Summer Skiing Weekend at Squaw Valley

Squaw Valley for a weekend of summer skiing — the winter's snowpack was deep enough that they kept the lifts spinning into late June, and are planning to run through the Fourth of July. Hard to argue with skiing on the 25th of June.

The parking lot at the village told the whole story before we even got on the mountain: bare pavement, people in t-shirts, a yellow Camaro with its top down, and snow visible on the peaks above. Same valley that hosted the 1960 Winter Olympics, now doing double duty as a summer resort.

Up top near High Camp, around 8,200 feet, the snow held on in wide patches between exposed dirt and rock. You'd ski a run, then look out past the trees to Lake Tahoe sitting blue in the distance with no snow anywhere near it. The chairlift over on the Shirley Lake side was loaded with people in short sleeves. The snow itself was soft and sun-cupped, streaked brown at the edges where it was losing to the ground, but plenty to work with.

Skied until the surface turned to mash, then rode back down past the pines standing in the middle of it all.