Mar 7 & 8: Spring Turns at Palisades

This report was written by Rene Jerez.

Fun snow conditions after last week’s storm. This weekend should be a blast!

On Thursday, I decided to devote my entire snowboarding session to the Palisades side of the resort. I was eager to come up after the massive storm hitting Tahoe last week. I was getting really stoked to still see remnants of the storm down at about 4,000 feet on Interstate 80, and I was even more pumped with how nice the weather was, with nice blue skies and no wind. When I arrived in the parking lot, we were in the low 40s, and it totally felt like spring was here in the Sierra. I started my day with two warm-up laps down Mountain Run, as it had been about a week since I last snowboarded.

Thursday’s View of Siberia Ridge – So gorgeous!

After warming up, I spent my entire time on the upper mountain. The storm had some crazy 100+ miles per wind gust, so the snow was packed powder and hard pack. Thankfully, there was barely any ice and plenty of untouched pow all over the mountain. The Siberia Chair was excellent, and I used the blue-rated trail getting down to go off-piste down Siberia Ridge. I did about three laps there before heading to Gold Coast to take that up and ride to Emigrant.

Siberia Bowl

Emigrant Face had gotten a total blasting of snow, and you could tell this where a lot of storm snow had fallen. The wind had done a pretty good job of pushing it around, so it had a total roller coaster feeling even though there hadn’t been enough time for moguls to form. I only did one lap on Emigrant before riding Gold Coast back up to Shirley Bowl, which was fantastic! By this time of day (About 12:40 pm), light snow showers would continue intermittently throughout the upper mountain. The backside of Palisades does an excellent job of holding and maintaining snow because it is more shaded, and there was still a lot of unfallen snow on all the trees there. I did a few runs down to the Shirley Chair before taking a break for pizza at High Camp. It was the perfect day to sit outside while having lunch!

Snow holding up really well by Shirley.

After my lunch break, I headed over again to the backside and did laps down Solitude for the rest of the afternoon. Of all the areas I rode in on Thursday, Solitude was the best and had the best snow of the day, especially off-piste in the trees! Rainbow Bowl was also really fun and steep to shred down. I finished Thursday off with a nice ride down from the top of the Solitude chair down through Bailey’s Beach (And got some pow that hadn’t been touched) and a great ride down through Packer’s Downhill. Thursday was a great day to kick off my spring skiing, and I looked forward to my Friday session.

Riding Solitude back up near Rainbow Bowl on Thursday.

For Friday, conditions were pretty much the same as Thursday, with the sun out and temps in the low 40s. Initially, I had planned to start my day off with a quick warm-up lap down Mountain Run, as I always like to do and switch over to Alpine, but unfortunately, the base-to-base gondola was on maintenance hold for most of the day due to a power outage at Alpine, so I decided to spend my entire day again at Palisades. The sun and warm temperatures were producing some excellent spring skiing conditions, with the hard pack slowly softening up from yesterday. I rode a considerable amount of time doing laps on the Red Dog chair, and Red Dog Face was in top condition.

Lots of fresh, untouched terrain still up in the hikeable parts of the upper mountain!

After doing my Red Dog laps I rode the funitel back up to the upper mountain where I spent the rest of my Friday. I did some laps down to Shirley Lake, and the bowl, like yesterday, was incredibly fun to ride. After coming back up on the Shirley Lake chair, I rode down to Belmont for a few park laps. The amount of snow from the last storm is so staggering that the park crew was able to build some really crazy advanced-level jumps and ramps. After my park session laps, I used the Big Blue chair to ride laps down Packer’s Downhill. Packer’s had my favorite terrain of the day, and the snow in that area turned into spring snow. Plus, it was even softer from Thursday.

Friday’s Lake View.

This weekend should be a total blast for skiing and snowboarding at Palisades, especially with all the fresh pow they received last weekend. With another sunny day in the forecast for Saturday and snow showers for Sunday, it’s worth the drive up from the Bay. Please be advised that parking reservations will be in full effect, and you should check the parking reservations site for last-minute cancellations. Come and get those spring turns in!