When we arrived in Truckee, CA, it was the same story as everywhere else we had been thus far, no snow. Well, my snow dance must have worked overtime because the snow finally found us. We were meeting some of Will’s family in Truckee to spend Christmas and get in some family ski time. We arrived and his sister and one niece were able to come up early as well. Alyssa flew in the following day and we made it to the opening day of Northstar ski resort. We had a great time skiing what few runs they had open and a storm was supposed to roll in that night. It snowed the entire next day and the ski resorts in the Tahoe area received anywhere from 5-8 feet of snow. We hit the slopes the following day, which was especially great because the power was out at the house. It was a great couple of days of skiing at Northstar.
Kendall had a hard day.
With Alyssa and Niece, Kendall in tow, we headed down to South Lake Tahoe. We had rented another place down there to ski some other areas. Our original plan had been to also ski Sierra-At-Tahoe. Unfortunately, that resort suffered some significant fire damage from the wild fires this past Summer. Sierra has delayed it’s opening and it’s still unknown, if they will be able to open at all this ski season. We spent a couple of days skiing Kirkwood, which is also part of the Epic pass. It’s a much steeper mountain than most in the Tahoe area and has numerous expert runs. They are famous for their runs off the Wall. The Wall is the ridge line that over looks the ski resort and is definately for experts only. Kendall and I had a lot of fun skiing, maybe next time she will tackle the Wall.
They were parking on the highway. The resort parking was full.
We drove all the way back to the Palisades resort for their Disco Tubing. Yes, I’m probably a little bit certifiable. Anyway, it was pretty cool with a DJ and laser light display on the mountain side. Luckily, for us, it wasn’t too cold that night either. We had a good time.
We moved over to another rental in Stateline, NV near the Stagecoach lift of Heavenly Ski Resort. Heavenly is a large ski resort that straddles the stateline sitting in both Nevada and California. At the time, the resort had only opened it’s California side for parking and we knew that the lot filled up early in the morning. Upon checking in, I asked the desk clerk about a shuttle and she told us about the city bus that goes to the Heavenly Village, and is where you can access the gondola. The bus only runs about once an hour, but it was super convenient, we just had to walk down to the road from the parking lot of our place. Kendall and I were the only ones that wanted to ski that day. Will and Alyssa decided to hang in the Village area. Heavenly was packed as it was the week before Christmas, but Kendall and I discovered the single line and were up the gondola to the chair lift in no time. We had a lot of fun skiing and exploring the various runs. Got back down the gondola in perfect time to meet Will and Alyssa and grab our bus home.
Heavenly Village
Welcome to Nevada 
We heard that the resort would be opening the Stagecoach lift the next morning. So we got up and managed to snag one of the few remaining spots in the parking lot and were up on the chair lit by 8:45. It was perfect as we were able to get a number of runs in before it got crowded. Will and I got tired around 2 and decided to call it a day. Kendall wanted to keep skiing and since we were so close it was easy for Will to come back and pick her up once she was done. Another huge storm was expected to be coming in and we wanted to get back to the rest of the family. So, we cut out a day early and headed back to Truckee to join the rest of the bunch for Christmas.
We were worried about the impending storm, but decided to stick it out through Christmas and take our chances. This time the storm came through as predicted and packed a wallop. We had a great Christmas and were supposed to leave the following day to the San Francisco area. We woke up to no electricity and closed roads. So, yes, now we are officially snowbound and are just waiting for it to be safe enough for us to travel.
I’m still glad for the snow