley Bowl, was extremely moguled out with huge and hard boulders everywhere. Still, the other runs in Shirley Lake were incredible, and the packed powder was dried out and perfect for riding down fast. With it being the afternoon the entire area was nicely shaded, and sun protected. After I got my fill in Shirley Lake shredding its blue cruisers, I finished off my day getting in more park practice at Belmont Park. The crew had added even more features than last week. When I was going down as I was wrapping up for the day, I hit up the Packers trail for the first time, and the terrain there reminded me of parts of Mineral Basin at Snowbird near the Baldy lift, where the drop is somewhat gradual but full of endless opportunities to chart lines. Packers ends in a natural half-pipe too, but just as a good heads up, the coverage there was a bit more exposed with rocks and trees sticking out. The snow here was getting a little slushy as well, but nothing too bad and nothing a fresh storm deposit couldn’t fix.
