LAKE TAHOE RESORTS SPENDING VAST SUMS TO BROADEN THEIR REACH.

Byline: Travel Editor

OLYMPIC VALLEY - At about 3 o'clock on a recent afternoon at Squaw Valley USA, the cable car took its human cargo up to the resort's midmountain area. When the doors closed, there were 21 people on board.

Of which only two had skis.

One couple cradled an infant. Another couple had a toddler in tow. There was a party of four tourists from India; one of the men wore a tie, one of the women a dress. And when we got to the High Camp complex at the gondola's terminus, people scattered for the restaurant, a museum commemorating the Winter Olympics held here in 1960, a snow-tubing hill. Oh, yes - and the two skiers headed for the top of Emigrant Peak for a 2,500-foot plunge to the bottom of the mountain.

This is not an uncommon phenomenon at winter playgrounds throughout the West. The demographics of the clientele have changed dramatically over the past 10 or 15 years, with visitors spanning a wide spectrum of ages and tastes. Resort operators have hastened to keep up with it, and burgeoning Lake Tahoe, eager to shake its reputation as a commuter ski area for residents of the Bay Area and Sacramento, is a prime example.

The region is in the midst of a major development boom, but the improvements have little to do with lifts, snowmaking equipment or grooming machines. Rather, most of the nearly $1 billion committed to long-range projects is intended to broaden the reach of the resorts.

Springing up everywhere are base-mountain villages - with shops, trendy restaurants, pubs, performance stages and, on the upper floors, condominiums. Activities are expanding exponentially, too: skating rinks, sleigh rides, snowshoe and cross-country ski terrain, spas, tubing hills, snow-toy rentals, climbing walls, dogsled rides.

Lake Tahoe's six major resorts ``compete with each other, and feverishly with Colorado and Utah,'' said Squaw Valley USA's Katja Dahl. ``But our biggest competition is Disneyland and cruise ships.''

Such is the nature of today's travel market - in all seasons. Ski resorts used to be able to succeed solely on the quality of their terrain, the length of their runs, the speed of their lifts, the depth of their snow. While those are still essential factors, they're only pieces of a much bigger puzzle. Resort operators say it became necessary to broaden the offerings for a variety of reasons:

--The aging baby boomer. In their 20s, they could ski all day, for three or four days, without breathing hard. Today, they still love to ski (and perhaps board, if they're trying to keep up with their teen-agers), but after a few hours the joints and muscles start to protest a bit. And the new high-speed quad lifts and gondolas, while a tremendous improvement on the old snail's-pace two-person chairlifts, succeed only in whisking you to the top of the runs much quicker. The wonders of technology: An older guy can ski himself out in half the time.

--More families are vacationing - full families, with very little ones brought along, and Grandma also in tow (ostensibly because you cherish her company, but also so she can watch the kids while you duck out to a jazz club). Many of these travelers might enjoy the spectacular beauty of a mountain setting but not necessarily be inclined to ski till they drop - or ski at all, for that matter. So the demand increases for whimsical activities, low-impact recreation, finer dining, shopping, high-tech arcades, etc.

--Finally, resorts are discovering that as businesses tighten up, people work longer and harder in their jobs. In many homes, both parents work full-time. Vacations are getting shorter and less frequent. And people are looking to maximize relaxation during their holidays, even if a black-diamond run is mixed in from time to time.

``One of our biggest requests this year was for more couches in the lodge,'' said Sierra-at-Tahoe's Megan Waskiewicz, arching her eyebrows. ``We get a lot of moms who want to put their kids in the ski school in the morning and then just plop down by the fireplace.''

She added of Tahoe's winter visitors: ``Money is not a factor. They have discretionary income. What they don't have is time. We're buying time.''

Squaw Valley USA might represent a microcosm of what's happening around the lake. The ski area, which for years had banked on its distinction as a former Olympic site, is in the process of opening the first phase of a base village that ultimately will sprawl over 13 acres and cost an estimated $250 million to complete. The developer is Intrawest, the innovative ski-resort designer that set an industry standard with its impressive village at Whistler, British Columbia.

The project has gotten off to a halting start, as anyone who has ever had a kitchen remodeled might understand. Originally scheduled for a December opening, the first phase was still a hard-hat zone in mid-January (a handful of condos and retail establishments are up and running now), but when the last dab of paint is applied, it will feature 139 condos - they sold out in six hours when placed on the market three years ago - plus 19 shops and restaurants and 250 subterranean parking spaces. A second phase is targeted for completion sometime next winter.

The village is just one element of the diversity of Squaw Valley's offerings. At High Camp, at the top of the cable-car lift, there is a skating rink - but not one of those little dinky ones that are popping up at many ski areas. In keeping with this mountain's heritage, this one is Olympic-size, while still being open to the views of jagged mountaintops all around.

The beginners seem to appreciate a rink that gives them such wide margin for error. And as yet another indicator of the changing market, I saw a little girl of about 5 plop down on her back and start waving her arms and legs. ``Look, Mommy, I'm making ice angels,'' she squealed. Came the reply: ``No! That wrecks the ice!''

Also at High Camp is an inner-tube run, swimming pool (opens annually during the spring-skiing season) and a complex of cafes and bars with huge picture windows. At the bottom of the mountain, inside the cable car station, is the climbing wall, and it was seeing plenty of action during my visit.

Across the valley, the Resort at Squaw Creek offers a similar smorgasbord of diversions.

It has its own high-speed lift to the top of 7,550-foot Snow King (a run down Champs Elysees and Easy Street will then get you to the main base area). But there is much more.

The resort's golf course on the valley floor, socked in with snow in winter, makes an ideally flat course for cross-country skiing and snowshoeing - more than 11 miles in all. That valley floor is also used for horse-drawn sleigh rides and dogsled tours. ``Those dogs are crazy,'' said Squaw Creek's Katie Grassini. ``When the guy pulls up and gets them out of the truck, you can hear them barking all the way across the valley, they're so amped up.''

Indoors is a golf simulator that is proving popular with addicts in the throes of wintertime withdrawal. Participants can choose from among 28 renowned courses, from St. Andrews to Pebble Beach, and then thwack away at a screen that displays a readout of lie and distance to the hole.

Bodies that have been savaged on the slopes - or psyches that have suffered similarly in the workplace - are readily soothed here. Two years ago, the resort's spa was expanded to 10,000 feet (including a fitness center), and it features all the popular wet wraps employing seaweed and mud.

Outside, next to a small skating rink, is a pool that is kept warm enough for swimming throughout the winter, and there are also the requisite outdoor spa tubs. ``I think that one's got my name on it,'' said the weary snowboarder sitting next to me as our shuttle bus returned late one day from the base village.

Later that evening, as I was headed into Bullwhacker's Pub for a heffeweisen, I overheard a couple of young women inquire of the bar's host, ``Are there pool tables here?''

``Sure,'' he said. ``To the right. Around back.''

This is, after all, a ski resort. Whatever you need.

IF YOU GO

GETTING THERE: Squaw Valley USA is located five miles north of Lake Tahoe on Highway 89. It is less than an hour's drive from the Reno, Nev., airport. It is about a 500-mile drive from Los Angeles via Sacramento and slightly longer up the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada (on Highway 395 through Reno).

INFORMATION: Ski Lake Tahoe is a marketing arm of the region's six largest ski resorts, and its Web site has links to all six: [phone]; www.skilaketahoe.com. Information specifically on Squaw Valley USA: [phone]; www.squaw.com. The Resort at Squaw Creek: [phone]; www.squawcreek.com.

It takes a village to raise ski profits

Squaw Valley USA isn't the only Lake Tahoe ski resort that has been busy developing new offerings for its visitors. These are some of the happenings at the region's other major resorts:

KIRKWOOD: The resort was in the process of putting in a skating rink and a pool for use this season, but the projects slammed to a halt when Lake Tahoe was buried under an early and prodigious snowfall. Now it's wait till next year. Kirkwood, which is isolated from the other south-shore resorts, built its pedestrian village some time ago, but it has plans to expand it.

NORTHSTAR-AT-TAHOE: Its new village - expected to cover 24 acres and cost upward of $100 million - is on the drawing board, with construction not expected to begin for another two years, and completion at least two years beyond that. The village is to contain 211 lodging units.

SIERRA-AT-TAHOE: The family-friendly resort near the south shore got five back-country access gates opened to dramatically expand its remote terrain. It doubled its snowshoe terrain to more than three miles (it can be accessed without a lift ticket).

SKI HEAVENLY: The resort opened its gondola last winter, and this year expanded its snowshoe and cross-country ski terrain at the top of it. The Park Avenue Project, a $280 million village anchored by two Marriott properties (that will sit astride Heavenly's base gondola station), is targeted for completion late this year.

- Eric Noland

CAPTION(S):

7 photos, 2 boxes

Photo:

(1 -- 3 -- color) A European motif graces the new base village at Lake Tahoe's Squaw Valley USA, top, site of the 1960 Winter Olumpics. Other Tahoe resorts, such as Sierra-at-Tahoe, are trying to stay cutting-edge by renting toys such as the ski bike, above center; at Squaw, above, guests tired of speeding downhill may ascend a rock wall in the gondola station.

(4 -- color) Tahoe resorts are adapting to increasing numbers of families, with rides such as this tubing run at Sierra-at-Tahoe.

(5) Yes, the rink is enormous - Olympic-size, even - giving novice skaters plenty of margin for error. This rink is part of Squaw Valley USA's mid-mountain complex.

(6) Skiers head through the village at Northstar on their way to the lifts. The resort is one of several in the Lake Tahoe vicinity that have expanded their village areas to attract more winter visitors.

(7) The resort at Squaw Creek, whose grounds include a waterfall (even in winter), offers ice skating, sleigh riding, cross-country skiing and an expansive spa.

Eric Noland/Travel Editor

Box:

(1) IF YOU GO (see text)

(2) It takes a village to raise ski profits (see text)