Sugar Bowl Going Next Level
And How A Kiwi Is Taking It There
Words by Tony Harrington & Rhyla Morgan
Images by Tony Harrington
(This story was originally featured in Chillfactor 2025)
Sugar Bowl has been long renowned as a freeride gem by the locals with it’s great off-piste terrain. Now it’s complemented with a full blown park scene, championed in by it’s new CEO and General Manager, Wanaka’s Bridget Legnavsky.
I’d heard whispers about Sugar Bowl, tucked at the end of Donner Lake, and how good it is for freeskiing, and how it’s mainly locals who dominate the mountain, not Aussies or hordes of internationals that head to other larger ski areas scattered around Tahoe. Finally, I made it here with my intro being a morning tearing into cord with the local crew on massive groomers, spying short steep spines from the chair. First impressions – uncrowded, unassuming and a sweet spot to skip the hustle and come back to play on a powder day.
Sugar Bowl is one of the oldest ski resorts in California, home to the state’s first chairlift, the west’s first gondola and a rich storied past with ties to Austrian ski culture, Hollywood and Walt Disney. It’s also one of the last independent ski resorts in North America and is owned by the village.
Bridget Legnavsky, the new (ish) President and CEO of Sugar Bowl has just launched Tahoe’s biggest freestyle park and training facility, filling a surprising gap given the vast number of resorts, the population and vibrant culture of freestyle in the snow industry in this part of the world.
“Sugar Bowl is a community for its kids that love to ski and ride. We are super proud of what that actually stands for, and what that actually means in today’s world.” And now, home to the most progressive freestyle program in Tahoe, thanks to the efforts and direction of Bridget and a passionate team determined to bring the vision to life.
I met Bridget in Wanaka back in the early ‘90s. She worked her way up from being an instructor, becoming the general manager of Cardrona and then further up the chain as the Chief Experience Officer for Real Journeys after the amalgamation of Cardona and Treble Cone. For numerous years Bridget was the NZ Extreme Skiing Champion and we’d often
