Dawn light falls upon the Palisades after a five-foot dump.
SQUAW VALLEY USA
RECOMMENDED BY Jonny Moseley
Though he’s skied just about everywhere worth skiing, Jonny Moseley feels that Squaw Valley is in his blood.
“My dad grew up on the San Francisco Peninsula,” he explained, “and didn’t get to ski much as a kid. But in the little skiing he did, he took to it. When he was able to drive, or had friends who could, he’d rally up to Sugar Bowl—mainly because it was closer than Squaw to the Bay Area. It was another hour to get to Squaw at that time, on a tough road. Squaw wasn’t a great option until the highway [I-80] was built. Around 1970, my dad moved to Puerto Rico. He met my mom, and my two brothers and I were born there. Eventually he moved back to Marin County, California. He really missed skiing, and he thought it would be a great thing for his boys. So he started loading us into the car and making the trip to Squaw. He put us boys in a kid’s ski program. My first coach was a woman named Linda. She taught me how to ski.
“Later, after I made the U.S. Ski Team, I got to ski all around the world. Once I won in the Olympics (1998), I worked at a few other big resorts. Still, I always longed to get back to Squaw. I’ve often thought about why, and it’s tough to explain. It’s not the highest mountain, it doesn’t have the most snow, and it can have some extreme conditions, which can be trying. When conditions are good, it’s just an incredible place to ski. When conditions aren’t right, it can be pretty bad. But still, there’s an essence about it. Part of it probably comes from having grown up there. I know the nooks and crannies so well, and it’s hard to get that same experience somewhere else.”
Squaw Valley rests between the towns of Truckee and Tahoe City, in the northern Lake Tahoe area; from some of Squaw’s higher peaks, you can spy the lake, renowned for its sparkling blue water. Squaw first opened in 1949, with a single chairlift. Thanks to the persuasive powers of cofounder (and longtime chairman) Alex Cushing during a presentation before the International Olympic Committee in 1955, Squaw was able to secure the 1960 Olympics, despite its lack of infrastructure. Squaw Valley USA rose to the occasion, and the facilities were completed in time. Cushing’s timing was ideal, as the 1960 Winter Olympics were the first winter games that were televised, showcasing Lake Tahoe as a winter destination and boosting the overall visibility of skiing. (Though the Olympics brought the first major international ski competition to Squaw Valley, records show that miners drawn to the region in search of gold held ski races as early as the 1860s.) Today, Squaw’s terrain extends across six peaks and four thousand acres, with 2,850 feet of vertical drop.
Any discussion of Squaw Valley will eventually shift to KT-22 and its environs—“the Mothership,” in local parlance. Jonny Moseley has the distinction of having a run named in his honor off KT-22, though not all the regulars were happy about that. “There are lots of hard-core skiers at Squaw, and KT-22 is their territory,” Jonny continued. “One survey rated Squaw the second most hostile place for visitors to ski. I think that’s a badge of pride for some folks. When they named the run for me, some people were pissed off, as it was a hard-core local run with sustained moguls. I think my favorite run off the Mothership is Chute 75. It’s the kind of chute you’d normally have to hike to at other mountains, but here it’s right off the lift. You can start skiing Chute 75 when you’re eight and continue to age eighty. Sometimes it’s powdery, sometimes icy, sometimes there are moguls. It’s always different in there.
“I remember being up at the top of KT-22 toward the end of the day, and there were some local guys hanging out, waiting for the chair to close. The sun was starting to go down, and I asked what they were waiting for. It turned out they were waiting for everyone to ski down so they could side-flip Chute 75 so it would be sweet for the next morning. That sums up the special atmosphere at Squaw. It’s because of such devotion that I choose to make it my home mountain.”
Some of Jonny’s favorite experiences at Squaw might be beyond the skill/nerve level that most of us can muster. But a few are more accessible, like the morning patrol. “A few years back, I was doing a Warren Miller film up at Squaw,” Jonny recalled. “They took us up to the top of Emigrant Peak in a cat, and we watched the sun come up. Then we made fresh tracks on Funnel and Silverado. Granted, that’s not everyone’s typical day. But now, conditions permitting, you can do an early up on Shirley and/or Granite for an extra $25. The tram leaves at 7:30 and gets you up to the top ahead of the crowds. You forget what it’s like to be up there with no people. If it has snowed overnight, there will probably be a foot of snow. You’ll want to use rocker skis, which Shane McConkey revolutionized for the powder at Squaw. Another thing visitors should do while visiting Squaw is pick up a copy of Squallywood [a guide/coffee-table book by Dr. Robb Gaffney], which details all of the area’s history and its most famous runs. You can find exactly where Women’s Olympics Downhill was held, locate the Men’s Giant Slalom Run, and see the lines taken by some of Squaw’s most notorious extreme skiers in your favorite ski movies. Even if you don’t want to try to ski these lines, it’s cool to ski to them.”
One of Squaw’s little endearments is found at Wildflour, perhaps the area’s most renowned bakery. “Wildflour is in the old Olympic Plaza House,” Jonny said. “They make great cookies, cinnamon rolls, now sandwiches as well. The woman who owns Wildflour offers Squaw regulars who win a gold medal in the Olympics a ‘lifetime cookie pass’—that is, you get free cookies for life. If you win a silver medal, you get free cookies for a year; if you win a bronze, you don’t get anything. There’s a wall with photos of the winners from Squaw. I got a lifetime cookie pass after Nagano. All the kids know that if they win a gold medal, they get the lifetime pass. Most kids that stop to talk to me skip right past my gold medal. They want to know if I really got a lifetime cookie pass.”
No day at Squaw is quite complete without a stop at Le Chamois. “The loft bar captures all the history of Squaw,” Jonny added. “It’s the locals’ bar. An April Fools’ e-mail went out earlier this year saying that Chamois would have to close down. It was not well received at all.”
JONNY MOSELEY was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1975, and hit the snow for the first time when his family relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1978. In 1993, he was selected to the U.S. Ski Team and, after narrowly missing a spot on the 1994 Olympic team, began preparing himself for the 1998 Olympic Games. In 1997, Jonny put school on hold and became a full-time skier for the first time in his life. He won the first two World Cup events of the 1997/98 season, and secured a spot on the U.S. Olympic team. Jonny arrived in Nagano, Japan, in February 1998, and one week later, he won the first American gold medal of the Games with what had become his signature move, the 360-degree mute-grab. He returned to the World Cup, winning the last two events of the season and securing the 1998 World Cup mogul skiing title as well as the U.S. National title with nine wins on the season. The U.S. Olympic Committee named him Sportsman of the Year. After his Olympic win, Jonny looked beyond the World Cup circuit to round out his skills as a skier. He entered ESPN’s X Games and took second place with his newly developed trick, the Dinner Roll. He trademarked the Jonny Moseley SKI logo, cobranded product lines with several of his sponsors, developed a video game, and hosted Snow Zone with Jonny Moseley for Fox Sports Net. In 2006, Jonny achieved another of his goals, graduating from UC Berkeley. In 2007, he was inducted into the U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame and became the narrator of the Warren Miller ski films. Today, Jonny hosts a weekly radio show on Sirius Satellite Radio, continues his TV work, and is chief mountain host at Squaw Valley USA. He is also an avid sailor, surfer, and golfer.
If You Go
Getting There: Squaw Valley is roughly an hour drive from Reno, Nevada, and a two-hour drive from Sacramento; both cities are served by many carriers.
Season: Squaw generally opens on Thanksgiving and remains in operation through the end of April.
Lift Tickets: Day passes begin at $84.
Level of Difficulty: Squaw offers terrain for everyone. Roughly 25 percent is rated beginner terrain; 45 percent intermediate; and 30 percent expert.
Accommodations: Lodging options in the Village at Squaw Valley and around Lake Tahoe are highlighted at www.squaw.com.
