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.

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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!