Sure, you can watch new ski edits on the internet or throw Walls of Freedom in the DVD player, but there’s nothing like the energy of a live ski film premiere in a sweet setting surrounded by your ski-town brothers and sisters. Plus, there’s usually some free swag, along with skis and season passes, being raffled off. And the athlete cameos and shenanigans just can’t be recreated in a living room.
Olympic Valley
The pre-season stoke kicks off Oct. 10 at the Olympic Village Events Center with Teton Gravity Research’s Pressure Drop — an ode to the moment of focus and clarity before you point it downhill and gravity takes over.
What started in Jackson Hole in 1996 with a fax machine and a desk made of four milk crates and a piece of plywood, TGR has become one of the biggest action sports film outfits in the world. This year’s journey will take viewers to spines in Alaska and islands in Norway, to perfect pillow lines in British Columbia and familiar yet feisty terrain in Palisades Tahoe.
Watch for segments of Jeremy Jones and his nephew Kai Jones, longtime TGR shredder Sage Cattabriga-Alosa, and X-Games slopestyler turned big mountain slayer Maggie Voison. Complete with the feel-good, product-placement drinking scenes around the fire, Pressure Drop will check the boxes to get you drooling for winter.
Early show at 5 p.m., rowdier show at 7:45 p.m.
Then, on Oct. 29 and 30, the venue will play host to the Tahoe premiere of this year’s Warren Miller flick, Sno-Ciety.
What spawned from Warren and his buddy Ward Baker living out of a teardrop trailer in the Sun Valley parking lot back in 1947 has flourished into over 75 years of ski and snow-sport related inspiration, deadpan comedy, and culture. My dad used to go to Warren Miller premieres back in the ’60s, and today’s little grommets probably will be doing the same 50 years from now. Sno-Ciety was shot in the streets of Finland and on the steeps of Austria, and about a dozen other awesome locales including Mammoth Mountain. Prediction: Daron Rahlves and Chris Rubens will ski fast and there will be some outstanding one-liners in what will be an ode to mountain-town timelessness.
Shows both nights at 7 p.m. Prices and tickets for both films at palisadestahoe.com.
ATHLETES from the films are often on hand at premieres. Photo courtesy Palisades Tahoe.
Tahoe City
Moving down Highway 89 about 5 miles, the Tahoe City Art Hause is jam-packed with ski film premieres this fall.
The theater gets things going Oct. 14 with the premier of Ski for the Love’s fourth film, Yard Sale. With Josh Anderson, Alex “Shugz” Dorszynski, Jedediah Kravitz, and Brandon Craddock in front of the lens and cinematographer Hazen Woolson behind it, this all-Tahoe crew will show you how to ski a big line with grace or how to fall down it with style — because, as they say, “If you’re not yard-saling, you’re probably not trying.”
RAFFLES and swag and good times are all part of a good ski film premiere. Photo courtesy Josh Anderson
Shot in Utah, Wyoming, Alaska, Canada, and California, and not without some naked skiing and overall tomfoolery, these local boys will show you what it means to get after it as they get the theater howling. Shows at 5 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.; get your tickets early.
Next up, the Art Haus hosts the Tahoe premiere of Matchstick Productions’ latest drop, After the Snowfall. With shows Oct. 25 at 5:30 and 8 p.m., you’ll get a soul-skiing vibe and a storytelling throughline as your jaw gapes and your posterior clenches. With footage from around the world and from pretty close by, note segments by Truckee local and overall badass Michelle Parker and Nico Porteous, the 2022 Olympic Men’s halfpipe gold medal winner from New Zealand.
In addition to the rock gods and goddesses of skiing and riding, After the Snowfall also celebrates the everyday ski bums and Regular Joe mountain-town folks who’ve built lives around feeding the simple but passionate hunger of making turns down mountains of white. Encore screenings are Oct. 26 and 27.
Then, the Art Haus just keeps the premiere party going. Oct. 29 at 8 p.m., come out for Ornada, Armada’s first foray into ski films that combines big mountain steeps with extensive urban skiing and park sessions, and was shot over a two-year period. Hosted by evo Tahoe City, Tanner Hall headlines an all-star cast. Rounding out their slate is the Tahoe premiere of the Girl Winter Film Tour on Nov. 13. The show starts at 8 p.m. and will feature short and mid-length women-centered films “with range,” aiming to give new voices and stories to the genre. Nov. 9 sees Craig Beck on hand for a 50th anniversary screening of his seminal film, Daydreams. See tahoearthauscinema.com for tickets.
Reno
Lastly, the Biggest Little (Ski) City in the World won’t be left out of this ski film premiere bonanza. Lake Tahoe AleWorX near the Ace’s ballpark in Reno’s Brewery District is getting in on the action too — and not without some oomph. On Oct. 14, the restaurant/bar/event space hosts the TREW To You Tour for a night of films headlined by Adapt, the story of High Fives Athlete Shelby Estocado’s journey from her 2020 spinal cord injury to grit-and-stoke filled adaptive skier. Each film shown that night will be vying for the coveted $15,000 grand prize in the TREW To You Film Contest.
The next night at AleWorx, Oct. 15, Mt. Rose Ski Tahoe will present the Reno premiere of Pressure Drop. You can expect a raffle and swag both nights, and stoke and good times all ski-film season long.
Note: There are lots of rippers who live around these parts. They and their friends have cameras. Therefore, keep your eyeballs peeled for announcements of shorter, indie-film premieres popping up as well.
In 1975, the first episodes of Saturday Night Live premiered, Jaws hit the big screen, and Tahoe Cross Country began grooming Nordic trails. It now maintains 50 kilometers of them, and combined with summertime hiking, biking, and trail-running, provides over 20,000 folks a year with an affordable, and sometimes even free, connection to nature.
But since its inception, the organization, more familiarly known as Tahoe XC, has been operating out of the Highlands Community Center — built as the clubhouse to a nine-hole golf course near Burton Creek that was started but never finished.
COMMUNITY THING: On the trails of Tahoe XC, you’ll often see a mix of generations out skiing together. Courtesy photos
The growing need for a new lodge was first identified by an outside study back in the late ’90s, and since then the dream has never been too far from mind. In 2015, opportunity struck when a historic Rubicon Bay home, originally built in 1937 for an upper-crust family, changed hands.
The new buyer wanted to build a modern house on the land, but didn’t want the old home simply torn down. He saw its historical value and wanted to donate it and see the structure rebuilt elsewhere in Tahoe.
TWO SKIERS absolutely getting after it on a winter’s day at Tahoe XC.
“He approached a couple different organizations about it,” said Sue Irelan, Tahoe XC board member and finance chair for the lodge project. “When he approached the TCPUD, they said they didn’t have a need for it, but then thought about us. They asked us if we were ready to take on a project of this nature, to save the structure and have it become a centerpiece of the community. Our ski area and our nonprofit stepped up and said, ‘yes, we are ready to take this on.’”
Talks ensued and the generous donation was made, marking the start of a long and unique process. First, the building had to be deconstructed. Next, all of the locally milled beams, hand-adzed (cut with a special type of axe) wall paneling, redwood end-grain flooring, and other historically interconnected materials had to be catalogued. Then they had to be moved to a storage facility while fundraising efforts were implemented to meet goals.
Reconstruction efforts will come in three phases.
Phase 1 began this past June 1 with the groundbreaking of the trailhead relocation portion of the project, consisting of building new parking, new facilities, signage, and lights. This will allow trails to start at the new lodge site adjacent to North Tahoe High School (some parking will even be shared), which will be on flatter ground.
WHAT WILL BE: A rendering of the new lodge — the reconstructed historic Pennoyer home with some new additions.
“The current lodge sits at the bottom of a hill,” said Molly Casper, Tahoe XC’s marketing and communications director, “which presents issues. Especially for beginners and for lessons, it’s tough having to start by going uphill. And being right next to the high school will also enhance the community in ways I don’t think we even yet foresee.”
Phase 2 will represent the bulk of the project’s slated time and budget — the actual rebuilding of the 1937 home at the new site. The completed edifice will include roughly 80% original material and 20% new. At the left wing of the house, an annex will be added for ski waxing and equipment storage.
Phase 3 will consist of moving in and completing the things necessary to open up a new era for the old stalwart.
More than just a ski resort
Tahoe XC’s ski operations function as a public benefit corporation that subsidize their sister organization, the nonprofit Tahoe Cross Country Ski Education Association (TCCSEA), which fosters myriad community programs.
There is the on-property yurt that serves as a designated snow-science school; the nature camp in the summertime for young children; Las Chicas, the bilingual mountain biking and cross-country skiing program for middle school-aged Latinas. Then there is the free skiing offered to anyone under 19 or over 70, the free skiing for schools, and the free family ski day for any family with a K-5th grader in the Tahoe Truckee Unified School District — just call on up, set it up, and come on out for a lesson and a ski.
A BIKER hits the trails during the fall.
These programs are vital cogs in Tahoe XC’s mission to offer connection to nature that creates forever-stewards for the environment.
Perhaps the most vital piece in the mission is Strider Gliders, the cross-country ski program that started back in 1999. The affordable K-5th grade lessons are renown and run entirely by volunteer coaches — firemen, doctors, teachers, retired professional athletes — a lot of them former Strider Gliders themselves.
One such Strider Glider graduate, J.C. Schoonmaker, a member of the U.S. Nordic Ski Team and competitor in the 2022 Olympics, will even stop by when he’s back in town to lead a ski or a trail run.
“The program model has always been to start out as a Strider Glider and come back as a coach,” said Casper.
Tahoe XC is also dog-friendly, performs trail workdays, and serves as a community gathering place.
“It’s not uncommon to see teenagers interacting and recreating on the same trails as people in their 90s,” Casper said. “We have this incredible ‘cosm’ of age groups where people join together. We aim to increase access to snow sports and open space in our area, and the new lodge will help us do that.”
Renewal
Once completed, with an array of solar panels and other measures that go so far as reusing the topsoil and cut lumber from the construction site, Tahoe XC’s new lodge will be net-zero — producing as much renewable energy as it uses.
“We get asked all the time, ‘Why would you go through all the hassle of rebuilding an old house instead of just building something new?’” noted Casper, answering: “‘Well, because it fits with our ethos of adaptive re-use.’”
The original house was built by the Pennoyers, an Oakland family who’d made its fortune in dry goods. In 1917, Paul, son of Albert, honeymooned in Tahoe with his wife, Frances, daughter of none other than banking magnate J.P. Morgan. The newlyweds were entranced by the lake’s serene grandeur, so much so that 18 years later they returned, buying land in Rubicon Bay and setting about to build a summer home. By early July 1937, it was ready for move-in, and for the next 75 years it served as a place of merriment and good times for the family.
The edifice was given the moniker Paradise Flat. But for those who viewed it from the waters of the lake, it perhaps represented a sort of paradise-out-of-reach: so close, but the ability to walk through its doors so far away.
That all changes soon. When Tahoe XC’s new lodge opens up, the summer home for the daughter of J.P. Morgan will become a year-round homebase for outdoor recreation and community connection — serving as a place of merriment and good times for all.
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