By Wendy Lautner, tahoe.com, wlautner@TahoeRenoOnline.com
March 14, 2008

Spring skiing is all about enjoying the sun, the view and finding a quiet little stash where no one else is skiing but just you and your closest friends. At Heavenly, you’re in luck, there’s plenty of enchanted forest and wide-open tree lines just waiting for your exploration.

Set on 4,800 acres of Forest Service land straddling the California/Nevada state lines, Heavenly’s Lodgepole Pines and Red Fir forests provide excellent tree skiing for skiers of all ability levels.

For advanced skiers, Hogsback, East Bowl Woods and Maggie’s Canyon on the California side provide a nice gradient through beautiful glades. Strong intermediates and experts alike will want to take a few runs in Ski Ways Glades from looker’s left of Sky Express. Intermediate tree skiers will find Dipper Express and pretty much all of the runs it accesses to be a favorite; as well as the looker’s right of Sky Express to be a great tree-line training ground. After a few runs, you’ll see the exploration is pretty much endless.

As if giant views of Lake Tahoe weren’t enough, sliding and gliding through a quiet forest all while drinking in an incredible view and soaking up warm, California sunshine is pretty tough to beat. Want to spend the day in ultimate South Shore style? Take a tip from the Heavenly locals and stash a bottle of wine in your resort pack and set it at the base of one of your favorites pines. Ski around the bottle, taking sips on each run.

Surely 4,800 acres seems like a vast amount of terrain to explore. Private mountain guides are available for interested parties who want to make the most of their time on the mountain. Group guides for six hours run $525 for up to six people. Three hours with a guide costs $350 for two people and $75 for each additional person. For more information, visit www.skiheavenly.com.