Timberline 4 Seasons Resort, Davis

Horrible Experience!!! I was looking for a good place to introduce two friends of mine to skiing. I looked for nice long green trail and Timberline WV Four Seasons seemed to offer just that. Well, the advertising did its job, but the place fell short. We arrived around 10:30 AM thinking that we will be on the mountain within 45 minutes. What a wishful thinking!!!!!!! Timberline needs some serious remodeling and renovation. It appears no work has been done on that place since it was built. There are only 3 ticket windows (only 2 work at any given time) that sell rentals and lift passes. It took us over 40 minutes just to get the tickets. Next, we went to rent equipment. Ha, what a joke!!! It took us another hour just to get the boots, skis, and poles. They did not have many boots so the selection was very poor (the same goes for skis), as far as poles are concerned you better bring your own, since they seem not to have any. Thankfully, we found some mismatched poles to go with the rest of the JUNK!!! The lockers were state of art back in 50s. Now, they are all rusted and full of quarters which no one bothers to empty. So, expect to pump good $2-$3 in lost quarters. You feed the quarters one at a time to lock the locker. However, after feeding 3 of them you will realize that the locker quarter holder was previously filled and never emptied. Thus, you will have to go with a trial error to figure out which one is still empty (in the process losing some of the quarters). Please note that I went to the office and complained about it. They gave me back the money but still did not empty the lockers (I overheard the conversation – apparently they could not empty them for some reason). So, 2 hours later we were ready to ski. They have only ONE green area gentle enough for the beginners, and it is not Salamander trail. It is the “Woods Hole”. It will take you about 6 min to get to it on the outdated lift, and about 30 sec to get back to the outdated lift. So, have fun. Oh, by the way – the main feature of the Resort is the Salamander Trail which closes at 4:30 PM since to electrical lighting available. The Salamander trail was not bad, except for the part where it joins with “OFF THE WALL” to become “LOWER SALAMANDER”. That section has much higher slope that many beginners has some serious difficulty with – hehe, better get some rope to slow them down ;-). What a horrible experience. Granted I still managed to enjoy myself, mainly due to the present company. I will never go there again unless they do some serious remodeling and put electrical lights in place so that the trails are open after 4:30PM.