Lodges for All Seasons : Luxury amenities <i> and </i> activities for kids? Two new year-round resorts, in Squaw Valley and Yosemite, are betting guests will pay for both.

This was scarcely Lake Tahoe as I had known it before--white-on-white winter days and getting up at dawn to ski the milk run.

Below the vast stone deck of our Squaw Valley hotel on this early summer evening, a new golf course was greening under the lazy spit-spitting of rainbirds. Across the snug little valley, the mountains seemed so close you still could distinguish the branches of pine trees even as the sky was darkening.

In front of me on the table were a glass of chilled wine and a platter of grilled swordfish topped with beurre blanc and three colors of fresh raspberries. I was just wondering whether peaceful twilights like this existed anywhere in Los Angeles when my daughter burst into a joyful rendition of the Chuck E Cheese jingle--that singsong chant that ends “. . . where a kid can be a kid!”

Elizabeth is 4. Travel hasn’t been quite the same since 1986.

Over the past year, two multimillion-dollar mountain resorts have opened in the Sierra Nevada on two assumptions: that adults will spend as much as $200 a night for a hotel room with amenities in the same mountains where they used to backpack and sleep in tents, and that an adult can be an adult and a kid can be a kid in the same place.

That sounded suspiciously easier to promise than to pull off. After all, how do you reconcile an urban adult’s longing to sling on a backpack and head into a wilderness or to spend six uninterrupted hours curled up reading, with a 4-year-old’s determination to spend all day on the waterslide?

For us, the answer was to make some pre-travel mental adjustments, lean heavily on concierges to wade through complicated activity schedules, and pack a Gold Card.

The most sophisticated of the two Sierra resorts is Lake Tahoe’s stunningly designed, $130-million Resort at Squaw Creek. The other is the Tenaya Lodge, a more familiar-looking, $45-million Marriott built on non-federal land just below the southern entrance to Yosemite National Park.

Both are summer-winter resorts. Both had bumpy start-ups because of environmental concerns. Both seek guests looking to tie up the loose ends in their lives in one fell swoop by restoring their relationships with nature, spending quality time with their kids, and even holding business conferences, all in the span of a three- or four-day stay.

So much for the similarities.

The Tenaya Lodge is the first full-service hotel to open in the Yosemite area in decades, its principal competition being the venerable--and eternally booked--Ahwahnee Hotel on the valley floor. The Tenaya advertises itself as “Yosemite with all the amenities,” though it is worth keeping in mind that the valley itself is a good 45-minute drive north. It takes about six hours to drive from Los Angeles to Fish Camp, the small town two miles outside the south entrance of the park where the lodge is located. (The alternative is a somewhat costly flight to Fresno and a drive in a rental car up the mountain.)

“We’re looking to attract the guy who lives in Palos Verdes, has a couple of kids, but doesn’t want to live in a tent when he comes back to Yosemite as a mature adult,” said Bill Walp, director of marketing for the Tenaya Lodge. “We’re a mountain lodge that offers the full hotel experience.”

At first look, Tenaya Lodge appears more like a prosperous motel, a design so standard that it could as easily be found in Atlanta or New Jersey as Yosemite. The entry is through an asphalt parking lot that half the rooms in the hotel overlook.

Still, the Tenaya proved a pleasant, accessible sort of place whose mostly young staff reaches out to children from the moment bellmen welcome newcomers with Tenaya Indian feather headbands. Kids from ages 5 through 12 can attend daily camps that cost $15 for 2 1/2 hours in the afternoon or $25 for two sessions ending with a movie at 10 p.m.

Young staffers take kids for hikes, help them with crafts projects and pack them off for an afternoon learning about horses and painting horseshoes. My daughter, whom they didn’t balk at taking even though she was a year younger than the cutoff, wanted to go back a second day.

The late-afternoon sessions were designed to give parents free time to spend on their own, though we found the schedule odd. Fish Camp isn’t exactly equipped to offer a night on the town, and the 3:30 start time for day camp was too late to allow for, say, a serious adult day hike or a fishing trip at a nearby lake.

The amply staffed concierge desk made a substantial contribution to our stay by helping sort through the welter of day hikes, aerobic walks, horse rentals, fishing trips and local bus tours of Yosemite.

One whole-family event we chose was a “chuck wagon jamboree,” which started when a horse-drawn wagon picked us up and drove us to a horse camp in a nearby mountain valley. For $22 for adults and $16 for kids, we ate freshly grilled steaks, drank boiled coffee from the campfire and--this was the highlight for a 4-year-old--roasted marshmallows for gooey s’mores. Two musicians (one playing a jury-rigged wash basin) sang old American favorites in an evening that was as close as possible on this sort of trip to the ranger-led sing-alongs I remember when we camped in Yosemite when I was a child.

Thinking of Yosemite National Park as a day trip rather than a wilderness excursion helped level out our expectations. After being warned about heavy traffic through the park and gates that closed up when quotas were reached, we decided to take a day-long bus tour of Yosemite. For reasons no one understood, traffic was down. The tour was the biggest mistake of the trip. Tour buses weren’t allowed up to the Glacier Point overlook at the time we were there--a Monday before the long July 4 weekend--and are never allowed to go to the top of the Mariposa Grove of giant redwoods.

Part of the Marriott concept seemed to be that after such trips, parents would spend their evenings at the Jackalope Lounge or the Sierra restaurant off the lobby. But the Marriott has rarely had the same sort of success with food as with hotels, and the deficit shows up so clearly at the Tenaya Lodge that it seemed almost amusing.

The Sierra restaurant is billed as a bit of Northern Italian cuisine in Northern California. The menu, along with the prices, were what you’d expect to find in Los Angeles. But the wine list carried only the names of wines. No listing by year. Why? I asked the waiter. “Because the years keep changing,” replied the friendly young college student who was serving us.

Determined to offer guests trendy cuisine after a day hike, the restaurant served bread with olive oil instead of butter. But if it was indeed made from olives, this oil had lost its virginity long ago. Fried calamari arrived nearly bright red, soused in what tasted like Lawry’s seasoning salt and paprika. “It’s good enough for me,” protested Elizabeth, scarfing up.

But there were some wonderful salads, and the child’s menu turned out to be one of the best bargains of the trip: reasonably wholesome kid dinners at McDonald’s prices. If the Sierra was a disappointment, the cafe was appealing and satisfying; there was even a line for breakfast. Muffins, fresh OJ and boxed lunches are on takeout lists.

Like the new leather chairs in its lobby, the Tenaya Lodge wants wearing-in. There is a brand-new fitness center filled with exercise machines you’d wait in line for back home, but the sauna and steam room weren’t turned on when we wanted to used them. The outdoor pool was pleasant enough, but anybody who spends half her time on the phone doesn’t really want Muzak to tan by.

Still, you can play croquet or Ping-Pong outdoors with a margarita by your side, or rent a mountain bike and reach a real meadow in 10 minutes. Indoors, there is a pool where you can find a pickup game of water volleyball in the afternoon. The staff is friendly, and that’s worth a lot when you travel with kids.

Moreover, the lodge weathered a few problems its first year, ranging from the drought to the disastrous fire inside Yosemite Park. Sewer construction problems kept part of the lodge closed until this summer. But occupancy just this past week was 92%, Walp said.

Is it worth $179 a night for a standard room that doesn’t come with golf course and tennis courts? That’s the question. The alternatives are local bed and breakfasts, motels, the venerable Ahwahnee Hotel, whose rates exceed $200 and which requires reservations up to a year in advance, and the century-old Wawona Hotel. The Wawona, which has a golf course and pool, is just inside the park a few miles north of the Tenaya. Many of the rooms don’t have baths, and air conditioners hang outside the old wood-frame windows, but it clearly has the sort of rustic charm that’s lacking in the brand-new Marriott.

The Tenaya Lodge is a place that’s worth a second try someday. Though summer is clearly the high season, Yosemite National Park’s Badger Pass ski area is a short drive to the north. It isn’t one of the most challenging ski areas, but it is one of the most beautiful, and it’s a great place to learn.

They say there will be holiday packages for Christmas. I bet the eggnog will come from the supermarket but the lobby will be hung with piney greens, and you’ll make friends caroling by the fireplace.

Combining a two- or three-day stay at Tenaya with a trip around the Gold Country would make a pleasant four- to seven-day vacation from L.A. Or, you could even drive, as we did, along California 120 through the Tioga Pass to Lake Tahoe.

The Resort at Squaw Creek on the western side of Lake Tahoe is an entirely different sort of place. The latest in a series of recent developments designed, as the brochures put it, to make the “bottom of Squaw Valley . . . as spectacular as the top,” Squaw Creek is as sophisticated as the Tenaya Lodge tries to be.

The resort, eight years in the planning, is part of an overall attempt to revitalize the valley that was the site of the 1960 Winter Olympics. Developers claim that, in non-drought years at least, it will add $50 million to the local economy. Two thousand feet above the hotel, for example, is a new Bath and Tennis Club, with radiant-heated tennis courts, Jacuzzis, an Olympic ice rink and a planned swimming lagoon.

But the centerpiece of the renaissance is the 405-room Resort at Squaw Creek, a starkly modern nine-story hotel of natural rock and glass featuring a 250-foot-high, year-round outdoor waterfall. Craftsman-style furniture designed for the resort is understated and elegant.

The 640-acre resort is large enough that I wanted a map to get around the first day. The facilities, the food, the services were such that you never had to wonder if the hotel would perform; it rises to meet expectations.

This is an executive resort with meeting facilities that could make a tourist want to pull out a briefcase. The Texas-based Benchmark group, which manages Squaw Creek, specializes in multipurpose conference resorts it describes as made for “living, learning and leisure.” That an association of businesses specializing in putting on conferences chose the Resort at Squaw Creek as its meeting place this year says something about the facilities.

Children are welcome here, but you won’t find them lounging about the lobby. Child-care here is offered in a special children’s center that looks like a well-equipped preschool. So few children took advantage of the recreational activities offered at the center that the friendly young staffer assigned to child-care recruited our daughter.

Here, where we might have enjoyed taking off for an evening at the Nevada casinos that are an easy drive around the lake, the “kids movie and popcorn” session ended at 9 p.m. The resort is less than 10 minutes from Lake Tahoe, about 45 minutes from the airport at Reno.

A schedule of summer activities at Squaw Creek lists a mix of activities for adults and children, including wildflower walks, fly-fishing clinics, aerobics classes and “pool adventures” for kids. Nearby is horseback riding, inner-tubing, boating and any other outdoor sport you can think of. While the concierge at the Tenaya was eager to draw guests into activities, the concierge here seemed aloof. Squaw Creek is a cooler, far more elegant medium than the Tenaya Lodge--a pleasant, upscale getaway for couples.

As a practical matter, the resort itself is so self-contained that you could stay a day or two and never leave. On site is a health spa, a French restaurant featuring five-course, fixed-price meals, and shops that sell everything from bronzed ballerina sculptures to bagels. For breakfast, we skipped the somewhat formal Cascades restaurant that specializes in buffets, and ate instead at a cooking store on the premises that serves croissants and cappuccino.

The three outdoor pools include a toddlers’ pool with a sandy beach, a lap pool for adults and a winding waterslide that adults didn’t feel embarrassed taking a ride down. Several cozy Jacuzzis are nestled among the boulders that form the exterior waterfall.

Overlooking the beautiful valley is the Hardscramble Creek Bar & Grill, which features a menu that sounds on paper like mall cuisine: hamburgers, potstickers, pizza, even German veal with spaetzle. But everything we tasted was terrific and appropriately priced. If they opened one in Los Angeles, we’d be regulars.

One of the reasons it took eight years to develop this resort is that local residents and environmentalists feared it would pollute natural water supplies and turn much of the valley’s natural meadow into fairways.

The battle got nasty after the Perini Land & Development Co., which was building the resort, filed suit against the Sierra Club and local environmentalists. That suit was dropped, but one environmentalist recently sued the developer, claiming the developers had sued him maliciously in an attempt to muzzle protest and get on with the building.

Compromises were made, and the resort opened last December. Even more than the Tenaya, Squaw Creek was affected by the winter drought. Significant snow waited until March to fall, which, combined with the fact that the resort was still new and unknown, meant occupancy rates of 25% to 30%. This winter, hotel management is hoping for nearly full occupancy.

Nine holes of the Robert Trent Jones golf course are scheduled to open this fall, with the remaining nine holes scheduled to be finished next summer.

Sitting outdoors, overlooking the empty cement circle that, come winter, becomes an outdoor skating rink, I couldn’t help but be reminded that we were here off-season. To anyone who skis, summer in this beautiful place lacks a certain dramatic tension. For that same reason, however, simply finding oneself 6,200 feet up in the pine-covered mountain valleys is restful.

Flipping through the brochures that offer “endearing escapes” for honeymooners, “gastronomic getaways” in the form of cooking classes taught by hotel chefs, and a Labor Day weekend special, my eyes lit upon a photograph of a white mountain sewn up at the seams by lift cables.

In winter, the Resort at Squaw Creek promises a “ski concierge,” in-room rental-fitting and personalized “slopeside” lockers. Complimentary transportation from the Reno Airport is provided to the resort. From your room, you can ski out to a new high-speed lift that reaches to the old “Red Dog” part of the mountain that is now called “Snow King.”

The resort has its own ski schools for children--by age group.

Come winter, I’m thinking it would be nice for our family to help “wear in” the resort at Squaw Creek, and maybe bring along a few friends with their children. I can’t wait to see Elizabeth hit the slopes. We’re going to get up for the milk run.

GUIDEBOOK

New Sierra Lodges

Getting there: Los Angeles to the Tenaya Lodge: about a six-hour drive up Interstate 5, then north on California 99 and north again on California 41. The lodge is off California 41 at Fish Camp, two miles south of the southern entrance to Yosemite National Park.

Los Angeles to the Resort at Squaw Creek: about an eight-hour drive up I-5 to Sacramento, then east on Interstate 80 to California 89 and south to the resort.

Delta, USAir and United Express fly nonstop between LAX and Reno Cannon International Airport at round-trip fares ranging from $140 to $180 with a 21-day advance reservation. American has a direct flight for $190; Southwest flies directly from Burbank for $80, round trip. The resort will arrange transportation from the airport for $30 each way.

Reservations and rates: Tenaya Lodge, 1122 Highway 41, P.O. Box 159, Fish Camp, Calif. 93632, telephone (800) 635-5807. Summer rates for two, double occupancy: $149-$194. Winter: $109-$139.

The Resort at Squaw Creek, 400 Squaw Creek Road, Squaw Valley, Calif. 96146, (800) 3CR-EEK3. Summer rates: $165-$575. Winter, $195-$575.

Both hotels offer spring and fall rates at slightly varying prices.

Be sure to check out promotional packages, which are worthwhile, particularly at Squaw Creek. The Tenaya offers fewer packages, most of them for holidays. One enticing Thanksgiving package: a four-day, three-night stay for two adults and two children in the same room for $699. Guests who arrive the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving are encouraged to turn in early so the staff can decorate the lobby for Christmas. Guests wake up on Thanksgiving Day to pine boughs, a Christmas tree and the aroma of roasting turkey.

The package includes Thanksgiving dinner, a sock hop, caroling and a family portrait.

The Resort at Squaw Creek offers a multitude of packages. A clerk confided that a limited number of rooms are available at $110 when occupancy is low. One of the most economical deals is a two-night, three-day package with breakast, a welcome bottle of champagne and a $50 hotel credit for $238.

Two-day, two-night ski packages at Squaw Creek are $229 per person, double occupancy. The price includes daily breakfast and Squaw Valley USA lift tickets.