Big Crowds Greet Tahoe’s Early Ski Season Start

Taking advantage of a series of early storms, hundreds of skiers and snowboarders flocked Saturday to Boreal Ski Area for the start of the Lake Tahoe ski season.

Boreal officials cut off ticket sales at 2,000 people by 11:30 a.m. because only three of 41 runs were in operation.

“We just didn’t have the room for any more people,” said Boreal spokeswoman Sheila Greeno. “We’ve had a spectacular opening day and everybody was really excited.”

Saturday marked the earliest opening for Boreal since 1992. The resort, located on Donner Summit west of Truckee, traditionally is the first Tahoe resort to open for the season.

Most of Boreal’s customers come from Northern California and Nevada, but even some from North Carolina flew in for the opening.

“It was crowded but the snow is good,” snowboarder Al Dean of San Francisco said. “I’ve been waiting for this day all year. The vast majority of the people out there were snowboarders. There were very few skiers.”

“It’s a zoo,” said Boreal bar manager Bob Duggan. “Snow conditions are really good. It’s just there’s a lot of people and you have to wait in line.”

A series of storms left more than a foot of snow in the Tahoe area last week, but Greeno said the systems helped even more by dropping temperatures for the resort’s snow-making machines.