Palisades Tahoe Alpine Lodge Base Area

The Alpine Lodge Base Plaza

The Alpine Lodge is the main day lodge of the Alpine base at Palisades Tahoe, and this camera covers the broad paved plaza spread out in front of it. Picnic tables, lounge chairs and a permanent outdoor stage turn the deck into an open-air living room for the resort, used for races, concerts and community gatherings at the foot of the slopes.

Lifts and Terrain Above the Base

Just beyond the furniture stand the base chairlift terminals that lift visitors off a valley floor sitting at roughly 6,835 feet (2,083 m). From there the mountain rises through granite outcrops, steep chutes and conifer forest toward Ward Peak at 8,637 feet (2,633 m), the high point of the Alpine terrain and a long-standing favourite of Sierra skiers.

One Resort, Two Valleys

Alpine is one half of Palisades Tahoe, linked to neighbouring Olympic Valley — host of the 1960 Winter Olympics — by the Base to Base Gondola that crosses the ridge between the two valleys. The pairing gives the resort one of the largest lift-served ski areas in North America, and this plaza is the quieter, more local-feeling of its two front doors.

Around Alpine Meadows

The valley lies in Placer County, a short drive west of Lake Tahoe, reached by Alpine Meadows Road from State Route 89 near Tahoe City. In the warm months the same plaza serves hikers, trail runners and mountain bikers exploring the surrounding Sierra Crest ridgelines, so the view stays busy long after the snow has gone.