Observations From Heavenly’s Opening Weekend

The High Five trail at Heavenly on November 21, 2020.

Our ranker-in-chief Sam stopped by Heavenly on November 21, 2020, during its opening weekend. Here, he shares some thoughts on the experience.

Lake Tahoe’s Heavenly ski resort opened for the season this weekend, with top-to-bottom skiing on its California Side. I headed to the mountain on Saturday around 11:30am, and I spent about 3 hours there.

The highlighted trails were open this weekend.

I parked at the California Lodge base, the only one open this weekend. When I got there, there was a huge line at the ticket window to pick up passes (by my estimations, it was about an hour long). It seemed that a lot of people either bought their passes late or didn’t submit an online photo, and consequently, didn’t get their passes in the mail this year. With nobody in that line wearing skis, I saw less social distancing between groups than I would have liked.

I rode the Gunbarrel Express lift up alone from the California Lodge base, and there was no line at the time. Heavenly’s tram was also running at a reduced capacity, but given COVID, I decided it was best not to ride in an enclosed space with other people.

In addition to the beginner Patsy’s area that led to the rest of the mountain, a few runs off both the Canyon and Powderbowl Express lifts were open today. The entire mountain was covered with snow, even though most of it wasn’t open.

The line for the Powderbowl Express six-pack was somewhat long, and it took 5 minutes to get on the chair. The line for the Canyon Express quad was even longer, with wait times of 10 to 15 minutes between laps. Despite language in the resort’s policy stating that four-person lifts would only be loaded with two singles on opposite sides, the lifties were loading singles along with groups of two. Unlike in typical circumstances, singles queues moved slower than group lines throughout the day. On the chairs with lines, I didn’t really see anyone asking to ride up on their own. I rode up with someone opposite to me on every Canyon lap.

The line for the Canyon Express lift Saturday afternoon.

With the long line, I found it intriguing that Heavenly wasn’t running the Sky Express, which neighbors the Canyon Express and services all the same terrain (and then a bit more). The resort likely could have spread out some of the crowds by having that open—perhaps there wasn’t enough cover at the time to do so. Once that lift gets open, capacity in the area will double.

Despite these misgivings, Heavenly’s terrain was quite the treat this weekend. In addition to the expected beginner and intermediate groomers for an opening weekend, the resort had some ungroomed mogul terrain open. The mountain had been getting some early-season snowstorms, so cover on these was surprisingly good. One might even say it was powdery.

Turns weren’t easy—snow was the typical wet and heavy “Tahoe cement.” Moreover, the resort had been open for about a day and a half when I got there, so these advanced runs were pretty tracked, with some thin cover. However, they provided a rewarding workout quite unique for a ski resort in November. Notably, I felt conditions were better than a typical good day on the East Coast. In addition, Heavenly’s phenomenal lake views hadn’t diminished at all.

Density on these ungroomed trails was low, making it easy to keep a social distance from others. However, the beginner and intermediate runs were more congested, making it more difficult—but still very possible—to maintain proper distancing.

The phenomenal views from downloading Heavenly’s Gunbarrel Express lift.

Heavenly’s lower-mountain trails were closed, so I had to leave the resort by taking the Gunbarrel Express down to the base. While I would have loved to ski down to my car, downloading this lift was quite the experience thanks to an astonishing front-and-center view of Lake Tahoe. The entire city of South Lake Tahoe was visible as well. The chair stopped several times on my way down, and this was somewhat disconcerting given the sharp downward slope of my ride—I got the sense that the bidirectional lift loading was causing issues.

Overall, the day was enjoyable thanks to the high-quality snow, open advanced terrain, and, as always, Heavenly’s one-of-a-kind lake views. However, the lines at the resort were concerning, and consequently, I probably won’t be returning to the resort during an early-season weekend again. Hopefully, Heavenly can quickly open up more terrain and lifts to diminish these crowd issues.