| Skiing near Alpine Meadows’ Sherwood Run; a ski patroller with two rescue dogs at Alpine Meadows. |
 |
 |
Endless Vacation® magazine’s Dan Durller set off to oversee a shoot on the ski slopes of Lake Tahoe with photographer Preston Schlebusch and his assistant Brian Offidani. It was a five-day adventure he won’t soon forget.
EARLY START
We began our first day at 5:30 a.m. to make the most of the dawn light. We met in the lobby of our hotel, the Mont Bleu Resort, where gamblers were still buying rounds of drinks with money they’d won in the casino the night before. We grabbed a coffee at a Starbucks and headed north along the lake’s western shore. Our destination: Alpine Meadows ski resort, where we were scheduled to trail a pair of local skiers to capture them in action. We watched the sun rise over the eastern mountain ranges as we drove up curvy Route 89, which hugs the cliff. Pink Floyd blared on the radio—always a good start to the day.
We pulled into the Alpine Meadows base area around 8 a.m. and were greeted by the sight of glistening ski runs. The terrain was wide open and covered in fresh snow—unlike on the East Coast, where ski trails are carved out of the forest. Here, the big bowls and valleys offer plenty of room to cruise.
DOGS TO THE RESCUE
A variety of mutts and golden retrievers works behind the scenes at Alpine Meadows to keep things running smoothly. We watched as a rescue dog jumped on cue onto a ski patroller’s shoulders, ready to bomb down a run to the next person in need. These animals do everything from saving skiers buried by avalanche to fetching a glove that’s fallen from a chairlift into a treacherous bit of hard-to-reach terrain. The dogs have turned into de facto mascots for Alpine Meadows; visitors can even buy T-shirts with the dogs’ images. (Profits, we were assured, go to a worthy cause—beer money for ski patrollers.)
THE SKIERS
The real highlight was getting to spend a few hours skiing with pros Jeremy Benson and Lynn Kennen. The two, who were beyond accommodating, know the mountain backwards and forwards: where to find the best ski conditions and where to get the best shots. This isn't surprising, considering that their home is only a quarter mile from the lifts. The mountain, and all of its 3,600 acres, is their backyard. And it's not just Alpine Meadows. As we paused on a ridgeline to survey dozens of jaw-dropping peaks, Jeremy pointed far across the valley. “You can hike up there,” he said, “and then ski that.” This was real backcountry skiing.
Later that day, Lynn was scheduled to shadow a big mountain coach so she could learn how to teach people to ski down a chute, set a snow anchor and then rappel down a rocky cliff face. I was content to feast on a fantastic pulled-pork sandwich and drink a PBR at the Mid-Mountain Chalet restaurant at the base of the Scott triple chair (lunch for two, $30 without drinks, tax or tip). That afternoon we had a couple of hours to kill before an evening shoot at Squaw Valley. After our early start, we were tired—but there was no way we weren’t going to get in a few runs. We tore it up, Tahoe-style.
NOTE: Information may have changed since publication. Please confirm key details before planning your trip.
|