Squaw/Alpine (N. Tahoe) Conditions and News- 2011/2012 Season thread - Page 12

The Philly Crew is out for a visit, so we're making out way to a different Tahoe Resort every day, (sort of a mini Gathering).

Today was Squaw Day, and I honestly wasn't sure what to expect because of how it seemed to be holding up the last time I was there, and I must say.

Squaw skied sooooooooo great!

The conditions reminded me a lot of how they were when I did the Next Level Ski camp there in January of last year.

I had so much fun and we're heading back there with the Philly crew on Friday.  Anyone up for it!?

I believe I was previously volunteered so I'm in.

It was nice to meet the Philly Crew after skiing.

Looking forward to run with them on Friday.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trekchick 

I had so much fun and we're heading back there with the Philly crew on Friday.  Anyone up for it!?

I'm likely to be skiing on Friday afternoon.  Text me if you take the shuttle to Alpine, and I'll do the same if I take it to Squaw.

Youbetcha!

Yup!!! We had a blast today!! There's a lot open something for everyone. We spent the morning running mostly off of gold coast and then solitude/granite chief in the afternoon. Squaw was skiing quite well indeed!! I can't believe how little we saw and what a full day of skiing we had. Definitly didn't make it quite as moderate a day as we had intended!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trekchick 

Youbetcha!

Well, it turns out the boys need to take a so-called "test" at their so-called "school" tomorrow, so I won't be on the hill tomorrow.

I'll be at Alpine on Saturday, and at Sugar Bowl on Sunday for the Tahoe League race.

Just an FYI for any Tahoe skiers out there that may not have noticed:

(I saw it on the morning news)

Valentine's Day special at Alpine Meadows / Squaw Valley:

$14 lift tickets

Available on Lifttickets.com

And chances are it'll be a bluebird (mini) powder day!

....and my apologies to alexzn for not noticing his previous post on the subject (did a quick scan but obviously did it with my eyes closed).

Wow, sad to be missing that.^

Does anyone know of good ways to get cheaper lift tickets the rest of the time? I'll be in tahoe for a week next month and I'm trying to figure out the deals.

Buy 10 gallons of gas at a Shell service station (Mon to Fri) for a 2-for-1 deal.  Works if you're skiing with a friend, or you can quickly make friends in the lift line 

http://www.skifreedeals.com/ 

Still two weeks for snow before the gathering, and three weeks (and a day) before we turn up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by alexzn 

Looks like you can ski Squaw for $14 on Valentine's Day.  Here is the press-release:

 

 

 

Nothing Says Love like a $14 Lift Ticket to Squaw Valley & Alpine Meadows

[Olympic Valley and Tahoe City, Calif.] February 8, 2012 – Conditions are great in the Sierra and to get the word out, Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows are sharing the love. This Valentine’s Day, skiers and riders can purchase a lift ticket in advance for just $14, valid for February 14. Between the two resorts, Squaw and Alpine have 4,000 acres of open terrain, 29 lifts and 6 terrain parks. The groomers are fast and off-piste the trees still hold secret powder stashes from the big storm. With brilliant blue skies and non-stop sunshine, this February is the time to get out and enjoy the mountains.  

Share the Love 1-Day, $14 tickets must be purchased in advance and will be available on a limited first-come, first-served basis. Tickets are available on squaw.com and skialpine.com.

Mountaintop Valentine’s Day Dinner Package

This Valentine’s Day, take your sweetheart up Squaw Valley’s aerial tram to High Camp, elevation 8,200 feet and enjoy breathtaking views of Lake Tahoe and the surrounding snow-capped peaks of Squaw Valley while you dine. The dinner package includes a rose for the lady and sparkling cider on the tram ride up the mountain. Once at High Camp, guests will enjoy a delectable three-course meal complete with a glass of wine while a live pianist sets a romantic mood.  Indulge in the seared diver scallops or one of our other options for your main course. Top it off with a warm molten chocolate cake - the perfect Valentine's dessert. Click here to view the full Valentine's dinner menu.

The Valentine's Day Dinner is $99 per couple ($50 per person), with the option to purchase two-for-one tram tickets ($29 per couple), not included in price. The dinner package is by reservation only. To reserve, please call 530-452-7278 or email abarker@squaw.com.

Valentine’s Day Lodging Package at The Village at Squaw Valley

The Village at Squaw Valley is celebrating Valentine’s Day this winter by offering a Valentine’s Day Romance Package including $110 dollars off Village lodging and a couple’s message. Staring at just $249 for a standard room or $269 per night for a one-bedroom condominium suite, couples can book a room in the heart of Squaw Valley with a couple’s massage at Trilogy Spa and champagne and chocolates upon arrival included. Package is valid through the end of February, two-night minimum stay required. To book, please call The Village at Squaw Valley at 1-866-818-6963 and ask for the Romance Package. 
 

The girl at the lift ticket counter told us about that when our friends were getting their tickets on Wednesday.  Big  to Squaw!

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheDad 

Well, it turns out the boys need to take a so-called "test" at their so-called "school" tomorrow, so I won't be on the hill tomorrow.

 

I'll be at Alpine on Saturday, and at Sugar Bowl on Sunday for the Tahoe League race.

I'm skiing Friday then have to actually get some work done over the weekend.  

Dontcha hate it when things like work and education get in the way of skiing? 

Quote:

Originally Posted by benji7 

Does anyone know of good ways to get cheaper lift tickets the rest of the time? I'll be in tahoe for a week next month and I'm trying to figure out the deals.

www.slidingonthecheap.com is the best way to track the deals.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trekchick 

Dontcha hate it when things like work and education get in the way of skiing? 

Seriously.

Quote:

Originally Posted by benji7 

Does anyone know of good ways to get cheaper lift tickets the rest of the time? I'll be in tahoe for a week next month and I'm trying to figure out the deals.

www.lifttickets.com

or, for next season, get the earlybird snowbomb.com card for maybe $40 (and it normally comes with up to 3 day tickets)

I just got an internal Squaw/Alpine email about some new benefits to passholders. Not sure if this has been emailed to people yet, but from what I can tell, it goes into effect immediately.

New:
50% off lift tickets for Friends/Family - any day your pass is valid, you can buy one ticket at 1/2 off.

50% off blackout days - if you want to ski on one of the few remaining blackout days on your pass, you can buy a day ticket for 50% off.

30% off all Squaw/Alpine owned retail outfits. Excludes sunglasses and GoPro. FWIW, the TNF and Salomon stores are both owned by Squaw. So is Starbucks (it isn't clear from the email I got if this includes Starbucks, but it would be worth asking - thinking about it, this probably falls under the next category).

10% off food at Squaw and Alpine. This has been ongoing at Alpine, but now it is good at Squaw too. Keep in mind that Rocker is owned by Squaw, I'm guessing it's good there too. It's definitely good at Funi's, Last Chair, The Arc, Ice Bar, Oly House food courts.

50% of tickets for friends and family with no limit?  That's a pretty sweet deal.  Hope they keep that intact next season.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sinecure 

I just got an internal Squaw/Alpine email about some new benefits to passholders. Not sure if this has been emailed to people yet, but from what I can tell, it goes into effect immediately.

New:
50% off lift tickets for Friends/Family - any day your pass is valid, you can buy one ticket at 1/2 off.

50% off blackout days - if you want to ski on one of the few remaining blackout days on your pass, you can buy a day ticket for 50% off.

30% off all Squaw/Alpine owned retail outfits. Excludes sunglasses and GoPro. FWIW, the TNF and Salomon stores are both owned by Squaw. So is Starbucks (it isn't clear from the email I got if this includes Starbucks, but it would be worth asking - thinking about it, this probably falls under the next category).

10% off food at Squaw and Alpine. This has been ongoing at Alpine, but now it is good at Squaw too. Keep in mind that Rocker is owned by Squaw, I'm guessing it's good there too. It's definitely good at Funi's, Last Chair, The Arc, Ice Bar, Oly House food courts.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JayT 

50% of tickets for friends and family with no limit?  That's a pretty sweet deal.  Hope they keep that intact next season.
 

 

Limited to one per day per passholder as far as I can tell from the email.

Very sweet deal. As is the 30% off retail stuff. They only give employees 40% and that's just available one weekday a month and only on select things.

And I confirmed that these benefits go into effect immediately.

But the fact that you could do that *every* day is pretty sweet.  In comparison, Vail Resorts limits you to a total of 5 or 6 friend tickets and not even at 50% off.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sinecure 

Limited to one per day per passholder as far as I can tell from the email.

 

Discount details on Alpine's and Squaw's websites.

Maybe my standards are just too low these days, but today was surprisingly good.  Aside from an ill-considered foray into Promised Land (although I suspect that Gentian's Gully would've been the better call), I don't think I had a bad run.  D6 and D7 and the areas below them, Wolverine Cirque, North Peril, Alpine Bowl, the unnamed (at least to my knowledge) pitch between Alpine Bowl and Sunspot, Bobby's, even the trees between Seldom and Ridge Run were pretty darned sweet.

Kudos to the Alpenglow and Moment crews for an excellent demo day.  I tried and liked but didn't love Moment's new Deathwish and carryover Jaguar Shark, but next year's Governor was a near perfect ski for me, especially in the 196 (although the 186 brought a big smile to my face too).  It held an edge on hardpack and dust on crust with an ease and grace that belied its 116mm waist, allowing me to carve basically any turn shape I wanted to and feel confident doing it.  I'd love to try it in powder and crud to confirm it, but if it's as good there as I'd expect with its dimensions and shape, it should be even more versatile than the DPS Wailer 112RP.  I think Moment has an unqualified winner on its hands.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JayT 

50% of tickets for friends and family with no limit?  That's a pretty sweet deal.  Hope they keep that intact next season.
 

 

Let's hope they won't have to. 

Hi folks, recently changed jobs, email addy and am moving to Austin!  Couldn't get the system to change my email so I started anew (formerly saSKIbum). We are heading to Tahoe first week of march but will miss the gathering by a day. Have conditions improved much since my last post in January when we canceled our Tahoe trip and went to Breck instead?  I havent been getting email updates because of my move so i figured I would check in. 

~(;-)-<-<\\

Hi 

I may be able to help with your update if you'd like to keep your old user account. 

As for the conditions, it hasn't appeared to be much better by the weather forecasts, but we've been skiing more and more terrain as it opens up and things are skiing pretty darn well.  

Add the snow that's coming in over the next few days, (about a foot) and the way the resorts are managing the snow they have and I think we'll have some good conditions for the next month or so.

It is great to hear more runs are openning!  This has been a dry winter everywhere. Besides our last minute change of venue in early January, we canceled a MLK day trip but we are on track for March 4 in Tahoe!  Trying to beat the spring break crowd and hopefully get some fresh pow while we are there!  

As far as the profile, I gave up trying to update it.  It just would not change the email. And since my user name doesn't fit anymore because of the move, I think the new profile is fitting along with all of the positive life changes!  Out with the old, in with the new and "Snow Baby Snow!"Thanks for the offer to help being an Austin ski bum beats SA any day! And my new boss skis, too, so he understands "it's snowing, gotta go!". 

At Alpine, groomers are skiing consistently well, and off piste is more a day by day thing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by alexzn 

Granite Chief was the truly awful skiing of the day- it does resemble a hot-dogging venue with bumps top to bottom, but almost every bump has a rock sticking off the backside, so there is no way ou can hold a decent line if you are not on rock skis.  KT was skiing decent, the East Face being the only run worth doing.  That was my first day on KT this season and I forgot how the world abruptly falls away from you when you come to the edge of the run, the terrain is still fantastic.

Sounds like what I found last weekend.  I had taken Emigrant intending to hit Granite, and turned back onto Shirley. Teh Suck.

And now that I think of it, I may have been on East Face rather than GS Bowl.  You could only go right off KT, and I skied towards the patrol shack and then back down under the lift line. 
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by alexzn 

Alpine on Sunday was quite a bit better, it had great bump runs down the Wolverine Bowl all the way down, slushy corn on Scott and even some patches of chaulky loose snow here and there.  I did the traverse skiers right off the Summit chair in the direction of Sherwood area (it was a bit of an "okole squeezer" in some places).  I intended to ski the face, but it turned out to be a lot more peppery than it looked from the distance, so I continued on.  There were quite a bit of tracks dropping off the traverse, but I could not see down, and if I learned one thing skiing Squaw is that if you see the tracks, you should not follow them because they can end at the top of a good size cliff.  I finally found a place where I could see down well, and dropped in, it turned out to be the Counterwight Gully, a terrific long wide chute, which was firm-ish, but huge fun to go down, probably was the best run of the weekend.  I forgot how good Alpine terrain is, Squaw really got themselves a terrific bargain.  Alpine contingent- I need a tour ;-)    

I was at Sugar Bowl yesterday, but heard from others that the traverse you took -- over the Keyhole and through the Lower Saddle -- was a real good choice yesterday.  Some nice stuff off the saddle.

I still remember hitting Counterweight for the first time, more than six years ago, led by Sinecure.  His traditional line back then was to take the main entrance, then cut hard right under the cliffs; my favorite last year was to stay left, under the Our Father Traverse, and drop the cliff into five or six turns of rarely-skied powder.

Shoot me a PM and we'll plan that tour.

I went because the bulletin at Gold Coast said it was open but it was roped off when I got there. I think there is enough snow to have fun but I need to sacrifice my base to get it.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by alexzn 

Tower 16 was open, but I cannot imagine skiing that given what it looked from the bottom (it is really more brown than white).