Skiing is in Patricia Northrop’s blood. Rather, it’s part of her DNA. “My parents would put me out the back door and say, ‘Go play on these things,’” says Northrop, who first clicked into skis at age 3. “Skiing is such a wonderful feeling, and...
Skiers and riders spend fall and early winter praying for powder. But across the Tahoe Basin, ski resorts are taking weather into their own hands, installing a new crop of snowmaking machines to assure a deep, season-long snowpack. Snowmaking is just one of the many...
Here in Tahoe, we are located in a slice of California that’s somewhat removed from the rest of the state. It’s a point of pride to explain to outsiders that, yes, it does snow in California, and the skiing is just as great as the...
Watch an up-and-coming Tahoe teenager ski moguls today and you can see the past and present of bump skiing inextricably linked. The courage and skill required to smash down the steep fall line of a mogul course can be traced back to the early hotdoggers who...
It’s late June in Chamonix, France.The first golden rays of sunshine are coloring the verdant lower shelf of the Aiguilles Rouges. On the other side of the valley, glaciers flowing from the ice-encrusted summit of 15,780-foot Mont Blanc, the highest peak in Western Europe, remain...
In the lifecycle of a sport, snowboarding has hit its version of the midlife crisis years. The youthful exuberance and wild experimentation of the 1980s and ’90s is gone. The punk rock– and heavy metal–scored shred flicks sit like dusty, yellowed photo albums. It’s hard...
Cordial, articulate and adept at rocketing down icy mountains, Marco Sullivan was both a fan favorite and media darling throughout his 15-year World Cup career. Even his rivals enjoyed his company....
O Canada! Your natural charms are many, but perhaps none so staggeringly stunning as the steep, snow-covered summits belonging to Banff National Park. Established in 1885, not long after three Canadian Pacific Railway workers stumbled upon a series of natural hot springs, the 2,564-square-mile swath...
Cross-country ski areas are particularly vulnerable to the vagaries of winter. This is especially true for Tahoe Cross Country, which, at a relatively low elevation of 6,600 feet, needs cold winter storms to open its extensive network of trails above the North Shore of Lake...
A hiking hotspot in the summer, Tahoe’s prized wilderness area transforms into a serene backcountry paradise come winter I hook the tail of my climbing skin on my ski and toss it up on the snowbank next to the other one. “What time do you have...