Soda Springs Mountain Resort — Attraction in Truckee

Incompetent management, aging lifts, poorly designed trails. Never again.

My Soda Springs experience began with having to reschedule my day pass due to a storm closure (it happens, not an issue). I replied to an email they sent me about this, providing all information they requested in order to reschedule my visit. No reply for 5 business days. I sent a follow-up email, and again, no reply for 3 business days. A few days before my desired rescheduled visit date, I called to get my visit rescheduled over the phone, since I was getting no reply via email.

The person I spoke with rescheduled my visit over the phone in about 5 minutes. Hilariously, later that day, I received an email reply from presumably a different person, telling me I needed to include my confirmation number in order to reschedule. If they had read my original email (which was in the SAME EMAIL CHAIN...) they would have seen I included my confirmation number and other required info.

Fast forward to the day of my visit.

Upon arrival to the parking lot, we were 'greeted' by an unenthused/disinterested staff member, whose sole duty seemed to be to stand there asking people if they have paid for their pass. If you read their rules/website, you MUST pay for your pass in advance. I understand why the poor kid was completely disinterested. Bad management there, whose idea was that?

Checking in with the automated lift ticket kiosks was amusing, as only one of four machines worked.

Throughout the day, both lifts had obvious issues. The smaller lift servicing the beginner runs stopped VERY often for a mystery issue with the lift base (mind you, not because of people having issues getting on/off!). Most stops on both lifts were caused by a mechanical/electrical issue, with some lift rides taking as long as 15 minutes thanks to the lift stopping every (literal) 30 seconds. I asked a lift operator "What's going on with the lift?" Reply was "She's an old girl, she needs a break sometimes." Great. Pretty reassuring. On several occasions I wondered if I was making a mistake by getting on the lift, risking getting stuck on it.

I also had a rather negative interaction with a staff member. I was looking for a way to get to a restroom, and being a more advanced skier, I turned off a cat track near the base of the hill, cutting across an ungroomed area toward a building with restrooms. There was no fence, sign, or any indication that I wasn't supposed to go that way. After getting across the short ungroomed section, I was approached by a staff member who was unreasonably hostile right off the bat, telling me not to do that again. I told him "I'm sorry, I didn't know" multiple times. I had to refrain from telling him to calm down because I knew that would only escalate things, but it was warranted.

I ask you this, Mr. Hostile Employee: Why would you just assume I'm purposefully breaking the rules when there is NO indication WHATSOEVER that I wasn't supposed to go that way, not even a fence or sign? Please work on your professionalism.

I understood why I wasn't supposed to cut across there AFTER passing through and being berated by that staff member, because lo and behold, there was a shed buried under a huge pile of powder (Didn't ski over it, but about 6 ft from it). This shed was COMPLETELY hidden from the direction I was headed due to the amount of snow on top of it and behind it.

So, a question for management: Why on earth would you not place a sign or fence warning skiers not to cut across there?

My final complaint has to do with the trail design/layout. There are at most three decent runs. The rest is a mess of interconnected narrow cat tracks arbitrarily crisscrossing and weaving down the hill. In some areas there is a ton of room to create a nice wide blue/green run, but instead management at this resort have decided to run a single narrow cat track through these areas.

Skip this waste of a resort. Since lift passes are relatively inexpensive I'd say you truly get what you pay for here, but even for $70 I felt like I got a $20...

If this were a review of Tube Town only, I would give it 1 star (fewer if that were possible). I didn't try out the skiing. The lodge was OK (small but fairly typical food). I didn't know before now that it was possible for a tubing hill to suck so much that it was preferable to leave and forfeit our $40 each ($120 for our family of 3) after one run and just go to a local sledding hill, which turned out to be infinitely more thrilling and enjoyable compared to Tube Town at Soda Springs. The tube runs are short, the slope is very flat, and the snow isn't carved smoothly. Everybody of every size got stuck at least once because no matter how well they shoved off they couldn't gain enough momentum to slide over the choppy ground. Because of everyone's slow descent, there was about a 10 minute wait, by far the longest I've ever seen, at the top of the hill -- even though the run was by far the shortest I've ever seen on any tubing hill. After all that long wait, you get to slowly creep along until you drift to a stop and shove yourself off again. Yippee. :| To sweeten the whole deal, instead of giving you the typical easy ride up sitting in your tube hooked to a rope pull, they make you take a magic carpet conveyer ramp up. The belt is narrower than the tubes, so the side platforms drag against the tubes, forcing little kids who weigh about the same as the tubes to struggle to pull the tubes behind them while standing on a moving platform with no rail to hold onto to steady themselves. I ended up retrieving a kid's lost tube (yanking it while balancing and holding my own tube) and also clutching my husband's that he had to drop to pick up a pile of someone else's kids that had fallen down in front of him. To top it all off, there's a line at the bottom to wait for a tube because they sell more tickets than they have tubes. So after fighting for your life and rescuing fallen children on the way up, waiting 10 minutes at the top, and slowly inching your way down a lame run, you have to surrender your tube. If you want to go again you have to wait in line again 10 minutes at the bottom for another tube. As I mentioned at the beginning, we decided for the sake of having fun during our limited time we were better off walking away from our $120 and taking our sleds to a nearly free hill - where we could actually get some speed and go multiple times every 25 minutes instead of once. If you are going to Soda Springs for tubing only, do not waste your money. I haven't tried any others in North Lake Tahoe, but the Leland High Sierra Snow Play one in Strawberry is awesome when it has snow (which has been less often than N. Lake...

This review applies to Planet Kids and the general safety at the resort. My child had a great time at Planet Kids but four things happened during our visit today (2/25/17) that were concerning:

Minor - Tube carousel: the attendant was not overseeing this area at all. Basically just turned it on and left or checking his phone. Granted this is not a high risk area for injury but some someone of authority present would've been nice in case someone had a question or for some reason needed to request the ride to stop in case of emergency. No guidance as to where line started. When we left at 2pm the area was closed down. Kids seem to love this ride but I'm guessing they just need more staff?

Between minor and concerning: Tubing mini hill. Little to no supervision from staff. I'm guessing this is a free for all area but I saw at least 4 kids at the end of the sliding area get hammered pretty hard from an oncoming rider. I switched into sno-park mode assuming that we shld just fend for ourselves. Halfway through our session (approx 1:00PM) a staff person decided to put up poles/rope to designate a lane to the side for coming back up the hill. Seems like that shld' was happened when the park opened vs after lunch. Possible solutions: huge sign at the entrance of this area that outlines proper safety etiquette. Planet Kids map with rules given at ticket window (maybe this already exists? we were not given anything when we picked up tickets).

Major: kids snowboarding/skiing hill by the tubing hill. 1-2 ft drop ditch to concrete area designated for the conveyor belt lift needed some sort of barrier. I witnessed a young boarder almost take a digger into this area. Would've been pretty messed up if a kid hit his/her head on concrete even with a helmet. Teacher was mildly freaking out as this beginner drifted toward danger.

Major: upon leaving (2:00PM) staff was sectioning off a walkway behind the main ticketing/cafe building. Apparently some heavy ice/snow fell off the roof and onto some families. Not sure what exactly happened but noticed a father and a child explaining to the staff how some of it hit their heads and could potentially be dangerous. There didn't seem to be any need for first aid.

Great prices for Planet Kids ($38 for kid + attending adult, $10 per additional observer) but it seems like they can swing this because of minimal staff. Come on Soda Springs management - you...