Drifter

PLEASE NOTE THIS IS NOT PART OF THE RESORT (MEANING YOU WILL HAVE TO LEAVE IT TO GET HERE) but can be accessed very easily through it. Take the Mile Run ski trail until you get to a fork in the road. You would go right to continue on the run. But you want to go left to access this hike. Now, this hike would be a lot easier if you could go directly up to the peak. But because there's a lot of private property around this area, it's better to continue going left and actually towards the road aptly called "Ski Slope Way". Take this road as far as you can until you get to a fork. Then take the road "Glacier Way" all the way up until you hit the snow. From here, skins and ski poles are definitely required to complete the hike. If you're not starting from the ski resort, it might be way easier to drive to this point and hike from here. As soon as you've started hiking, you're in Sunrise bowl and the lines generally get more awesome the higher you go. You don't have to ski the main face either. You can keep going further and further as this entire valley curves and boxes you in (see the actual map for further clarification). The beauty is that unless you drop to the other side of the hill, as long as you ski back towards Tahoe Donner, no matter where you drop into, you'll always come back to the resort. To get to the Drifter run itself, you'll have to go quite a bit further than Sunrise Bowl. Keep traversing past The Far Side Cornice and up to the second peak. Descend this peak, cross a saddle and then get to the summit of a third peak. This is the peak that signifies the start of Drifter. Instead of hiking up this peak, you can even start your descent from the saddle. As soon as you start skiing, you'll notice two things: the fantastic generally untouched snow quality and that this run is much easier than the other runs in this area. You'll also figure out that you have to take quite a lengthy traverse to get back to the resort. You might have to cross a few roads but you'll funnel back into the same area. Just be mindful that there's probably private property all around you and that theres no easy way to return to the ski resort itself!