Northstar California Resort 5001 Northstar Drive, Truckee, CA 96161

"Our trip to Northstar was amazing! We spent 2 days skiing and were able to explore all of the mountains within. I highly recommend Northstar due to the varied terrain — truly something for everyone. My son is more adventurous and loves steep runs, trees, and terrain parks. As for me, I like groomers and getting intentionally lost on the trails. We were able to ski together and separate for me to do a nice blue while he would do something steep/wild and we’d meet at the lift. It was super easy to navigate yet big enough with awesome views that it felt like an adventure. Lookout mountain has VERY steep runs (e.g. Stampede). How that is not a double black is beyond me! The Backside was our favorite as it had some comfortable blues along with some challenging blacks and amazing tree runs. East ridge has the views of the lake, terrain parks for all abilities, and some easy blues and greens. The area in the middle has a lot of fun blues with adventurous tree runs to the sides. I did a lot of those as my son ventured in and out of the trees with me. We were having so much fun that we skied from open to close and didn’t go into any of the lodges other than the one at the top of Mt Pluto to use the bathroom and get a quick snack. The fun music and people dancing while taking a break made it a festive atmosphere for sure. Lastly, we stayed at the Ritz hotel as my wife doesn’t ski so she was pampered and loving the relaxing time in such a lovely hotel while we enjoyed the ski in / ski out convenience. All in, for this northeast US native who usually skis the mid-Atlantic and New England, this was the best ski experience I have ever had. Maybe the 2+ feet of powder had something to do with that too!!"

"I’ve been coming here for about 3 years straight now and wanted to give a review about the mountain. This is an amazing place to learn how to ski and snowboard. It’s also a great place to learn park riding. The runs are extremely easy. The village is nice for families and those want to chill and have a drink. However, if youre an avid skier or snowboarder I would stay clear of this place. The lines on weekends are far too long to get any more than 8 runs in a day and the grooming and lack of steep runs will get annoying. It’s def more of a Disneyland experience than a real mountain. Food prices are some of the highest I’ve ever seen as well. Watching all the ski teams skip the lines while you wait 20-30 min to get on the lift really ruins the stoke as well. This place would be chill on a weekday but unless it’s the very end of the season I wouldn’t bother with this place on a weekend."

"Great ski resort with nice runs and great snow! There’s some good park features and a half pipe too, which was pretty fun to try out! On Challenger, I set a new speed record on my snowboard, going 52.5 mph!"

"Overall, it's a fun resort to ski at. It's large enough to keep stuff fresh for a full day and probably two. The runs themselves aren't super difficult but there is enough variety to keep the whole family entertained. The views are gorgeous, especially when you can see the lake. The 23-24 winter isn't the best for snow so I'll have to come back out when it's a better year to see it's full potential."

"This review is targeted at skiers/snowboarders. While the location of the resort is very picturesque and the main village itself is cozy and nice to relax at, overall Northstar is totally not worth your time. Here’s why. For starters, the runs are not overwhelmingly great. Blacks feel like blues, blues feel like greens, and greens are cakewalks. The runs do not offer much of a challenge for the experienced skier/snowboarder. The only thing the mountain does particularly well is provide good trees to ride through. However, many people don’t stick to doing that the whole time and spend a large portion of their time on main runs—which to say are busy…is an extreme understatement. Every run seems to be filled with everyone from experienced riders to people who take up the entire run performing an s-turn. Secondly, the resort gets more and more crowded each year. Don’t get me wrong, when I first came here I was looking forward to going on many runs and having a great time with the people I was with. Suffice to say, the majority of the memories I have from that trip were sitting in line waiting for lifts. Do NOT expect to come here and not deal with huge lines. It’s simply unavoidable. The resort just doesn’t have the capacity to deal with the crowds it attracts. Third, the customer service of the workers at the resort is awful. I try to have sympathy for them, maybe it’s just the fact that they are being overworked because of the sheer number of people at Northstar each day. But at the end of the day, their service still isn’t good and they consistently seem to have negative attitudes. Finally, and arguably most importantly, everything is so so overpriced. And I mean EVERYTHING. From food to apparel to lift tickets. On top of having to deal with crowds both on lifts and on the runs, poor customer support, and generally underwhelming runs, you’re having to pay up to twice as much for a lift ticket or pass as you would at another resort. Overall, if you can go to another resort, just go. Northstar is overrated and overpriced."