Resort information for Heavenly

Heavenly is on the border with Nevada, at the south end of Lake Tahoe. Its base-town, South Lake Tahoe, is primarily a summer resort, but what really sets it apart is that its economy is driven by gambling. It’s bizarre to walk through the gambling areas in ski gear, with skis over your shoulder. Like the town, the slopes spread across the border - and there are ‘adequate’ free shuttle-bus services to the three out-of-town bases.

Practically all of Heavenly’s slopes are cut through forest, but in many areas the forest is not dense and there is excellent tree skiing. Its mountain is complicated, and getting from A to B requires more careful navigation than is usual on American mountains. Quite a few of the links between different sectors involve flat tracks. Heavenly averages an impressive 360 inches per year, and was one of the first resorts to invest heavily in snowmaking. The system now covers around 70 per cent of the trails and ensures that most sections are open most of the time. The gondola can have morning queues when it can be worth taking the shuttle to the much quieter Stagecoach Lodge base. There are also queues to ride the gondola down at the end of the day.

The sprawling resort area offers a huge variety of good value places for eating out. The casino hotels’ all-you-can-eat buffets offer fantastic value and variety, and there are some more ambitious ‘gourmet’ restaurants too. For après-ski, things have looked up in the last few years for 4pm drinking. Later on, the casinos on the Nevada side of the stateline have shows with top-name entertainers, and you can dance and dine your way across the lake aboard a paddle steamer.