South Lake Tahoe, CA and NV February 9-12, 2026

[tseeb]

Kirkwood, CA February 9, 2026
After watching most of the Super Bowl in Santa Clara, CA (from my wife's son's house Levi's Stadium where I worked for a few years in retirement - the flyover),

I left home after 7 on Monday and after a few stops got on lift at Kirkwood at 11:30. I took a couple of warmup laps on high-speed low-intermediate Timber Creek before moving to the Reut where I skied Wagon Trail. Snow stayed firm most of the day as it was cold, in the 30s, and windy. I was on my rock skis which I dropped for a tune-up when I got to So. Tahoe as edges were not holding very well and bases had some damage from four December days at Mammoth. Coverage was generally good, but there were more small rocks on top of the snow and thin areas than 2+ weeks ago. I moved to the Backside and took a lap on groomer between Elevator Shaft and Happiness Is. I returned to front-side on N-facing and mostly shaded Thunder Saddle where ungroomed snow was very good.

Then I did a lot of fast laps on high-speed advanced Cornice chair, alternating between Zachary's and Sentinel Bowl. I went into Monte Wolfe to re-fill my water and drink some. After going up the Reut chair, I skied Short Spoke/the Race Course and barely held my edge skiing fast of edge by trees to left in these photos.

Twice I went into Olympic. Top of lift and Olympic are at left and top of Sentinel Bowl to right of center. The Sentinel is the rock at far right.

The first time I turned off early and took alternate to chute I like that had good snow. The second time I skied more of Olympic bumps

before dropping into chute that patroller told me is Shot 11. I quit about 3:30 with almost 23K. Kirkwood is predicted to get 2" on Tues and 10" on Wed.

 

[tseeb]

Heavenly, CA and NV February 10, 2026
We could have both skied for free at Sierra-at-Tahoe but @Tony Crocker wanted the higher altitude of Heavenly so we drove the 1 mile to CA base. We parked closed to ticket office and bottom of Gunbarrel chair that we loaded not much after 9. He bought a half-price ($106 since he had a snow.com card to load it onto) from my pass. It sounded like walk-up price for the 9 days starting this Saturday will be around $300.

We went up to and skied 4 laps on the highest CA level, all Sky chair except for one Canyon chair. They had made snow along Ridge Run which was in good shape, but Ridge Bowl looked very firm/shiny, so we avoided it. High Five had some thin areas. I started down Double Down toward bottom of Canyon chair but snow was too thin and firm so I cut over and followed Tony on road that avoided it. Canyonland was good but near bottom snow was thin enough that you wanted to stay on shaded edge.

We moved to NV and found some good snow in Milky Way Bowl. Higher road after going under Galaxy to Dipper chair was not something to repeat as it was thin then had area mostly missing snow. Big Dipper run was probably the best we skied all day. Once we dropped off towards the chair skiing a steep, smooth drop I'd spotted from the chair. We skied Nevada Trail to getting thin Stagecoach run to Stagecoach chair then went up it and skied still good Upper North Bowl and rode then skied Olympic to Lower Nevada Trail which I thought would be better but had thin areas. We rode North Bowl and Dipper and skied CA Trail to busy Tamarack Lodge for lunch.

It started snowing a little, then sun came out. We rode Tamarack and skied Orion to Jacks which was too firm and did a lap on Comet before riding Dipper and skiing CA Trail back to Sky Chair. We skied Ridge to Canyonland cutting over to High Five. It was good enough that we rode Canyon and skied Ridge to Upper Mombo which had good snow on and getting to SW-facing part. We rode Groove and Tony downloaded Gunbarrel as he didn't want any ski damage so early in his long trip. I avoided thin area at top of Advanced Roundabout by entering it under rope from Groove and went high to avoid another thin area. Coverage and snow the rest of the way down was good.

Tony took some pictures that he'll have to load when he has Internet which we don't at cabin except by hot-spotting phone. I started SkiTracks riding Gunbarrel and it may have shutdown early as it only shows a straightline (next to 20 in 2nd screen print) coming down Roundabout with a low elevation of 7,295 while CA base is 6,565 so I'm adding 730' and counting 21.9K. After me getting some bootwork done, we were almost too late getting to 4-5 very busy sushi Happy Hour that has large selection rolls for $12 each as we were seated after 4:50, but it turned out well. Almost half of the Spider Roll had been eaten when photo was taken at 5:16. Some snow fell overnight and chain control is on I-80 and CA-88, but surprisingly not on US-50 so we may be going to Kirkwood today where 11" was predicted (and 7" new reported 20 min ago).

Edit to add that Sierra posted 8" new at 556 AM and it's about half the drive, free for both of us and may include a $20 Ikon lodge credit (payable in March and only for skiing in US) so we may be heading there instead.