Two Lake Tahoe ski resorts are currently open and by the end of the week three more resorts will join them, bringing the total to five openings for skiing and snowboarding.
Heavenly Mountain, Northstar California and Squaw Valley Alpine are all scheduled to open Friday, Nov. 17 for the 2017-18 season. Already open are Lake Tahoe ski resorts, Mt. Rose and Boreal Mountain. Mammoth Mountain had its opening last week as well.
The Lake Tahoe regional weather is calling for cold temperatures this week, allowing ski resorts to continue making snow. Snow is being predicted for Monday and possibly later in the week.
Coming off a season where many Lake Tahoe ski resorts had record-setting snow totals and extended their closing date, Heavenly Mountain and Northstar California are expected to open multiple lifts for their opening day on the slopes. Another one of Vail Resorts in Lake Tahoe – Kirkwood Mountain – has announced it will open Nov. 22, one day prior to Thanksgiving.
Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows received 12 inches of new snow from a recent storm. Squaw remained open longer than any California ski resort last year, and perhaps the longest in the nation, finally shutting down its lifts for good a week after the Fourth of July.
For more than a decade, Boreal Mountain was typically the first Lake Tahoe-area ski resort to open for the season. However, that role has been taken over by Mt. Rose Ski Tahoe, a Nevada resort near Lake Tahoe that has been first the last three seasons – this year for two days (Oct. 27-28), before shutting down for more than a week. Mt. Rose reopened Nov. 7, becoming the first Tahoe ski resort to open for the season.
Located off Interstate 80 at the Boreal Ridge Road/Castle Peak exit, Boreal Mountain opened for the season one day after Mt. Rose, offering one lift Nov. 8, thanks to 15 inches of snow over the previous weekend and its snowmaking effort. Although not the first in the Tahoe region, Boreal was the first California ski resort to open this season.
“I guess it’s a little bit of a rivalry we have going on with Mt. Rose,” said Tucker Norred, Communications and Marketing Manager at Boreal. “It’s always nice to be the first Tahoe resort to open. But it’s also great to be known as the first ski resort to open in California.”
Like all Lake Tahoe resorts, Boreal Mountain will also depend on the weather and its snowmaking operation to open more lifts and terrain.
“Once we open, we always want to stay open for the season. Hopefully that will be the case this season,” Norred said.
