#1: Palisades Tahoe
Loads of Tahoe mountains provide spectacular knowledgeable terrain, however there’s no ski resort that does it higher than Palisades Tahoe. The resort boasts stunningly excessive in-bounds slopes, together with cliffs, chutes, and couloirs that one might solely dream of snowboarding or driving at your typical resort. However maybe extra importantly, these prohibitively intense slopes span in depth sections of the resort, that means they’re not situated in only one or two areas—and supplied situations enable, company may have entry to the resort’s extremes irrespective of the place on the mountain they discover themselves.
Palisades Tahoe doesn’t have the longest vertical drop, nevertheless it’s no slouch with regards to conventional knowledgeable runs both. Company who don’t need to take care of rocks, obligatory straightlining, or cliff drops can discover conventional double-black-diamond runs all throughout the mountain—and sure, we do have to notice that the resort launched a double-black-diamond score for the primary time in 2022, after holding off on doing so for many years (the Alpine Meadows aspect technically did use double-blacks till 2012, however that was underneath totally different administration).
Critically, the knowledgeable and excessive terrain at Palisades Tahoe isn’t simply localized to the larger and better-known Palisades aspect, but additionally to the Alpine Meadows aspect, which is now bodily linked by the Base-to-Base Gondola. Alpine Meadows might have a shorter vertical drop than the Palisades aspect, however its hardest runs are practically as excessive, that means company can discover themselves overlooking the identical extended obligatory straight strains and related multi-foot cliff drops to these elsewhere on the resort. For the file, if Alpine Meadows have been nonetheless a separate entity, we’d rank it just under Kirkwood, which we’d say simply beats it out when it comes to the focus of extreme-level strains.
Like different mountains within the area, Palisades Tahoe’s knowledgeable and excessive terrain choices do undergo from considerably variable opening schedules—and through below-average snowfall seasons, a number of of the resort’s most daunting routes might not open in any respect. However in case you hit Palisades Tahoe on the proper time, the resort has sufficient catastrophically troublesome strains to beat out all the opposite mountains on this record mixed, and it rightfully earns its place as the highest knowledgeable mountain within the area.
Last Ideas
In order that’s our rank-order information for consultants in Lake Tahoe. You gained’t go flawed with lots of the mountains on this formidable area, however one of the best mountains are really world-class, standing out for each the standard and amount of their hardest terrain. Tahoe might have its issues, however in case you’re a very tenured skier or rider, these points are most likely value overlooking to get a style of simply what this area has to supply.
How’d we do? Would you modify the order? We’d love to listen to from you, so you probably have any ideas, hit us with a remark under!
For extra data on these resorts, try our complete Lake Tahoe mountain opinions. In the event you’re considering seeing how they evaluate to different related mountains, try our California, West Coast, and general rankings.
