Heavenly, CA and NV 12/22/07

[tseeb]

We were in the tram at 8:40 and on Sky Chair at 9. The only runs open from the top were Ridge and High Roller (formerly Betty's). High Roller had thin coverage so we crossed back to Ridge which has great Lake Tahoe views, but not much challenge. Ridge Bowl and Double Down both were open with thin cover warning and had good snow and very little traffic. You had to be careful as rocks were sticking up and lurking just under the snow. If I did not stay on the main groomed (and unchallenging) runs, I averaged a rock hit per run.

After about 4 runs on the upper CA trails and losing my friend, I headed to NV where I ran into him on my first run down Dipper. The only improvement on Dipper from two weeks previously was they let you finish on Jack's which is more challenging than Orion, but also rocky. After going up and down Dipper together, we went up Comet to take Olympic Downhill to Stagecoach lift which had opened previous day. We missed the opening of new high-speed Olympic Chair (12/23), but they also need to get more runs open as Olympic run was crowded enough without Olympic chair running.

After lunch we headed back to CA. On the way down, I took Waterfall which has great packed powder on skiers left, especially considering it does not have snowmaking. I took two runs down the Face (East Bowl - under the Tram) which Heavenly opened on manmade snow. There was some good packed powder, but many places were getting firm as the new snow had been scraped off and the man-made was showing through.

It was much warmer than previous day at Northstar. Even though it was single digits in South Lake Tahoe in the morning, there was an inversion which had the top of the mountains in the 20s early and it got warmer during the day. Heavenly still needs more snow to get more runs open to spread out the crowds. They do not allow any tree skiing as the coverage it not there. We quit at 1:45 to do some work on cabin before leaving to return to Bay Area at 4 pm. 17 runs/21 K vertical.

 

[mikesathome]

Thanks for the Tahoe reports, please keep them coming!
I arrive 2.7.08 and I am watching the weather and no BS reports to plan my turns for that weekend

 

[Admin]

Heavenly's new Olympic Express chair debuted yesterday:

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[Tony Crocker]

The Olympic run down to the Stagecoach base is a very nice 2,000 vert cruiser. But the placement of that lift is somewhat frustrating. From Comet or Dipper you must take the long and tedious Crossover catwalk that puts you almost to the bottom of the Olympic lift. Crossover cuts across a south facing slope, thus really slow in warm weather, must be especially fun for snowboarders.

The old Olympic Chair was the relocated East Peak after Comet went in. East Peak went from the bottom of Dipper to the top of the Olympic run; thus no boring traverse, off the lift right onto Olympic. When Heavenly put in the new gondola, I saw they put in a new lift toward East Peak. But it's a beginner lift, doesn't go high enough, and you're still forced onto Crossover to get to Olympic or the Nevada base areas.

Prior management also relocated the Wells Fargo chair (which gave Heavenly over 4,000 vertical) to Galaxy in 1982. Galaxy is an over-a-mile-long 1,110 vertical lift good for beginners, but unfortunately isolated from any other easy terrain at Heavenly. The old Wells Fargo was only occasionally open due to its low elevation, but the run down there was interesting, a real treat and challenge for me when I first skied it in 1979. One might consider it karma that the Sierra enjoyed its record 1982-83 snow season immediately after the Wells Fargo lift was removed.