What a day to kick off the new month! I arrived at Palisades Tahoe around 10 am and met up with some friends near Far East Express. The sun seemed to beam down on the mountain from a bit higher up than in recent days as we rode the Funitel to the upper mountain – maybe just a placebo effect of the calendar turning pages. We unloaded the Funitel and made for Big Blue Express on some pristine mid-morning corduroy. By the very first turn, it became evident that today was gonna be a good one.
We rode right up to Big Blue and loaded without a wait (another good sign!) before dropping into Shirley for our first few runs of the day. Shirley was also sporting some beautiful corduroy, with snow that now had been baking out in the morning sun juuust long enough upon our arrival. It was the perfect conditions to lay out your biggest carves down the entire run – so we happily did just that.
As the morning went on, the sun continued to soften up the snow on Shirley, so we decided it would be an excellent time to make our way over to the Gold Coast terrain park. The park crew has been hard at work since my last pass through Gold Coast, which now has three rail features and a tree-tap hip up top, a two-pack of large jumps, and several medium-size rails and jibs towards the bottom. We spent another hour lapping Gold Coast before cruising over to Belmont, which was packed with some fun smaller features, perfect for your next progression session.
Come mid-afternoon, the snow began to get quite a bit stickier, especially on those South-facing aspects that are exposed to the sun all day long. We took one more run down Shirley, which faces away from the sun for most of the day before a final mountain run to the base area to wrap up our day.
Despite the longer days, warmer temps, and the passing of another month, spring skiing and riding are not here to stay! We are looking at an incoming storm later this week, which could bring about a foot of fresh snow to the mountains. March is historically one of the snowiest months of the year in Tahoe, so keep an eye on that forecast and don’t mothball your heavier layers quite yet.
