Editor’s Note: Long-time Tahoe Weekly readers recently undertook the challenge to ski at six Tahoe ski resorts in a single day and shared their experience. Willie Osterman and his finance Carmel Dewies are Tahoma residents, and Matt Taylor is a resident of Tahoe Pines.
Like many of the Tahoe Weekly fans, we look forward to reading about and planning fun adventures from your magazine. Carmel (Dewies) and I were having dinner with friends Matt and Nancy (Taylor) in late March and thought “Why not try to ski all 6 ski resorts on [Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows] and Homewood season tickets in one day?”
A plan was hatched.
We would need a large vehicle, provisions and a dedicated driver so we could stay booted up. Carmel volunteered to drive, so we set the date for April 2. We had a general idea on a route to follow.
Living near Homewood, we figured we would start our day at Sugar Bowl and end at Homewood hitting Squaw, Alpine, Diamond peak and Sierra-at-Tahoe in between. Matt and I were on the first chair at Sugar Bowl at 9 a.m. and loaded the final chair at Homewood at 3:56 p.m. (Matt said if we were late we would hike up!)
Of the 7-hour day, 5 hours were spent driving, 1 hour for manual ticketing and picnic lunch, and 1 hour of actual on ski time.
Along the way, we were treated to spectacular views of the transition from winter to spring, ran into lots of nice people, and had a truly unique day viewing Lake Tahoe from the tops of our iconic resorts.
Lessons learned
- A dedicated driver is key
- Be flexible and adjust on the fly. Matt was running a mapping app to adjust our route along the way
- Bring backup communications, aka walkie talkies, since lost cell service cost us 20 minutes at Alpine
By Willie Osterman
