Sugar Bowl Resort

We had a gret time at Sugar Bowl.  My girlfriend is relatively new to downhill skiing and I'm relearning after a long while. 

 

We had a great experience at Sugar Bowl.  We parked on the gondola side to get in on some nostalgia and skiied all around the easy trails.  I think the gondola lot fills up a little slower. 

 

The greens that come down off of Judah and Christmas tree that link the two lodges have one spot where they meet that is pretty steep and I think a little to hard for a new skiier that doesn't have that confidence yet.  But there is a ton of runout and its over pretty quick.

 

Then we spent a while working on technique on the beginner area near Judah Lodge (white pine lift).  There are 3-4 super easy runs that are great for working on technique.  It seemed like they keep the clases on only one of them for most of the lessons, so we had open trail on them most of the time to work on confidence and drills and really get warmed up for other runs.

 

Food was pricey (too be expected, but good).  My pasta was too small, however the panini was HUGE so it is a little hit-or-miss.  Wait was near nil, even though it seemed crowded, but

 

Everyone seemed to predict that resorts were gonna be crowded as so many people got turned back last weekend, but everyone must gone to the bigger hills.  This was the least crowded I've ever seen a resort on the weekend (in my limited experience)

Sugar bowl is great. Shorter drive from the bay and doesnt typically have the bro-bra skiers packing the mountain out by lunch. The few chairs do make for longer lines which is a bummer when the verticle isnt more than a >5 min drop.

However, the hill definately has steeps which remain unskied nearly all day. Hit it on a pow day and its all yours all day long.

Skied here the last week of April. No crowds and snow cone bumps. If you haven't been here go. Disney (yes walt was one of the early investors) Express has moderate steeps. If you want crazier steeps and chutes go on the Lincoln Express

I've been skiing at SugarBowl since I was a kid, just learning to ski. I love this place. It's a great mountain with some good variety. When the snow is good, you can get in some great challenging runs in the bowls or hike out even further. With the Judah expansion, the crowds aren't too bad and the price really beats the other big resorts in Tahoe.