6 Days in Tahoe

We set out for our annual ski week trip on a day when the National Weather Service had a severe winter storm warning for the Sierras. Even so, with chain control for about 50 miles, we still made it up to Northstar in about 5.5 hours.

We've been coming up to Northstar for many years now, and have rented all sorts of properties from houses on the golf course, to rustic condos and now, the new large condos located directly in the Village. They are practically ski-in/ski-out, with nice and convenient large ski lockers to dump all our gear. We usually come in for lunch so we don't have to deal with all the lines and crowds. After all these years, we've finally perfected all the elements of the trip!

The snow was wonderful, the weather was great, the kids were thrilled and we had the same lovely ski instructor as last year - the incomparable Alina. Our condo overlooked the ice skating rink and we learned after we arrived that the Dew Tour was taking place that weekend. Don't worry, we had no idea what it was either!

We were a little apprehensive when we learned that about 20,000 people would be pouring into Northstar to watch stars like Shaun White compete in freestyle and half pipe events. And there was a concert. And music. Lots of music. Music that started at 7 am. Right. Out. Side. Our. Condo. The Friday night concert was like having Common rapping to us in our living room. A minor inconvenience.



The Village at Northstar has been upgraded over the past few years - other than a quick supermarket run, we never had to leave. We had dinner at Mikuni twice (loved the japanese fries), pizza at Rubicon and a fabulous but excrutiatingly slow meal at Baxter's Bistro (their fromage frites - fries with truffled cheese topping - was out of this world). As you can see, fries featured prominently in my diet for the week. We tried to dine at a new place called Chocolate Bar, which sounded fabulous, but the too loud, thumping techno beat chased us away. I definitely felt old...

Our drive back clocked at a remarkable 7 hours of drive time (for those who are unfamiliar with this area, a reasonable drive is around 4 hours). It took us 3 hours to get down the mountain alone while the storm surged around us. I comforted myself by the thought that California needs the water.