Hit Hidden Heavenly
Thursday, September 3rd, 2009
Heavenly by Lake Tahoe in California has been publicising its hidden treasures for those who like to venture off the beaten piste, ahead of the coming winter.
“Just a few feet away from the hustle and bustle of your standard destination resort lies a skiing nirvana of powder and solitude that many never explore: glade or tree skiing.†said a Heavenly spokesman.
It’s important to ski with a guide or to have tuition in tree skiing before you tackle this kind of terrain, but if you know what you’re doing, there are few better tress skiing destinations anywhere.
Indeed, Heavenly has, ‘glades in spades’ which can be accessed from virtually every lift, providing access to great tree skiing when conditions are right.
One of the resort’s advantages is the type of trees that populate the resort: the red firs and white pines which need sunlight to grow and thus naturally leave a lot of space between one another.
While most other ski areas have to fell trees to create enough space for skiers, the trees at Heavenly, some of which are 350 years old, never get too tight, setting up, instead, a natural slalom course over a nearly 2,000m vertical.
Skiers can warm up with their “beginner” trees – Galaxy Glades and Orion’s Belt. Skiways Glades, Powderbowl Woods and Maggie’s Canyon are long, rolling powder stashes.
Then there’s Avalanche Bowl, Dipper Woods and Mott and Killebrew Canyons for fans of steep and deep. The locals’ favourite is reportedly, Nevada Woods.
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