Heavenly Valley ski day 1 of Tahoe vacation 1/30/12

No new snow since the 5 feet fell last week. We had sunny skies, 10 friends and miles of groomers at Heavenly Valley. We had a great time, though it was quite a shame about the low-snow and the refrozen conditions that hardly softened. But the groomers were epic. Temps were in the mid-30s, so nothing really got soft, though the long blue cruisers skied well, so that is what we skied. In fact we skied it until we were exhausted. We got our $85 discounted lift ticket's worth with the high speed lifts. Despite the lack of powder, the groomers kept us skiing fast. Somehow, 10 of us managed to ski together for most of the day and we enjoyed the spectacular scenery.

I do see some smiles in those pics.

Looks a heck of a lot better than those web cam shots we were checkin out a few weeks ago.

Amazing what five feet will do huh.

Any shot at temps warm enough for corny bumps?

Nice shots. As Harv mentioned it looks way better than a few weeks ago. Glad to see you are having fun.

Yes, we are having fun skiing epic groomers!

I liked Kirkwood much better than Heavenly. Steeper and more interesting terrain, and there were hardly 100 other skiers there all day.

Powderqueen wrote

$85 discounted lift tickets

Was that before or after the discount?

$85 is the discounted price. Tix were $96 at the ticket window.

Kirkwood was $50 with discount ($85 at window)

Mt Rose was $35 if you show a lift tic from another resort on Wednesdays...best value so far. We loved Mt Rose.

Both Kirkwood and Mt Rose were empty and we had the places to ourselves it seemed at times. Heading to Alpine Meadows today.

Great shots . Hey the conditions look fine given THIS season and yeah those cruisers look pretty choice now

Enjoy --- more photos please !