Observations From Northstar’s Opening Day

Northstar on November 20, 2020.

Our ranker-in-chief Sam stopped by Northstar on November 20, 2020, its opening day. Here, he shares some thoughts on the experience.

Lake Tahoe’s Northstar ski resort opened for the season today, with five lifts: the Big Springs Express Gondola, the Arrow Express high-speed quad, the Vista Express high-speed quad, the Big Easy bunny hill lift, and the primarily-parking-access Highlands pulse gondola. After a full work day, I headed to the mountain for some afternoon turns around 2pm. It was beautiful out and around 45 °F. This was my first opening day ever, and I was stoked.

I rode the Village Gondola up alone from the base, and there was no line at the time. While the Northstar Village base also hosts the Village Express high-speed quad, it wasn’t running at the time. Given COVID concerns and precautions, I found it rather interesting that Northstar decided to force visitors onto an enclosed lift rather than giving them the option of riding up outside.

The highlighted trails were open on Friday.

Only three trail routes were truly open today: Skid Trail/Lumberjack/Main Street on the main mountain, the bunny hill on Big Easy, and Village Run from mid-mountain to the village. All of these were groomed, although they were pretty carved up by the time I got there.

At the same time, Northstar has gotten a lot of early-season snow. There were some nice woods off the Skid Trail with surprisingly good cover. The turns even had some powder in them, with moguls beginning to form. Experiencing such natural snow in November felt quite special.

Trees off the Skid Trail at Northstar on Opening Day 2020. Conditions were excellent for the time of year.

For opening day, Northstar had some terrain park features open. Only a few small features were available (as was an arguably medium jump), but it was satisfying to have something there.

The resort wasn’t especially crowded, but parts of trails became somewhat congested at times. I was careful to stay conscientious about social distancing, and I avoided interacting with other mountain guests. Only the Vista lift had a short 5-minute line when I was there; my roommate Dave tells me that even before I arrived, crowds had been moving pretty consistently throughout the day. While the Arrow lift services all the same terrain as Vista, the fact that it was open helped spread everyone out.

So after one-and-a-half hours, that was my Northstar opening day experience. While it wasn’t much, this was the first time I’d been on the slopes since Telluride shut down due to COVID-19 on March 14, 2020. That, alone, made the day worth it—with the natural snow as an added bonus.