“We live for it. »Skiers flock to Tahoe ski resorts on opening day

Sutton Coletta, 11, of Tiburon, and Preston Brody, 12, of Danville, wanted to beat everyone on the slopes. So they arrived at 6 a.m., three hours earlier, drinking Red Bull and playing video games on their phones for entertainment in the dark and cold.

“I couldn’t sleep, I was so excited,” Brody said. “We wanted the first slopes on the mountain.

At the end of a historic month of snowfall that delivered nearly 4 feet of powder to the mountains of Lake Tahoe, Palisades Рthe new name for resorts formerly known as Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows Рannounced that he would start operating the chairlifts a month earlier. Bor̩al in Soda Springs did the same. The same is true for Mammoth Mountain Ski Resort in the mountains further south.

Even on short notice, skiers and snowboarders lined up at the lifts on Friday morning.

“We had never skied in October before so it was a once in a lifetime opportunity,” said Mark Tanaka, 45, engineer from San Jose. He waited in a line that extended to the Olympic Valley parking lot.

After a difficult year of light snow and pandemic protocols, Tahoe’s ski industry is set for a solid year.

The pandemic did not put a stop to California skiing last year. Resorts opened on time with stringent COVID-19 protocols that kept them open all season without any outbreaks. By the end of the season, the state’s ski areas had recorded 6.7 million visits, about 10% above the 10-year average. (It’s also 22% more than the year before, which the pandemic cut short by about a month.) Tahoe’s 11 ski areas typically account for more than half of those visits.

But the experience had changed. Resorts have canceled walk-in ticket sales, instead forcing skiers to book their dates online in advance. Meals in lodges and cafeterias, which are normally packed on snowy weekends, have been replaced with packed lunches. The following evenings have been suspended altogether.

This season, with vaccines pouring in and a COVID season behind them, resorts are bringing back most of the services and events that guests are used to. However, each resort does things a little differently, and industry leaders are urging skiers and snowboarders to do their research before committing to a trip.

“Last year we shared a unified message” on security protocols and operations, said Mike Reitzell, president of the California Ski Industry Association. “This year, it varies from station to station. Everyone should pay attention to the policies and procedures of each resort.

That this month’s historic snowfall in the central Sierra – nearly 4 feet, just 2 inches from the 52-year record for October set in 2004-2005 – indicates a deep snow winter is a blow.

“Trying to tie October to what might happen the rest of the season is about as reliable as trying to predict the winter season any fall,” wrote Bryan Allegretto, Tahoe Daily Snow Forecaster for the mountain weather company OpenSnow, in its seasonal outlook, published Thursday.

That is to say not reliable at all.

After analyzing historical snowfall data in the Sierra since 1970, Allegretto found that the 10 winters with the highest levels of precipitation in October produced only five times above-average snowfall in the Sierra. “For this reason, I said there was no correlation between a heavy snowfall in October and the rest of the season,” he wrote.

Still, he expects another round of storms to bring snow to lake level starting late next week.

The early dump was a relief for the people of Tahoe, tired from 18 months of pandemic closures, smoky skies, wildfires, evacuations and forest closures.

“We just took the plunge and the joy of skiing is huge for us,” said Colleen Dalton, CEO of Visit Truckee. “It reverberates throughout our community. It relieves the trauma we have suffered over the past two years. “

Some enthusiastic skiers did not wait for the resorts to open and instead headed out into the Tahoe hinterland to take turns at the start of the season.

“For someone like me, a die-hard ski enthusiast, I couldn’t be happier,” said Josh Daiek, a professional freeskier from South Lake Tahoe who posted Instagram videos of himself backflipping. in powder hiding places this month. “It’s great to see all the mountains covered in white. We have a better base right now than in January in recent years. Everyone in the community is excited.

Back on the tram line from Palisades to Olympic Valley, Zach Hosny, a 30-year-old snowboarder from Tahoe City, took a day off to celebrate the surprise start to the season. He said he worried about the outlook for the winter after several years of drought prevented the mountain from fully opening up and noted that things were particularly bad earlier this fall when the Truckee River broke down. is dried up.

“I’m just excited for the snow. It looks like it’s going to be a good ski season, ”Hosny said. “We live for this.”

Gregory Thomas is the editor-in-chief of The Chronicle of lifestyle & outdoor. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @GregRThomas

Alexei Koseff is a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @akoseff