Magical May at Squaw Valley

As the calendar turns to May and the days become long and sun-filled here in the Golden State, the skiing at Squaw Valley remains great. The most snow ever recorded at Squaw Valley fell in this endless winter of 2010-2011, and the spring skiing is reaping the benefits. Coverage on the mountain is epic, and our legendary Sierra corn snow makes for soft and playful turns down the hill. Follow the inverse rotation of Apollo’s sun-chariot ride across the sky, starting off the day on south facing Tower 16 or KTs East face until they get a bit sticky then ascend up to Siberia Express and Shirley Lake, return to KT for some West Face and 75 Chute, then close out the day on Rock Garden as it soaks up the 3:00pm sun. And after your legs can’t take anymore goodness, take it on down to Le Chamois for some tasty suds with your day’s ski buds and recount how you shredded Squaw as the sun disappears behind Tram Face.

Squaw will once again be the last remaining Tahoe ski resort open, with Friday-Sunday skiing through Memorial Day. Come on up and take a few laps on KT then head up to High Camp and get your hot tub on with other California skiers who aren’t quite ready to put away the boards just yet either.

And if you want to come up midweek for some serious solitude in the spring sunshine rent some snowshoes and hike up Shirley Canyon to see Squaw Creek cascade in torrent down into the valley. Hop in the car and drive to Emerald Bay to see some even more serious water falling. This year’s historic snow fall will drive an even more historic waterfall season – and the melting is really just beginning. And all that snow will cap our peaks through August, leaving the Tahoe mountains looking just like the archetypal snow covered peaks we all instinctively drew in kindergarten.

And don’t forget about the Amgen Tour of California; the biggest bicycle race in the United States and the third biggest in the world speeds into Tahoe May 15 and 16. The overall commencement of the race takes place in South Lake on the 15^th as competitors will ride around the lake one and a half times and then head on to the finish line at Northstar. The next day cyclists will bus over to Squaw and start the leg in The Village and then ride on down the hill to the flat land of Central California.

With the warm weather we have been receiving, lounging on the river or on the lake is a great way to spend the day. And after some fun in the sun, come on back to PJs and dine in the bar or café and try our new spring menu. The pool will open this week, the ping pong table is set up, the chess board is out, the hot tubs are always great, and our bikes-for-borrow are back for the summer so you can ride around on some sweet blue beach cruisers and tour Squaw Valley in style.

Spring time is a great time to get away to Squaw. Let the PlumpJack Squaw Valley Inn take care of you and yours.

SnowFest and Such at Squaw

The annual party that is SnowFest has arrived once more. Beginning last Friday, revving up all week, and culminating this upcoming weekend is some serious fun in the snow and sun.

Parades and charades, DJ tunes from the KT sundeck to Truckee, costumed people in dance, ice sculptures crafted and melted, ski comps, eating contests, art shows, government organized snowball fights, polar plunges, and the anointing of local teenage Snow Queens!

All these activities and energy add up to a darn fun time in up here in the densest population of ski resorts in the Americas. There are thirteen of ‘em dotted around the lake last time I checked, with Squaw leading the way like a Golden Aged Athens, our Acropolis the Palisades, our mythic founders the Poulsen’s, our patron Goddess not Athena but PJ Bar regular and overall wonderful woman, the charmer of the 1984 critically acclaimed film Hot Dog, the Movie, Miss Debbie Dutton. (The awesome ski flick comedy was shot entirely on location here at Squaw Valley USA during the backdrop of 1983’s SnowFest! -- and is a great pre-ski weekend rental at your local video store!)

Another fascination about that movie is the astonishing amount of snow – ten foot snow drifts outside Le Chamois and the Olympic House, cornices the size of school busses on Granite Chief serving as starting line for the Chinese Downhill and all the marbles. Check out the winter of ’83 on the snow record almanac and you’ll see the staggering stats. Eighty Three’s spike on the graph resembles something Gordon Gecko would invest in.

As does this year. The winter of 2010-2011 is shaping up to be one of the most extreme winters on record with November, December, February – and if predictions hold – March to be in the top percentile of snowfall classes. And even June-uary gave us great corn-cycle, spring-skiing conditions while providing much needed rest for worn out snow shoveling muscles.

In short, the mountain is in apex form right now, another huge storm is on the way, and we will again be skiing into late May. Come experience the Fun!, get some great exercise, take in the mountain grandeur, let us style you out in the Café Dining room.

Learn From Luke and Falstaff; Mountain Life Trumps Computers

As a human race we have been talking about turning off the computer since Obi Wan’s omnipresent, posthumous voice urged Luke to do so during his gauntlet run to destroy the Death Star in the first (fourth) Star Wars. This occurred either in 1977 or “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…,” depending on one’s point of view.

And five films and 30+ years later, we here at PlumpJack are still urging you to turn off the machines and rely on your personal Force powers. Leave Internet Explorer behind, text only when necessary, and experience life like our founder – Shakespeare’s rotund and merry-making John (Jack) Falstaff – First-Hand and Out-Loud!

Come up to the PlumpJack Squaw Valley Inn and stay in historic lodging built in 1959 for the 1960 Olympic Delegation. Slumber at the base of an Earth top ten ski resort in Squaw Valley, USA.

Go Ski! – and truly realize your inner Jedi.

We, of course, do have complimentary wireless internet if the necessity for a computer arises, but with all the mountain majesty – and food and drink fit for the administrator of Cloud City himself, Mr. Lando Calrissian – you shouldn’t need too much time with the .com’s.

A dawn or dusk meeting with the sun, some super low friction rides down a mountain of snow, or a hot-tub underneath the blessing of Tram Face should make up for any lost homepage-hoopla.

Luke of course “reached out and trusted his feelings”, turned off his targeting computer to the shock of Princess Leia and the others back in the rebel base, (who, of course, faced complete and impeding annihilation from said WMD if Luke’s torpedoes didn’t penetrate the area of mass vulnerability (AMV) roughly the size of a “wamprat” to set off the chain-reaction-implosion-super-nova of the Death Star.)

I understand the irony that I write this on a computer and that the only real means anyone might ever read this would be by computer.

But the fact is that the computer has become too powerful and nowadays all too often an agent of the Dark Side, robbing us of the complete experience and appreciation of right now!

“Feel, don’t think. Trust your instincts. Live for the moment.” A Jedi, a skier, an artist, a mother, a husband, a businessman, a doctor only realize apex potential when the extraneous disappears and the only thing relied upon is Yourself.

Simplify drastically. The 1960 Olympics featured the first use of a computer in electric timing. It was about the size of the Funitel building and about 1/1,000,000 as competent as an IPHONE. But it was the only computer here! And people no doubt watched the races and skating and competition with a super-heightened awareness because A.) there was no perpetual re-play accessible on command, and B.) they knew they were the only people in the world who would ever capture the transpiring drama.

Respiration and heart-beat and laughter and babies were once produced in a world without Apps. Lives were lived and love was found without constant vomiting and ingesting of status updates and tweets.

I gave someone a Squaw Trail Map the other day, and he looked at it with a fondness in his eye and said he did not need one because he had GPS on his phone that could “instantaneously pinpoint his location wherever he is at on like 100 ski resorts around the world, and that the fold-it-up-and-keep-in-you-pocket trail map is obsolete.”

Say it ain’t so! We’ve already song the death song of “ticket wickets” meaning my children will never experience the satisfaction of finally achieving competence folding a sticky square ticket over that three inch long acute isosceles triangle of metal. We can’t let computers lead to extinction the indelible trail map!

Let PlumpJack give you a human experience with as little computer interference as possible. Call us up and make a reservation with a live human voice right off the bat. Once you’re up here, engage in face to face conversation with us about the best spots on the mountain, the lake, the cuisine, the wine.

Become friends with us, like our guests that join us two or three times a month. If you see us on the hill, take a lap with us. We love this place. Leave as much technology as possible behind and let us show you the mountains wrapped in the quaintness, the humanness, indeed the live-life-out-loud manner of PlumpJack.

Potables and Playmates at PlumpJack

We’re not sure which was the more chic line last Saturday afternoon at the PlumpJack Squaw Valley Inn patio: the one ending with free Stoli Vodka drinks at the poolside bar or the one whose pot of gold was May 2009 Playboy Playmate, Crystal McCahill, signing autographs and posing for photos complete with her long ears and cute stubby tail.

I made my choice, but you probably couldn’t go wrong either way.

And even the actual act of standing in these lines wasn’t all that bad. Sunglass-clad Executive Chef Wyatt Dufresne put out pizzas almost as fast as they were scarfed down, plates of tasty hors d’oeuvres circulated, and a darn good DJ spun funky sounds not usually heard from PlumpJack grounds.

Those unconcerned with bunny or drink soaked in the hot tubs 10+ people deep or lounged in one of three plush cabanas that looked something like ancient Rome meets Las Vegas strip.

In attendance were Squaw Valley legends and die-hard San Francisco weekend warriors up for the final weekend of the season. People came in snowboard gear, board shorts, and everything in between.

At one point a guy in a body-length fur coat walked in sporting a beard so long, dark, and scraggily I thought Rasputin really had escaped death all these years only to wind up in Lake Tahoe.

Debbie Dutton danced. One guy got thrown in the pool fully clothed. People smiled, laughed, and enjoyed their Saturday afternoon at PJs.

Squaw: So Seriously Seductive in the Spring Sunshine

The time has come once again -- the time to rummage through the closet in search of your most brightly colored t-shirts, loudest neon green sunglasses, perhaps an old bikini top or venerated high school basketball jersey, to generously apply the SPF, maybe throw a tall boy PBR from Dave's Deli in a pocket and hit the slopes -- for the annual party galore that is spring skiing at Squaw has arrived once more.

To this fiesta del sol even Mr. Edgar Allen Poe wouldn't dare the refrain of 'Nevermore..."

And the skiing is still good. Tower 16 and Sun Bowl are soft bump paradises, increased high angle grooming on KT’s Olympic Lady and East Face allow get your Julie Mancuso on, Silverado always corns up, and Granite Chief and Cornice II Bowl somehow always ski like January. Even the tree playgrounds of Red Dog, Far East, and Squaw Creek are skiing great late in the day.

And as Apollo's chariot ride takes him higher and higher in the afternoon sky, park, pipe, and hot-dogging season really take off. The superpipe is in prime condition; people are going huge off of kickers and spreading some serious style on rails in the three parks on the mountain, and who doesn’t like showing off under a lift line shirtless? (Ok, maybe I don’t speak for the entire ski community, but I sure think it’s fun. Hoots and or heckles from the chairs above just make you go faster.)

Things are so good that the U.S. Freestyle Team has made plans to stop by Squaw and throw down. The U.S Freestyle Nationals will be held March 26-28 featuring the best the Stars and Stripes has to offer, some fresh from the Olympics, to compete in moguls, aerials, and halfpipe.

* * * * * *

California in springtime is magic. Beaches, vineyards, Giants games -- all good stuff. But one of the most unique and under-appreciated activities is skiing buttery corn snow on a world class mountain in 60 degree Golden State bliss. And while the mountain could be open until mid-May, we haven't done too much since the Industrial Revolution to help Mother Nature's cold streak, so don't put off turns 'til next week that you could do this week. Because while you can take in Carmel Beach, hike Mount Tamalpais, taste wine in fairytale land, or hit the dimpled little white ball around in the sunshine for the next six months... you can't ski in July!

Yes, Dinner with a side of Star-struck Please

PJSVI employee Maria Debari Makes a Name in the Pro Snowboarding Field

There’s a whole lot going on up at the PlumpJack Squaw Valley Inn these days; as if a luxurious night stay at the newly remodeled Granite Chief Suite, a delicious Balboa Burger from the bar menu, and world class skiing at Squaw weren’t enough, you can now get your glass of PlumpJack Reserve served by a pro snowboarder. Seriously.

Back waiter Maria Debari has entered a new level in her riding this year as she took third place at the Mount Baker Banked Slalom February 5-7 and second at The North Face Masters, a big mountain event held at Crystal Mountain a week later. She looks to continue her hot streak this weekend at the renowned free-ride event at Kirkwood.

Maria has been snowboarding most of her life yet only recently moved into the realm of competition. Initially hesitant, she agreed only after sponsors and management from the Mount Baker event basically begged her to enter in hopes her strong reputation would add more drawing power to the women’s field.

“I’m really not much for competition. But they really wanted me and it was pretty cool; there was free beer and hot dogs at the bottom,” said the 23 year old Glacier, Washington native. “I just want people to look up at me riding and say, ‘wow that girl’s having so much fun.”

All clichés and dehumanizing, brand-name marketing slogans aside – Maria truly does embody what PlumpJack is all about – creativity, free spiritedness, and bold, out-loud living. In short, she’s raw.

At the Big Mountain North Face Masters event, she felt a bit awkward doing the mandatory interviews atop the mountain before her run as she intimated that microphones and pre-programmed questioning before something as soulful and creative as a free-ski run was a bit crude. (She really just likes to ride and have a good time and deflects her newly found fame with a refreshing modesty – Hey, I had to randomly run in to her at a Squaw Valley dive bar and buy her a beer to get her to open up at all about her riding. Notes were taken on the back of receipt paper. PBR if I remember correctly.)

“I had my line scouted out with all the features I wanted to hit. But I got a little distracted and as soon as I dropped in I kinda forgot about all that stuff and just went as fast as I could down the hill. I really didn’t even end up in the right place at the finish. Oh well.”

Well, it must have impressed the judging panel of no-nonsense old school riders who awarded her second place out of an impressive field of experienced women who just flat-out shred.

And though on a busy Saturday night she might get a nice pocket-full of tips, the payout for that day’s ‘work’ at Crystal Mountain wasn’t all that bad.

“Yeah it was sweet. I basically got paid two grand for a ‘pow run’.”

Last time I checked, I’ve never got a dime for making fresh tracks on KT. Rock on Maria.

A note from Liz at PlumpJack Squaw Valley Inn on how to plan a stress-free wedding!

Recently engaged or considering popping the question or even perhaps eloping? Planning a wedding does not need to be overwhelming! There are a few key things to remember - #1, Enjoy the process! Have fun being engaged and maybe start an on line journal and website. #2, set a date #3, set a budget, #4 Select a venue for both the ceremony and reception! Weddings at the PlumpJack Squaw Valley Inn are hassle free and fun! Our intimate 58 room hotel located at the base of Squaw Valley USA is ideal for those who would like to have everything on site with a great pedestrian village nearby. Join us at the Ritz Carlton in San Francisco on Sunday January 10, 2010 for the Modern Luxury Wedding Show between 11am and 4pm. I look forward to meeting you!

Contact Liz for more information on booking your wedding or event by calling 530.583.1576 x 451.