You're over reacting. Weekend crowds at Heavenly can be bad, but not every
Tahoe resort is. In fact, Heavenly is the ONLY place I intentionally avoid
on a regular basis here in Tahoe. And besides, Mammoth is really a
horrendous drive from Tahoe in the winter. I don't recommend that at all.

Stick around the Tahoe area. What kind of boarding do you do? Sierra is a
smaller resort, with a nice park. It has some fairly long beginner to
intermediate groomed runs, some decent tree areas off piste, but not too
much in the way of steeps. Kirkwood would be a great choice for some
excellent snow and very unique terrain, and is also relatively close to
South Shore. And honestly, if you're considering seriously a drive to
Mammoth, then its not out of the question that you should consider Squaw on
the North Shore. This is the premiere Tahoe resort, despite what people say
about Kirkwood. ;-) If the conditions are good in January this year, it'd
be a shame to visit Tahoe and not board at Squaw Valley.

Brian.

wrote in message
...
Hi everyone,

We are heading out to Tahoe in January, this is our first trip out west
and
are planning on snow boarding at Heavenly on a Friday and then getting out
of there on Saturday and Sunday. We are thinking about going down to
Mammoth
on Saturday, are the weekend crowds real bad on the weekends? We were also
thinking of sierra at Tahoe.

Thanks,
Kevin