DAY 6 - Diamond Peak

At Diamond Peak, I drink in the beautiful views of the lake, backdropped by snow-choked peaks, and decide to indulge myself. The highlight is catching Last Tracks, which happens every Saturday in peak season, starting in February. At about 4pm, as the lifts start to close at dusk, I hop on the last chair to the mid-point Snowflake Lodge. Then there’s a wine-tasting from a featured Californian winery and appetisers to match. As I sample a few choice grapes, piste bashers are grooming my route down for me, and as the sunset’s colours unfold across west Lake Tahoe, I cruise down on perfect, fresh corduroy.

DAY 7 - Mount Rose

The radical, expert terrain of The Chutes at Mount Rose was closed for years, as the avalanche risk was thought to be too great, but this is the fifth year they have been open again to the public. They have the steepest tree runs in the Lake Tahoe area, at 40 to 50 degrees in pitch, with over 450 vertical metres. As they are north-facing, they hold new snow for two or three weeks. My pals and I nip through the gate entry to The Chutes, race to find beautiful pockets of snow that have blown in through the avalanche gates and bomb downhill, trying to cross as few tracks as possible on our way down. From the bottom of Mount Rose it’s only 25 miles to Reno airport, so this bad boy makes a perfect final run of your trip if you’re flying out.

Snotes:

North Tahoe Resorts, California and Nevada, USA: www.gotahoenorth.com

Squaw Valley: www.squaw.com

Diamond Peak: www.diamondpeak.com

Alpine Meadows: www.skialpine.com

Northstar: www.northstarattahoe.com

Homewood Mountain Resort: www.skihomewood.com

Mount Rose: www.skirose.com

Sugar Bowl: www.sugarbowl.com

Getting there: Fly to nearby Sacramento with KLM (klm.com) or BMI (flybmi.com) from London Heathrow American Airlines (aa.com) and Air France (airfrance.com) are frequent fliers to Reno. You can get the North Lake Tahoe Express bus from Reno to your resort. From Sacramento hire a car, it’s about an hour and a half away. Further away (four hours by road), San Francisco airport is served by British Airways (ba.com), Virgin Atlantic (virgin-atlantic.com) and United Airlines (united.com)

Season dates: Dec through April (Alpine Meadows and Squaw Valley generally stay open through May)

Lift pass: All resorts sell daily passes, and the Ski North Tahoe Interchangeable Ski Pass (1-day £37, 7-day £253) gives access to all the resorts covered here. It allows flexibility as to which days you ski, valid season-long until the days you have bought run out, which is convenient if you want to hit the spa, check out the great resort of Heavenly, or one of the others not covered by the pass, take a boat trip on Lake Tahoe, hike in the backcountry, or just nurse a hangover (on the Nevada side of the lake, the bars never close!)

Image: shutterstock.com

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