California’s Sugar Bowl Resort Builds World-Class Terrain Park

Mountainwatch | Tony Harrington

With its variety of off piste terrain, Sugar Bowl has long been renowned as a freeride gem by Tahoe locals. Now that freeride spirit is complemented by a full-blown park scene championed by its CEO and General Manager Wanaka’s Bridget Legnavsky.

I’d heard whispers about Sugar Bowl, tucked at the end of Donner Lake, and how good it is for freeskiing, and how it’s mainly locals who dominate the mountain, not Aussies or hordes of internationals that head to other larger ski areas scattered around Tahoe.  Finally, I made it here with my intro being a morning tearing into cord with the local crew on massive groomers, spying short steep spines from the chair. First impressions – uncrowded, unassuming and a sweet spot to skip the hustle and come back to play on a powder day.

Sugar Bowl is one of the oldest ski resorts in California, home to the state’s first chairlift, the west’s first gondola and a rich storied past with ties to Austrian ski culture, Hollywood and Walt Disney. It’s also one of the last independent ski resorts in North America and is owned by the village.

Bridget Legnavsky, the new (ish) President and CEO of Sugar Bowl has just launched Tahoe’s biggest freestyle park and training facility, filling a surprising gap given the vast number of resorts, the population and vibrant culture of freestyle in the snow industry in this part of the world.

“Sugar Bowl is a community for its kids that love to ski and ride. We are super proud of what that stands for, and what that actually means in today’s world.” And now, home to the most progressive freestyle program in Tahoe, thanks to the efforts and direction of Bridget and a passionate team determined to bring the vision to life.

I met Bridget in Wanaka back in the early ’90s. She worked her way up from being an instructor, becoming the general manager of Cardrona and then further up the chain as the Chief Experience Officer for Real Journeys after the amalgamation of Cardona and Treble Cone. Few numerous years Bridget was the NZ Extreme Skiing Champion and we’d often end on photo shoots in Wanaka and up in Mt Cook. She has a deep understand of new school culture, having overseen the birth and continued growth of Cardrona Park training and event scene. Who better to lead the charge of developing Tahoe’s only world class freestyle training facility?

“We wanted to build full-size park in Tahoe because no one’s doing it anymore. Everyone’s pulled out. We wanted to build a venue for kids to get to World Cup. That’s our goal. There’s so many wonderful skiing kids, but they haven’t had the facilities to train on for slopestyle. It’s about creating facilities the kids can learn to do the big tricks on, and that’s what our mission is. It’s surprising the other resorts haven’t embraced the opportunity. A big park brings good kids. It’s a completely different demographic and we’ve had a 40% increase in youth in one season.”

Check out the below edit from the Faction ski team last spring to see the park in full swing: