Heavenly gears up for the season
The summer may have just only given way to fall, but at this elevation, that means that winter is on its way. Snow dusted the mountaintops on Thursday night, and the South Tahoe morning started off crisp and clear enough. But the calm weather quickly gave way to a storm of sideways blowing snow, accompanied by thunder and lightning, if you can believe it.
As the South Shore's premiere ski resort, spanning Nevada and California and with a gondola offering rides to the top of the mountain from street level, right next to the casino corridor, Heavenly does winter up in a big way.
Here's some of what's new at Heavenly this season:
The new Olympic Express detachable-quad chairlift provides high-speed access to Olympic Downhill, three new trails and Nevada Woods. Olympic Express also gives guests accessing the resort from Heavenly’s Stagecoach or Boulder Lodge a quicker route to Dipper Express, Comet Express and East Peak Lodge. It will be 3,533 feet long with an 866-foot vertical rise. The high-speed lift will move 1,000 feet per minute with a 2,400 person capacity per hour.
Three new trails off of Olympic Expres- Cloud Nine is an intermediatelevel groomed trail that is perfect for wide-open cruising. Heavenly strategically thinned the trees on the other two trails to offer different levels of tree-skiing experiences. -The Pines is a groomed, intermediate-level trail that allows skiers and riders to cruise around islands of beautiful western white pines. -Bohemian Grove ratchets up the intensity one level.
The Heavenly Sky Flyer at Adventure Peak. An elevated zip line cable ride will take guests on a 50-mile-an-hour thrill ride from the top of Tamarack Express back to the top of the Gondola, a vertical drop of 525 feet. At 3,100 feet, the Heavenly Sky Flyer will be the longest zip line in the continental U.S.
Heavenly has also purchased 11 more Snow Machines, Inc. fully-automated fan guns. Additionally, Heavenly has retrofitted many of its air/water snowmaking guns to be more energy efficient while also making larger quantities of snow in warmer temperatures.
All this, in addition to everything that was already there anyway...
and what all is that, you ask?
check back tomorrow for the local's eye view of Heavenly!
