Heavenly Ski Area
Our first ski trip in 2011 was to Heavenly Ski Valley at Lake Tahoe. Felicia, Kendra, Susie, Larry, and I went with Steve and Annelise. We flew to Reno, Nevada and rented 2 cars to drive to South Lake Tahoe, which sits on the Nevada and California state line. This is the fourth time Felicia & I have skied at Lake Tahoe (three times at Heavenly and once at Squaw Valley) and it was our most adventurous trip to get from Reno to the lake.
As we had wished, it snowed before we went on our trip but it snowed 60 inches in the 4 days before we got there. This giant snowfall made us have to put on chains to get over the mountains and down to Lake Tahoe. We arrived in Reno late, got our rental cars (with no chains) and went to two Wal-Marts to buy chains. We were told by several people that the Highway Patrol would not let us drive past Carson City without chains on.
When we got to Carson City at about 1 AM, we were able to put chains on one car, but not the other. We had to go to a Wal-Mart in Carson City to get more chains. It must have been a sad sightseeing a bunch of Texans trying to put on chains late at night in the dark, in deep snow and with the snow still coming down hard. We finally reached our hotel at 3:30 AM – we were all very tired.
We stayed at the MontBleu Resort & Casino on the Nevada side of the street in South Lake Tahoe and skied at Heavenly Ski Resort that lies in California and in Nevada. We skied on both sides of the mountain.
Larry did not ski because of his hurt knee but he had a good time. To Make Bobby Lee feel bad about wimping out on the
trip, I put the snow report below. Maybe we will make it again on another trip. Makes me wonder if my skiing days are limited too.
Click on any photo to see a larger view
Susie, Kendra and Annelise. Before we were done with our trip, Kendra and Annelise skied down a Black Trail several times without breaking any legs. I think that they are pretty safe skiing on their own now.
Felicia is ready to ski. With all her blue on she matched the color of the lake. I do not think that she fell much until the end of the day when were riding a bus back. She hurt her knee pretty bad falling in the bus and has never let me forget that I laughed.
You can see that the powder is pretty good on these trails. It had not been above freezing since it had snowed. About 6″ of powder is enough for me. When Steve tried skiing in 12″ of powder he had a pretty good fall and looked like he sank into a lake.
The views of the lake were great. The sun was out, it was not too cold (for February) and we all got sunburned. I think that skiing on the edge of a big blue lake makes the most interesting ski pictures that I have. Ski shop guys said these were best ski days of the year so far.
Before we were done Steve, Susie and I got in trouble for leaving our two kids to ski by themselves while we were skiing harder trails at the top of the mountain.
Here are Kendra and Annelise skiing in a Terrain Park with big jumps, ramps, and tricks. The girls made some of the jumps, I went around most of them and Steve is lucky to be alive.
Here are some more pictures of the powder on the trails. If you were a good powder skier, I do not think that it could get any better. I stayed on groomed trails that had from 3 to 6″ of powder.
Steve and I went down a very steep Black Trail that was only powder covered moguls. This was the most dangerous trail for both of us and it took us quite a while, but we made it down alive. Susie was smarter and went around and was waiting for us.
