So just when we were breaking out our shorts and flip flops, heading to Lake Tahoe to kayak on the lake, mother nature decided to send snow this way instead. No worries – let’s get out the skis (as we both still have dodgy ankles from snowboard crashes) and go for a blast on the mountains!!!!
Our lovely friends we met in Monterey, Dave, Tammy and Tatem, made us really welcome so we didn’t have to sleep in the van in the cold, night mountain temperatures.
Our first day we drove an hour North West around a stunning Lake Tahoe to Squaw Valley. Past the beautiful Emerald Bay.
Squaw Valley Resort has had a record amount of snow this year, almost 200% it’s average year so some of the lifts are staying open until 4 July this year. The runs we did were really wide open with hardly anybody on them.
It was a hot, sunny day so by 1pm the snow was getting really sticky. We called it a day – but what a great day!
Day two we drove 20 minutes around the lake, East, to our friend’s local resort, Heavenly. They even gave us two free lift passes for the day – woo hoo. Heavenly just has four lifts open at the weekends at this time of year (and this was the last weekend) but because it is a bit higher in elevation than Squaw, and it was a cooler morning, the snow was lovely, dry and powdery.
It was great to be on powdery snow again. Unfortunately at 11am they closed the mountain due to a high risk of lightening and thunderstorms and we all had to go back down on the gondola. What a shame!
At least we got amazing views of the lake on the way back down.
And the storm ????? … well it never did materialise. Oh well, we got to look around the town and a small classic car show (which Pete quite enjoyed) instead.
