Barely 15 minutes on the ground at Reno International and already I’m sitting in a cop car. In other words, I’m way ahead of schedule.

Having just missed a shuttle and dreading a two-hour wait, I figure I’ll wander over to the car rental area and see if some Tahoe-bound stranger might take a fellow skier aboard. Turns out the first driver I approach-a young woman loading a snowboard bag into a Dodge-isn’t your typical shredder.
"Are you a criminal?" she asks.

"No," I say. "I just got here. I haven’t had a chance yet."
"Well that’s good because I’m a cop." Apparently she flew cross-country in pursuit of a perp, but just got word that he’s already been arrested. Hence, she has time on her hands and a bizarre willingness to help me out.

And that’s how I come to be chauffeur-driven to the very door of my Lake Tahoe condo by a beautiful officer of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. As we roll into town the neon ribs of the casinos twinkle to life, while alpenglow bathes the gleaming peaks of the Sierras.

Frankly, I’m feeling a lot like James Bond, which, I suspect, is a common affliction in a place that somehow combines 24-hour baccarat, world-class skiing and luxurious California style.

My DEA chum also provides my first lesson in Tahoe’s teeming democracy: You have absolutely no clue what sort of person you’re going to meet next, just the knowledge that he or she will be astonishingly friendly. In the next few days I will share Sierra Nevada Pale Ale with London bankers, a gondola with a 74-year-old New Jersey surfer, and two mirthful laps with a posse of Chicano snowboarders from Sacramento who seem to have more fun riding badly than anyone I’ve ever seen riding well.

In short, if a skier has a bucket list, subconscious or otherwise, Lake Tahoe belongs on it. Should you ever find yourself in a Canadian resort and hear Americans complaining about not enough to do off-slope, you can be fairly certain it was Tahoe that spoiled them. The other reason is that this is also California, baby, albeit a snow-sports-mad California trying as hard as it can to be Canada. And it’s doing a pretty good job.

You would not know, for example, that by 1890 the basin was virtually denuded of its signature towering Ponderosa pines. Most had gone underground, so to speak, to shore up a vast network of mine tunnels in the famous Comstock Lode at nearby Virginia City, Nevada. Thankfully the silver ran out, the trees grew back, and tourists discovered a four-season playground with pleasant temperatures year-round: first, the baronial class from San Francisco, arriving by steamship; then, once casino gambling arrived in 1944, motor tourists seeking blackjack with a lungful of mountain air on the side. The ski resorts followed, a whopping 15 of them-the continent’s densest concentration, strung like pearls around the 35-by-19 kilometre lake.

This deep, clear alpine water is effectively bisected by the California-Nevada border, though vacationers tend to choose either the north or south end and seldom bother to circumnavigate both (though you can, easily enough). First-timers like me usually choose the latter, where Stateline, Nevada, meets South Lake Tahoe, California.

True, high-end skiers might prefer a resort like Squaw Valley in the quieter north, home to some of the world’s top freeriders. But the southern areas-Heavenly Valley, Sierra-at-Tahoe and Kirkwood-are outstanding in their own right, especially if your crew has varied tastes, as the south shore offers the richest variety of amusements.

Even if you never set foot in a casino you’ll gamble, certainly-on the weather. In this corner of the Sierras, metre-plus snowfalls are as common as spring-like interludes in any winter month. I can tell that on my first gondola ride from the townsite up to Heavenly Valley, a 30-lift resort that sprawls across both states and four unique base areas. It may be late winter, with great blobs of snow still clinging to the conifers, yet the sun is strangely high overhead and manages to blunt a distinctly icy breeze off the lake.
Heavenly’s claim to fame is its many perfect, high-altitude (up to 3,060 metres), intermediate cruisers which, on its 300-odd sunny days a year, look directly down on the absurdly picturesque lake. (Skiers posing for photographs are a routine hazard.) But there’s another side: "Best tree skiing in the U.S.," says an ex-Vermonter named Todd, whom I meet on the summit chairlift. "When it’s good, that is," he adds. He is referring to those massive Sierra dumps which make CNN headlines, when locals pull out their fat skis and plunge grotesquely deep pillow lines, especially in the 40-degree-plus chutes of Mott Canyon on the Nevada side. Though there’s only a skiff of fresh today, Todd shows me some of the goods available just about all over the mountain. Most feature a steep, sustained pitch, with ultra-wide spacing between huge, gnarled pines that have no business living at this altitude.
Mind you, neither do I. By the time I make my way to the California side via Gunbarrel, one of North America’s longest and most punishing mogul runs, I’m nearly cooked. It’s all I can do to stagger home, hot tub, put on a jacket, eat a porterhouse, "invest" 40 bucks on Pai Gow poker, and toss back a couple of Knob Creek bourbons at Vex nightclub in the Harrah’s casino complex. Tahoe: ancient native word meaning "stamina." (Well, actually, it means "big water.")

Over the next few days I eat oysters with a bachelor party from Chile and drink Sonoma sauvignon blanc with genuine Sonomans. I meet lifties and chambermaids from Brazil. But the sheer variety of humanity really doesn’t peak until I visit Sierra-at-Tahoe, a mellow, family-style mountain community a short shuttle away from downtown.

That’s where, on a blazing 15-degree afternoon, I stumble across Monopalooza 08, the annual reunion of some 50 or 60 hardcore American monoskiers, devotees of a style of sliding that peaked around 1982 and, to their eternal mystification, has practically faded away. For the uninitiated-i.e. everybody-a monoski is like a snowboard but with side-by-side bindings. If memory serves, it’s how James Bond once escaped from Siberia carrying a villain’s microchip.

Monos have a reputation among skiers-undeserved, I now see-as the last vestige of the golden age of Euro bum-wiggling. In fact, these guys are ripping as hard as anyone on the mountain, their shoulders nearly grazing the snow with each mighty carve. They perform mass monoski assaults on the showcase runs and comical events like three-legged racing, frequently rallying one another with lusty shouts of "Mono!" They even offer free demos of new boards, which leads me to discover that I’m approximately as good at monoskiing as I am at cards.

Then, in fine Tahoe tradition, and despite my inelegant two-legged skiing style, they invite me to party with them. Apparently one of the Alaska boys brought a crate of salmon and they plan to grill them up at the Monopad, a huge lakeside rental in the Tahoe Keys. After that, it’s on to the pub crawl.
I am, of course, tempted. No wonder the Rat Pack reportedly loved this place so much.

But I won’t lie to you: these monoskiers are a surprisingly fast crowd. Better I slip away now than risk falling in with an even racier set downtown. Besides, I swore to my chauffeur that I’d keep my nose clean. Wl