Visitors Storm Slopes

Many South Lake Tahoe businesses came off a slow and stormy Christmas and New Year's holidays only to see a spike in visitors over the three-day weekend capping Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday.

While more workers get the end-of-year holidays off, those who managed to get time off this weekend to commemorate the slain civil rights leader thought of Tahoe, according to several merchants, lodge owners and ski areas.

Kirkwood Mountain Resort, touting the "deepest snow on the planet," finally got a weekend to show off the conditions. Severe weather closed off the resort from its customer base during critical days in the past few weeks.

Spokeswoman Tracy Miller reported Monday the resort had near-record numbers Saturday and Sunday, averaging about 7,500 skiers and boarders.

"Had they not come back, we would have wondered. So it really was just the weather," Miller said. "It feels like home again."

The ski area even got creative with its parking, turning Kirkwood Meadows Drive into a single-lane road because motorists were parked on both sides of the loop road.

Sierra-at-Tahoe had record attendance Saturday of 7,789.

In town, Heavenly Mountain Resort management declined to provide numbers for the public company over the weekend - but Vice President of Marketing John Wagnon said he's pleased with the outcome.

"We were really happy the way the weekend went," he said.

Vehicles were lined up all along Pioneer Trail and Ski Run Boulevard to get up to the California Base Lodge.

"We feel confident with the amount of snow we have, now we should be in good shape business wise. But you never know for sure," he said. "And we have the momentum of the marketplace."

And many ski-area visitors headed up Ski Run appeared to rent or buy equipment, judging from Rainbow Mountain's performance.

"It was a good weekend compared to the last three. It helped us get back in the game," manager Paul Nanzig said, adding the strong weekend helped to make up for losses over Christmas and New Year's. "And still, we have another three-day weekend coming up next month."

Merchants at Heavenly Village had been itching for visitors.

Alicia Miles-KossmanAmanda Fehd 1/17/05 who is she with said this past weekend made up for slower times a few weeks ago, demonstrating just how tied South Lake Tahoe is to the weather.

"It was better. There was more traffic," she said.

Jim Foff of Fantasy Inn said Monday he's also excited about future weekend business. He predicts next weekend may be slower, but he expects a good showing from the weekend of Super Bowl.

For this past weekend, he viewed the "no vacancy" signs as a good sign people were in town to enjoy the snow without blizzard conditions.

"What really hurt was the first weekend of January," he said. "But this week brought us back to normal."

He was full Saturday and Sunday night.

Visitors appeared to come and go in staggered shifts - with some leaving Sunday and others taking off Monday.

Station House Inn was completely booked Saturday and at least 70 percent full on Friday and Sunday.

The Holiday Inn Express was full Friday and Saturday and close to declaring no vacancy Sunday.

Tahoe Storms Overrated

Amanda Fehd
January 12, 2005

Contrary to the barrage of national media reports, the latest winter storms are, historically, no big deal.

Let's set the record straight: Although the past two back-to-back storms created mountains of snow in the Lake Tahoe Basin, the official data shows it wasn't a precedent-setting amount.

"From what we've seen at the Sierra Storm Lab at Donner Summit, no records have been broken," said Gina Beninato, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Reno.

The National Weather Service does not have an official snow measurement station in South Lake Tahoe, so no official amounts were tracked here. However, Simon Smith, a weather spotter for the National Weather Service says the Dec. 28 to Jan. 11 amount adds up to 106.5 inches of snow, or 8.88 feet.

The storm that began Thursday and officially ended Tuesday brought the South Shore 51.5 inches or 4.3 feet of snow. The storm that began on Dec. 28 and ended Jan. 3 brought 55 inches, or nearly 4.6 feet. The record for a single storm was Jan. 10 to Jan. 17 of 1952, when South Lake Tahoe received 12.8 feet, or 153.6 inches of snow, records show.

"They (the national news media) are mixing it up, in my opinion, to create a better story," Simon said. "No records were broken in South Lake Tahoe."

The record for continuous snowfall in the region is 180 inches in 1981-82 at Donner Summit, where the Central Sierra Snowlab - which measures snow throughout the Lake Tahoe Basin - is located. These storms have produced 155 inches of accumulation at Donner Summit since Dec. 27, 2004.

Mark McLaughlin, a Tahoe weather historian and author, concurred that much of what was said was hype.

"No Sierra snowfall records are in danger of being broken," said McLaughlin. His Web site, www.thestormking.com, lists records and major weather events of the Sierra.

"This is only two snow storms up here, and while exceptional, they aren't record breakers," McLaughlin said. "The fact that they were back to back puts them in an interesting category, but it's still not breaking records. It's wonderful, I love it, and it's a good start."

No records have been broken any way you look at it: for continuous snowfall, for one storm, for the most in a 24-hour, 36-hour, or 72-hour period, or for a 15-day period, most in a month or most in one season.

Gary Barbato, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Reno, suspects the confusion has come from the difficulty in getting consistent snow measurements. Snow depth can change rapidly from warming temperatures, rain or compaction. If the snow is measured every 24 hours, every six hours, or every hour, recorded depth levels will be different.

Some ski resorts do measure every hour but may not record decreases, Barbato said.