Ski season under way
Tahoe visitors undaunted by new restrictions on opening day
The coronavirus pandemic’s resurgence didn’t dissuade hundreds of eager skiers and snowboarders from showing up for opening day at Heavenly Ski Resort in South Lake Tahoe on Friday morning.
Nor did Gov. Gavin Newsom’s decision to “pull the emergency brake” that sent several counties into the state’s most restrictive purple tier — including El Dorado, which encompasses South Lake Tahoe.
“I’m following Gavin’s lead!” joked Jim Schroeder, a snowboarder standing in a spacedout lift pass line in the parking lot at Heavenly. He was referencing the discovery earlier this week that the governor had broken the spirit of California’s shelter in place rules by dining indoors with colleagues at the French Laundry in Napa Valley.
Heavenly and Northstar, in Truckee, are the first of TaPhotos
hoe’s 11 major ski areas to open this season. The rest are slated to start spinning chairlifts in the next three weeks. Schroeder had driven to Tahoe from Sacramento that morning with a few friends to ride the first day of the year. None of them harbored concerns for contracting COVID19 or adding to the recent resurgence of the virus.
“I’d rather be here than anywhere else,” said Kiel White, a snowboarder waiting in line with Schroeder. “My wife was anxious about it, but with skiing you’re covering your face to begin with. Distancing is the nature of this as it is.”
The first wave of the coronavirus in March prompted a sudden shutdown at Tahoe’s ski areas even as fresh powder was piling up on their slopes and beckoning thousands of mountain lovers from across Northern California. In the intervening eight months, the ski industry at large has crafted a detailed framework of safety measures to bring skiers and riders back to the mountains for the onset of winter.
Across Tahoe, ski areas and resorts have instituted a series of new protocols, some of which fundamentally change the experience for Bay Area weekend warriors used to making lastminute plans when the snow is good. This year, resorts and ski areas are limiting day tickets and requiring non-pass-holders to buy their tickets online in advance for specific dates, a way of controlling the number of people allowed on a hill at one time.
The lodge experience also has changed. Rental shops have set lower-than-normal capacity quotas. Bathrooms have been outfitted with partitions between sinks and urinals, with automated faucets and paper towel dispensers. Cafeterias are subject to the same protocols as businesses in town — in the purple tier, they are closed altogether. Ski areas are offering grab-and-go food items and encouraging people to “use their car as their locker” this season.
“It’s been quite a process,” said Tom Fortune, general manager of Heavenly. After the winter shutdown, Heavenly reopened its hill for summertime activities like hiking and mountain biking, while rolling out new public health measures. “But winter is a lot bigger than summer, so we’re really homing in on the standard operating procedures — social distancing, mask wearing, keeping the buildings to occupancy allowed per county. It’s all been pretty sophisticated and dialed in.”
In North Tahoe, Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows — two separate but neighboring resorts owned by Alterra Mountain Company — are gearing up to open Nov. 25. They have invested $ 1 million in new health and safety infrastructure, including a series of “electrostatic sanitizing sprayers.”
“It’s been constant curveballs” with respect to shifting shelterinplace rules, said Ron Cohen, president and COO at Squaw Alpine. “The heaviest impacts are to dinein and indoor spaces. We’re encouraging people to look at this season as more than ever about skiing and less than ever about the rest of the ski experience.”
Communal customs like apresski happy hours, lodge parties and outdoor concerts have all been scrubbed this year.
Ultimately, resort managers say, the goal is to control visitation and carefully manage skier behavior on the mountain to ensure the industry sustains through an unprecedented winter without contributing to a public health crisis.
With Newsom’s decision to shift counties back to the restrictive purple tier, questions have emerged about whether ski areas should be allowed to open on schedule. Most in the ski industry say that the essence of skiing — being in the wideopen outdoors, separate from others, going at one’s own pace — makes it an ideal pandemic escape.
Mike Reitzell, president of the California Ski Industry Association, pointed out that the state’s first shelter-in-place mandate in the spring didn’t prevent people from visiting the Tahoe basin, but in fact had the reverse effect: It spurred anxious Bay Areans to take up residence at mountain vacation homes for the duration of summer. The migration sparked tensions between Tahoe locals and tourists who crossed paths on busy hiking trails and crowded parking lots.
“We voluntarily shut down March 15, and did that stop anyone from going to Tahoe in the middle of a shelter-in-place order? Not at all,” Reitzell said. “People are going to go to these mountain communities and our resorts give them organized outdoor recreation.”
The skiers and snowboarders who showed up to Heavenly on Friday morning were covered head-to-toe in the usual colorful garb and seemed relaxed about waiting in longer-than-usual lift lines. ( Ski areas are spacing out riders on chairlifts as well.)
Still, in one midmountain lift maze, an older skier hailing from Reno took a moment to voice her concern with a lift operator about people with what she considered irresponsibly lax facial covering and exposed noses.
“There are a lot of us in our 60s and 70s who thought we’d be safe coming here to ski,” said the woman, who requested anonymity. “But there is at least 25% of people I’ve seen in line who aren’t covering their faces. If that keeps up, they’re going to shut us down.”
Back at the base area, a Heavenly staffer had to turn away a group of young skiers who hadn’t heard about the reservation requirement.
“The theme of this year is, know before you go,” said Fortune of Heavenly. “Things are changing so quickly. … And please respect the rules. We all want to open and stay open all season.”