All Resorts

Palisades Tahoe

Six thousand acres, the steepest resort in North America, and an Olympic pedigree dating to 1960.

Our Take

Palisades Tahoe (the resort formerly known as Squaw Valley) hosted the 1960 Winter Olympics and has spent the last 65 years building on that terrain reputation to become one of the most consequential ski mountains in North America. Six thousand skiable acres spread across two connected mountains -- Palisades and Alpine Meadows -- with 34 chairlifts, 170 trails, and a steepness concentration in the Palisades zone that genuinely challenges experts on every run. The KT-22 lift is the resort's shrine: eight named double-blacks off a single lift serving terrain that Olympic and World Cup skiers use for training. The split between Palisades (steeps, exposure, genuine consequences) and Alpine Meadows (wide, sustained, intermediate-friendly) gives the joint resort one of the broadest terrain profiles in the US. Alterra bought the resort in 2021, switched it from Epic to Ikon, and added the inter-resort gondola connecting the two sides, transforming what were two great resorts into one exceptional one. The Lake Tahoe views from the upper mountain are competitive with the best in the Sierras. The après at the base -- particularly the Village at Palisades Tahoe -- has improved dramatically under Alterra's investment. This is now a serious destination resort that competes with Whistler in the Ikon portfolio.

Expert and extreme terrain huntersOlympic history devoteesIkon pass holdersSteeps specialistsBig mountain skiers

Nerd Stats

Skiable Acres

6,000

No. of Lifts

34

Avg Annual Snowfall

450"

Summit Elevation

9,050'

Fun Facts

  • Palisades hosted the 1960 Winter Olympics -- at the time it was relatively unbuilt, which the IOC apparently overlooked and the locals took advantage of.
  • KT-22 has the steepest concentration of double-black terrain at any North American resort. The name refers to the 22 kick-turns needed to descend the mountain before lifts were installed.
  • The inter-resort gondola connecting Palisades and Alpine Meadows opened in 2022 -- 8-minute ride connecting two 3,000-acre mountains.
  • The resort rebranded from Squaw Valley in 2021, dropping a name that had been flagged as a racial slur for years.

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