Alpine Meadows–Summit chair

We were up at our Tahoe/Donner place the past weekend.  It was the first time we have been able to ski all year.  There has been no snow at all until a couple of weeks ago, and we had other commitments last weekend. 

Anyway there was still enough snow to cover some of the runs, so all in all we had a good time.  The weather was sunny and bright.  The big news this year is that Squaw Valley USA, where we’ve had season passes for many years, has merged with neighboring Alpine Meadows Ski Resort.  The upshot is that we now get to ski Alpine Meadows on our season pass along with Squaw Valley.  They are running free shuttle buses between the two resorts and the ride is only about 15 minutes or so, with buses running every 15 minutes! 

So, we ventured over to Alpine Meadows on Saturday and Sunday.  There is a high-speed, six-person lift called “Summit Chair” that goes all the way up to the summit of Alpine Bowl, above 8,000 feet.  The view is utterly spectacular, with Lake Tahoe floating below the horizon.  And it’s a long, long way down to the bottom, so it is a great ski run. 

Sunday, I took some pictures from the top of Alpine Bowl where the Summit Chair unloads.  While it was sunny and cold, there was a big wind blowing right up the face of the run, so I was getting a face full of wind-blown ice crystals when I took these.  I could barley see the view-finder so I was pretty much guessing.  I’m posting three of the better shots.  Please click on them to blow them up.

** Here is a shot showing Lake Tahoe floating in upper middle of the picture.  By that way, that is Eileen in the lower right corner in the black outfit.

** Another shot of the Lake and Eileen.

** A shot looking down the run.  The run goes down this face and then turns left in about the middle of the shot, and then wends its way a long ways down to the bottom.

I’m sure glad I’m living long enough to enjoy the beauty and thrill of the whole experience!