Lake Tahoe (Winter Edition) 2025 ⛷️
I told my grandma that I was going to Lake Tahoe and she said, ‘it’s not that nice there’ and I was like dang haha no way. But, honestly she was right. I feel like the lake and town was underwhelming.
I need to explain how my friend group comes up with our ski trip ideas. This year, we each gave a 5 minute pitch (including slideshow presentation) to the group and then had a couple of days to vote on our favorite. The kicker is you couldn’t vote for your own. Top contenders were Lake Tahoe and Big Sky. Of course Lake Tahoe won, with the help of colluding amongst the group.
We flew into Reno International Airport. I had the privilege of spending like 6 hours at the airport and it was not super fun. It was small and crowded with uncomfortable seating. There are many rows of slot machines for people to play but you do need cash. I wasn’t about to try to take some out from the ATM and get charged for it so I didn’t play.
We rented two cars from Costco for 5 days. Split between 14 of us, it came out to be $60/person including gas. Hopefully, you have a friend in your group who has a membership because that’s a pretty good price.
Our VRBO was 40 minutes from the Reno airport. I liked our VRBO. It fit 16 people pretty comfortably. The hot tub was an added bonus. The only thing I’ll say is the living room wasn’t super comfortable for everyone to hangout in but everyone had a good place to sleep. Below is the link.
There were a couple of skiing groups. There was a group that skied Friday and Saturday. A group that skied Saturday and Sunday. And a group that skied all three days!! I still can’t believe they did that but some people are more intense skiers than me. I was in the group that skied Saturday and Sunday, so on Friday my group took to the town of Truckee. Honestly, there’s not much in Truckee. The downtown was not very cute. We started the morning getting coffee (I don’t remember the name and it’s not important because it wasn’t super great lol).
After coffee we walked to the lake. The lake was pretty, but like my grandma said it was nothing special. I do wonder if it would have been nicer in the summertime. I feel like Lake Tahoe might be a great getaway for people in California and Nevada but I really don’t think it’s worth visiting. To be fair, I didn’t explore the place extensively so unless someone could give me proof of life, I won’t be spending money to come here again.
We did a walk near Lake Tahoe called Chimney Rock Trail. It was about 2 miles and took us through a little part of the woods with views of the lake. It was cute but once again nothing special.
On to the main attraction! Palisades Tahoe = a beginner’s nightmare. I would consider myself an okay skier, mostly sticking to greens and maybe the occasional blue. To survive the day, I suggest taking the Funitel to Gold Coast and skiing down a short blue to the Big Blue Express express. Once you get to the top there are a ton of doable greens such as Snow Flower, Mules Ear (my fav), Monkey Flower and Lupine. I pretty much spent the day in that area and took the Funitel down. If you attempt to take a blue or black down the mountain it could be icy at the bottom so beware. I also enjoyed the front of Alpine Side. I was able to do Meadow and Subway.
The overall group consensus was that we didn’t really enjoy Palisades. It was so crowded and the snow was not great. The snow part could have just depended on the weekend we were there but if you wanted to ski to the bottom without taking the Funitel it was so icy that people were falling left and right. I will say I got some really good pics, I mean who doesn’t love a blue bird day?
I would also suggest leaving really early to get to the resort. The group who went on Friday, waited an hour and a half to get a parking spot because it was so busy. Also, you do have to go online and reserve parking spots so do that in advance! I did appreciate that there was like a little town at the bottom because at one point when I was done skiing on Sunday, I got a coffee and sat at a cafe and read. Not a lot of resorts have nice places you can go and just hangout if you were done skiing so I appreciated that.
On Saturday for lunch, we had a parking lot party. We had grills going for hot dogs and brats with the fixings. I thought this was so fun and cheap. This only worked because two people in our group drove from their house in Boise and brought griddles. Otherwise you’re eating at an expensive restaurant in the town or packing a sandwich on the go. I liked that we were all able to meetup in the middle of the day because I feel like it’s easy to get separated so it was nice to go back on the slopes as a group.
And lastly, the party at Le Chamois on Saturday night. We didn’t stay super long because most of us were so tired but it was fun to get beer after a long day of skiing. The music was bumping and it was fun to see everyone gathered.
And that was our 2025 ski trip!! Overall, I had a great time. Anytime I am with my friends will be a fun time no matter where we are. I won’t be going back to Lake Tahoe unless someone convinces me with good evidence that it’s fun and worth it haha. But, I’m fortunate I was able to see it for myself and tell you not to go.