Squaw Valley Ski Resort

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Squaw Valley
Location:	Olympic Valley
Nearest city:	Tahoe City, CA; Truckee, CA; Reno, NV
Coordinates:	39°11′0″N, 120°15′0″W
Top elevation:	9,050 ft (2,760 m)
Base elevation:	6,200 ft (1,890 m)
Skiable area:	4,000 acres (16 km²)
Runs:	177
Longest run:	3.2 miles (The Mountain Run)
Lift system:	33 lifts
Snowfall:	450 in (11 m)
Web site:	Official Site

Lake Tahoe from Squaw Valley.

For other places with the same name, see Squaw Valley

The Squaw Valley Ski Resort in Olympic Valley, California, is one of the largest and most high-concept ski areas in the United States, and was the site of the 1960 Winter Olympics. It is the second-largest ski area at Lake Tahoe, (after Heavenly), boasting highly-advanced chairlifts (High speed quads and High speed six packs), as well as the only Funitel outside of Europe. Because of the resort's popularity, the entire community of Olympic Valley is commonly referred to as "Squaw Valley." The resort attracts 600,000 skiers a year.

Perched atop the Sierra Nevada, with a base of 6,200 feet (1890 m) and spread across 6 peaks and 4,000 acres (16 km²), Squaw tops out at 9,050 feet (2760 m) above sea level at Granite Chief. With bountiful maritime snowfall--often receiving 40 or more feet in a winter, amounting to snowpack depths of 200 inches--and steep, granite-laden terrain, Squaw Valley is a mecca for Big Mountain, or steep, skiing. Legendary cliff and chute-infested areas like The Palisades or The Fingers have been featured in many ski films, and have likewise attracted a melange of professional and pro-caliber skiers including Shane McConkey, CR Johnson, Ingrid Backstrom, JT Holmes and Scot Schmidt.

[edit] History

Since its opening in 1949, Squaw has positioned itself among an A-list of North American Big Mountain Skiing meccas such as Alta, Whistler-Blackcomb, Jackson Hole and Crested Butte, combining with its laid-back California culture to earn the moniker "Squallywood".

The resort operates year-round, offering various activities in both winter and summer, including an ice skating rink, horseback riding, a swimming lagoon and spa, and tennis courts.

A scenic cable car (aerial tramway) carries visitors up 2000 vertical feet to the High Camp Bath and Tennis Club. The cars are attached to a fixed point on the suspended cable loop. When one car is at the top of the mountain, the other car is at the bottom. In April, 1978, one cable slipped loose from its moorings and sliced through one of the cars, killing four passengers and injuring several others.^[1]

By 1942 Wayne Paulsen, a former star skier from University of Nevada-Reno acquired 2,000 acres in present-day Olympic Valley, CA from Southern Pacific Railroad. By 1946, Paulsen met Alexander Cushing, a Harvard-trained lawyer, with the political connections and access to money that would make the resort a success. Shortly before opening in 1949, Paulsen and Cushing had a falling-out over the future of the resort. Cushing ended up controlling the Squaw Valley Ski Corp that brought the 1960 Winter Olympics to Squaw Valley and transformed Lake Tahoe with his vision for the mountain and innovations in the ski industry. Until his death, Cushing was the founder and chairman of Ski Corporation, the parent company of the Squaw Valley resort. Cushing modeled Squaw Valley after European resorts by putting pools and lodging on the mountain instead of at the base, and brought the latest lift technology to the United States.

Though the 1960 Olympics had practically been promised to Innsbruck, Austria, Cushing went to Paris in 1955 with a scale model of his proposed Olympic site -- even though his mountain had only one lift at the time -- and persuaded the International Olympic Committee to choose Squaw Valley. It was the first Winter Olympics to be televised live and attracted millions of viewers. The 1960 Winter Games provided a significant boost in visibility that signaled that American skiing had risen to the level expected of European resorts.

Squaw Valley is also noted for the annual Squaw Valley writer's conference, which attracts authors from all over the world each August. There are also many summer camps which operate out of the Valley.