Spooner Lake Cross Country Ski Area

2011 is all about my bucket list.
Naturally, my 700^th review belongs to Lake Tahoe, with its gorgeous views, mountain fresh air and endless play options. Plus without it, I wouldn’t have checked off snowshoeing on my list.
Spooner Lake is located on Highway 28, about 20 mins. away from the S. Lake Tahoe casinos. You’re not far away from civilization but it feels like a different world out here.
If it’s your first time at this park, you need purchase an all day pass which costs $ 22. Snowshoe rentals are $ 18/​day (from 9am-​5pm) and cross country lessons are FREE, available everyday at 10 am and 1 pm. Also, there is only ONE warming hut in the whole park located at the rental shop. Eat, drink and strap on your gear here before you head out to the trails.
What’s so good about Spooner Lake is its great for beginners like me. Start with the 2 mile Spooner Lake trail — essentially a flat terrain which literally loops around Spooner Lake. This is a good trail for warming up or testing your snow legs.
There are an abundance of trails for snowshoers and XC skiers alike. The best part about it is the trails are machine groomed every night so the tracks are reset and gets rid of the accumulated ice from the previous day.
For THE best views of Lake Tahoe, do the 4 mile (round trip) Tahoe View trail. Coming from the rental shop, you’ll encounter fierce winds as you come across the open meadow, but quietness will envelope you as soon as you disappear into the forest. Here on you can take off your beanie and carry your jacket since the 600 feet ascent would’ve you out of breath (damn, my boyfriend wasn’t even wearing spandex!) At the top, you’re rewarded with a 360 degree view of the deep blue waters of Lake Tahoe and stillness in the air that very few places in SF can provide.
It’s perfection. Pure utter perfection.
If you have a bucket list like I do, tell yourself, this is the year to try new things and go places.
Life is short, so seize the day!

Super nicely groomed trails, super friendly staff, and reasonable rental rates + day passes.
It doesn’t hurt that today was absolutely beautiful– made my first experience with cross-​country absolutely perfect.

After dropping my snowboarding and skiing friends off at Diamond Peak, I headed to the Spooner Lake Cross Country Ski area which was only a 15 – 20 minute drive away for some snowshoeing. I had never snowshoed before and found the Spooner Lake XC area a wonderful place to start. Parking was easily available and getting the lowdown on snowshoeing trails and equipment rental was friendly and efficient. The afternoon rate for snowshoes and trail pass was $ 32, which is an inexpensive way to spend a sunny winter afternoon. The snowshoes were excellent quality and the trails were well maintained. I hiked the Tahoe View trail which is a little over 5 miles. It was challenging for an athletic person, but they have a Spooner Lake trail which is flatter and just 2 miles for a more lowkey hike. The views were fantastic and everyone cross country skiing or snowshoeing was friendly. It was also a nice hike for solitude, I went 25 minutes at a time without seeing anyone and peace and quiet in nature. The tiny café portion in the lodge has hot drinks, cold drinks and snacks which are all reasonably priced. Restrooms were clean. The only drawback is that I don’t think that they have any warming huts, which is something that I’ve heard other XC and Snowshoeing places offer. Overall though, I was very happy snowshoeing here and I will return!

Wonderful! My boyfriend and I (both mildly athletic but not snow people) took a cross country ski lesson here. The price was amazing. On Thursdays, you can rent skis, get a pass to ski in the area and get a 1 ½ lesson for $ 50 for the first person and $ 1 for the second (usually $ 50 each). There was one other couple in our group. The woman had bad knees and was clearly not enjoying herself. The instructor did a good job of trying to coax her along while still making sure that she was teaching the other 3 of us at a good pace. The other couple ended up leaving to get snowshoes. After the lesson, we went around the scenic beginner trail. We brought a picnic lunch and 64oz of water between the two of us. At one point, there were a few rocks so we stopped to eat our lunch. There were just enough people out on the trails that you felt that if you got hurt, someone would be along to help, but we also spent a lot of time around the lake with no one else in sight. I thought that ccs would be boring, but my aunt recently tried it and loved it, so we decided to give it a go. I wish we could make it up to Tahoe more often. It was a great workout and enjoyable.
The employees were welcoming, well organized, knew there stuff and generally lovely people.

Very beautiful, well run place, enjoyed myself on the many trail choices.

Loved my experience here with cross-​country skiing.
We had lessons and then skiied around Spooner Lake over New Year’s eve weekend. The lesson was great! Our instructurer, Jerry, was very sweet & an awesome teacher, and has been skiing for 30+ years. He was patient, instructive, and really positive, and helped make skiing really fun.
The trails are calm and beautiful; the trail around Spooner Lake is pretty flat. Great for beginners, and ends up being a decent workout.
Would definitely come back.

Super Friendly owners. Inexpensive and Fun! Tired from an exhausting day skiing/​boarding? You might want to give cross country skiing a try! Its like doing the Nordictrac machine, its simply gliding LOL. Great sport to enjoy with a significant other/​child/​parent. They also offer snow shoeing, looked kinda lame.

This is a strange place for review averaging, since it’s so different winter vs. summer, etc. My review is for XC skiing.
I want to give more stars — the people are really nice, the prices for «stuff» they sell are really low (I happened to notice that Camelback cleaning tablets are cheaper than at REI) as are the trail passes, equipment rentals, and lessons, and it’s sentimental for me since this is where I first learned to XC. Also the location is convenient, right on hwy 28 just off 50.
That said, I’ve decided it’s just «A-​OK», because of the trails themselves. There just isn’t much variety that isn’t really flat — to do anything challenging or really interesting, you have to head up an out & back that’s a constant climb out and a constant descent back, and my personal preference is for more options, loops, etc. I also don’t like the lack of detail in the trail map coupled with very sparse signposting at trail intersections. I only come up at most once a year, and although it’s impossible to be «lost», there are definitely times when I can’t figure out which intersection I’m at or which trail is which. I’ve only XC’d at about 10 places, but Spooner seems to be the worst in both these respects. One good aspect of the trail map is elevation, though, which I took for granted until really missing it at another XC place.
I’d love to try one of the cabins some time, and it seems like a great place for snowshoeing (and I see more snowshoers here than anywhere else I’ve been).
Even though it’s not my favorite, it’s good, and I’ll keep coming back.

Very good XC venue. Very nice staff. The only complaint this season has been very inconsistent grooming.

Spooner Lake recreation area was the bomb! I just spent this past weekend there trailriding with my newly tuned bike… It was EPIC! We rode the Fume trail all the way uphill and down! The trail was a perfect 8+ mi. and was full of enticing views and fun trails! Bring mosquitoe repellent and the energy to RIDE! No guts no glory on some technical and easy rider trails! Check my pic out for a group photo of our Voltron like group of riders!

Had a good time here. Went to learn X country skiing. It proved to be more challenging than we thought, especially on the slopes. So we traded the skis for snow-​shoes. Now this we could do very easily.
The trail around lake is actually nice, would have been great for X-​country. Maybe next winter.
After reading reviews of the cabin, going to try out sometime in future.
The people at the ski shop were nice.

Oh Spooner I am craving you. I need the great white north… I need wide open spaces. Do I need Snow Camping??? hahaha
I would love to do alittle cross-​country skiing. I want Tina Turner’s Legs…
X-​C skiing is better than an elliptical machine. None of that virtual shit if you need to get up a hill for 5 minutes or you need flat terrain Live and In-​Person is the only way to go.
The COST is minimal. A lesson, equipment and a trail pass will set you back a whopping $ 34.00 USD Lucci baby… Whaaaat ??? That’s nothing. You may be able to get part of a «Lift Ticket» with that.
Downhill Skiing is cost prohibited to me… That includes Snowboarding until I can find a place to do it off trail.
I am not really a downhill kind of girl… I don’t like the physics or the velocity. There are hill and descents in Cross-​Country…
Cross-​country skiing (also known as XC skiing) is a winter sport popular in many countries with large snowfields, primarily Northern Europe and Canada. The popularity of the sport has been quickly growing in the United States.
Cross-​country skiing is part of the Nordic skiing sport family, which also includes ski jumping, and a combination sport of cross-​country skiing and ski jumping called Nordic combined. Free-​technique cross-​country skiing is also the method of locomotion in the combination sport of Biathlon, which adds rifle marksmanship to skiing.
My friend Misako took another trail with Doug Brooms Esq. The cool dude who turned us onto this place. We were all there as part of the Western Region Winter Carnival part of the National Brotherhood of Skiers… nbs​.org
There are shuttles that stop at the Casinos in Tahoe that can bring you to Spooner.
I am going back… No Snow Camping… I am going to have a Snow Picnic replete with Booze. See ya

Who knew snowshoeing could be so much fun?!!
My inaugural visit to Lake Tahoe brought me to Spooner Lake Cross Country Ski Area, which is quietly nestled in So. Lake Tahoe. The picturesque area welcomes skiers, snowshoe-​rs and athletes of all ages, sizes, and abilities, and provides all sorts of equipment rentals and access to the grounds at a really good price.
My girlfriends and I came here not really knowing what to expect and wound up feeling comfortable, energized, and at the end of the day, PROUD that we were out in Mother Nature, breathing fresh air, and getting a workout!
Come one, come all, don’t be afraid, snowshoeing is EASY and statistics say that you can burn up to 1,000 calories per hour snowshoeing, which is more than running or cross-​country skiing!
I say bring it! I’ll be back!

We just got back from spending two nights at Wildcat Cabin at Spooner Lake.
I have nothing but good things to say. Oh no I have some bad things. But really I have nothing but good things.
The bad things:
I’m not completely hardcore outdoorsy so I was a bit intimidated about an hour hike with food and sleeping bags and other overnight accouterments. When we checked in at the front the young kid working there was your typical obnoxious youth. «Where’d you guys come from» he asked, we told him we drove up from Berkeley, he goes «Oh… Berk-​eley» as if we drove up in our Audi and killed some squirrels along the way. Then he tells us that the hike isn’t that bad, he does it all the time, you just go up a slight incline, puts his arm about an 80 degree angle, and then it levels off and you go up another slight incline, arm goes to about 60 degree angle, then you’re there. He also neglects to tell us that the cabin is stocked and we don’t need to bring so much stuff up with us, i.e. haul extra crap that makes the hike suck.
Oh well. So we hike up to the cabin and once we have arrived I curse that child because a. the hike wasn’t that bad and b. the cabin is fully stocked and the view is gorgeous.
We spent the next few hours sitting on the deck in total seclusion staring at Lake Tahoe. This was the most amazing trip I’ve been on in a very long time. No television, no cellphone, no computer, just me and my husband, some books, some wine and nature.
I highly recommend Wildcat Cabin!!!
ps
if you’re curious as to what the cabin is stocked with ask me and I’ll send you a note, because their page isn’t terribly descriptive.

The North Country trail from Spooner Lake to Marlette lake is a nice hike that runs parallel to the bike trail, This «moderate» trail quickly turns into strenous when paired with the hot summer sun. I swear there was like a 15 degree tempurature difference between the sunny spots and the shady spots on the trail. Bring plenty of water. I went with three others and we didn’t make it much furhter than the switchback on the trail.
If you park at Spooner Lake, it’s $ 6 for the car load, and your parking pass is also good at Sand Harbor (where parking is $ 8). But spooner lake has a very nice and large picnic area and restrooms (no lights)
for hiking there is also a spooner lake loop that is closed to bikes.