In 1852 a miner named William Wier was killed by a winter avalanche near Pilot Peak in the Sierra Buttes near the town of Laporte, California (in Plumas County). Wier had no skis when he died, while he was working on the mountainside.

Wier's and other deaths proved to miners that skis,
originally known as "snowshoes," were needed to survive working in the mountains in winter. The avalanche of 1852 was the turning point.

Skis become popular

Located a stone's throw away from U.S. Highway 50, the superb walls of Lover's Leap loom over the hamlet of Strawberry, 40 miles east of Placerville and 18 miles southeast of Lake Tahoe.

The Leap's steep, north-facing walls are at least a half-mile wide, and several climbing routes on its main and western walls rise dramatically to 600 feet. Rugged points of rock form a cliff band that separate into four distinct and forbidding bluffs.

Julia: There hasn't been as much hype as you might think. I don't feel I've reached any type of superstar status. Except while I was traveling in Austria, I have not been really that recognizable. But the Austrians...they're nuts! I really can't go anywhere in public over there, or I get overwhelmed with autograph requests and attention. Skiing means a bit more to them.

Fro: Since winning gold what are some of the requests asked of you? For example, has anybody proposed to you yet?

Their first client was a man who was stuck with an expensive ski lift in Palisades Tahoe that sat idle half the year. They advised him to start a posh and rather formal restaurant-nightclub up the slope that could be reached only by ski lift. So he did. It was named High Camp and it immediately became all the rage.

In 1970, the opening of Palisades Tahoe's High Camp for summertime operation and year-round use ushered in the prospect of brazen new worlds for resort operators. Never before had a Tahoe resort offered a year-round attraction on such an entertaining scale.

"The snow in the lower elevations might be getting thin, but in the high elevations the spring skiing remains phenomenal. The upper snow elevationsin 2006 are 120 percent of normal," says Bela Vadasz of Alpine Skills International (ASI).

While purists may put spring skiing behind the adrenaline rush of deep snow, nothing captures the free fall thrills of snow sports as the exhilaration of corn. Simply speaking, corn snow makes ordinary skiers or snowboarders into gods.

In fact, even the gods agree.

"I'll take corn snow over three feet of the driest powder any day," says Todd Kelly, a former US Ski Team member and veteran World Cup downhiller. "It's like turning on butter. You can ski anything you want."

Several skiers were already on top, loosely cluttered, some already clicked into their bindings, alert but casual as they viewed the surroundings and shared a reverential quiet.

The sun began to break out of the dreamy foliage of dawn, its canopy exploding into an enormous sunlit corona of mist, which trailed across the azure water like a cape.

Now, almost on cue, skiers snapped to attention. Several peeled off the crest and arced with a low-pitched, ripping noise, as if the air itself had split open. Down they went into Tallac's huge bowl.

Dutton's love led him to a vast knowledge of the backcountry surrounding the Tahoe Basin. As a result, in 1976, Billy helped establish Tahoe Nordic Search and Rescue (TNSR).

"Bill was our strongest skier. I was always sure to be with the likes of him when we teamed up on searches," says Doug Read, another original and current member of TNSR. Read recounts the time when Dutton herringboned eight miles up and out of a canyon near Diamond Crossing carrying a hurt and near death woman on his back. They both returned to safety and recovery.

"We stared in disbelief. Earlier, we had found her boyfriend lifeless only a few feet away." Lanny (Johnson), a fellow patrolman, said into the snow: "Anna, is that you?" She responded, "Yes, it's me."

Finding Anna Conrad alive was a miracle that helped overcome the sense of loss and ruin surrounding one of North America's most fatal ski-area disasters.

Alpine Meadows

The 32-year-old has earned 12 World Cup victories, a Super-G World Championship gold medal in 2001, two medals at the 2005 World Championships, and over two dozen second and third-place podiums. The "Sugar Ambassador of Skiing" ended his World Cup career recently in Are, Sweden on the podium by placing second in the Super-G behind teammate Bode Miller.