Grateful for Snow: Early Season report from Squaw Valley

Early skiing in California is tricky. This is the first year in seven years that most of the resorts around Lake Tahoe had been open at all at Thanksgiving. Anything before Christmas is gravy. Even if a resort is open, how many lifts? How many runs? How much are they charging for limited skiing/

After our mixed experience the previous day at Boreal, we debated where to go next: Squaw Valley? Northstar? or somewhere else on the North side of Lake Tahoe?

The drive up from Reno is quick if you’re using an iPhone to track the app with ski reports and comparing websites. I pulled off on 267 to go to Northstar with a report of 6 lifts open and $69 for adults and $19 for kids for lift tickets, then when we saw that Squaw was $79 and kids were $10, off we went in that direction partly because I’d skiied there before many years ago and I’d read on-line that the cable car was open and besides, it was Thanksgiving and they have a big buffet up high on the mountain and that sounded special.

Unfortunately, Squaw offered very little: when they said 5 lifts, they included a magic carpet, beginner lift, two lifts servicing one run each, the cable car which did not take you to any place you could ski!

But the small boy had his heart set on the cable car ride, and we didn’t know what else to do for Thanksgiving dinner, so we went for it.

What a waste of money: $79 per person, $10 per child under 12–for 2 runs! One very advanced intermediate, and the other a black diamond!

At least the people on the runs were courteous and in-control.

Employees at Squaw were nice enough but didn’t seem to know anything. When they sold us the lift tickets, they really should have told us what we were getting: one rocky icy lousy run of a decent length and a second really short steep run. What a rip-off.

The cable car ride up to 8200′ was a blast and thrilled the small boy to know end. The meal tasted delicious: smoked pheasant soup, butternut squash soup, butternut squash raviolis, other pastas, salads, ham, and turkey with all the traditional sides, plus desserts. It was served with a complimentary and utterforgettable chardonnay and merlot; corkage was $25 and if we’d known they had NO OTHER WINES to choose from, we would have brought a bottle with us.

Then, halfway through the meal, we got terrible gas followed by other gastro-intestinal difficulties!

So much for early season skiing–and the Thanksgiving buffet at Squaw Valley. Guess we’ll be heading out to San Francisco for some bike riding and museum visits!

PS I’ll add photos ASAP.