File this under wonderful things to do if you happen to be in the Tahoe region during the full moon this winter:

Squaw Valley USA will be offering guided alpine snowshoe tours the evenings of Jan. 9 and 10, Feb. 6 and 7 and March 6 and 7 around the resort's upper mountain peaks.

Led by a knowledgeable tour leader and the light of the full moon, snowshoers can trek to upper mountain vistas to take in spectacular views of the snow covered Sierra and Lake Tahoe.

Mountain High will host three college party nights this winter running Jan. 15, Feb. 12 and March 12 to bring Southern California college post-secondary students together on the snow.

The Thursday night gatherings -- which feature discounts on lift tickets, food and drinks, as well as a plethora of freebies -- will take place from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. at the Bullwheel Bar & Grill at Mountain High West.

Christmas has come and gone and Santa left two new aerial trams in his wake.

Actually, the trams went on line slightly before Yule. The first one to begin operating was the record-setting Whistler-Blackcomb "Peak2Peak" tram, which links its sister mountains across a gaping valley.

The $52 million lift zips nearly three miles between Whistler Mountain and Blackcomb Mountain in 11 minutes. It boasts the longest unsupported space between tram towers at 1.88 miles and at midspan hits the highest point above ground of any tram yet built, 1,427 feet above Fitzsimmons Creek.

Three guesses where Utah's first and only ski-in whiskey distillery will be built?

Why Park City, of course. With it's rough-and-tumble silver mining history and attraction for out-of-state schussers headed for neighboring resorts at The Canyons, Deer Valley and Park City Mountain Resort, this alpine burg is a natural.

After all, a lot of these folks like beer, wine and spirits with their meals. Heaven forbid, they might also like some Rendezvous Rye (named for the famed mountain man gathering) with their cigars, too.

In any case, the High West Whiskey Distillery owner David Perkins has plans to turn a century old former livery stable at the base of the Town Lift in park city into a real live distillery and saloon.

Plans call it to be finished by May of 2009. The company is now making spirits from a distillery in Salt Lake City.

Thank you, Mother Nature.

A major early winter snowstorm is currently blanketing Mammoth Mountain with impressive amounts of snow. By noon today, more than 30 inches of snow had fallen with 24 of those inches in the last 24 hours.

With all of this new snow and more of the way, it looks like timing couldn't be better for the opening of Canyon and Eagle Lodges on Wednesday.

Though the white stuff is wonderful, it's falling on a sparse base in places. So resort officials are telling skiers and riders to remember that obstacles are lurking beneath the seemingly ample cover. Especially because this snow is so light. So always ride with caution.

Closer to San Diego, Mountain High, Snow Summit and Bear Mountain are also reporting 15 to 26 inches of new snow, with more expected.

Up at Lake Tahoe, this same storm has allowed Kirkwood -- one of the region's better resorts -- to finally open.

File this under the counter-intuitive-at-first-blush heading:

Behaving as if we aren't in the midst of a wicked recession, snowsports shoppers increased their spending -- from August through October -- by 9 percent over the same period last year. Then again, the really bad economic news hadn't quite kicked in then.

I've got a feeling that sales during the current quarter are going to look pretty ugly, thanks in part to marginal snow conditions in many parts of the West. But that's apparently changing, with Tahoe getting up to a foot of new snow this weekend and another two feet are expected. Meanwhile, Mammoth received seven inches of new white stuff with as much as another foot predicted. The SoCal resorts are also expecting snow early this week.

Apparently the lure of pre-season bargains due to a lot of equipment left over from last year brought snow-loving patrons to stores and ski shows this fall, where they spent a hefty $507 million, according to the Snowsports Industries of America (SIA), the industry trade group that represents makers and distributors of ski, snowboard and other gear.

I'd bet my alpine, Telemark and cross-country equipment (all of it a couple of seasons old) that these folks had jobs when they went shopping. I hope they still do, too.

One interesting part of the SIA report showed that parents dug into their wallets and purses to purchase equipment and apparel for the kids.

Junior ski sales were up a whopping 34 percent, junior snowboard sales increased 17 percent, junior parka sales were up 16 percent and sales of junior snow suits increased more than 40 percent.

The SIA report said mom and dad may be planning to forgo new skis and boards for themselves this season, but they are making sure their kids have the right gear.

I contributed to these stats a bit, buying a few new items of ski clothing for my 6-yera-old and 8-year old. Fortunately, their skis and boots still fit them just fine -- thank you very much.

I was disappointed when California voters last month approved Prop. 8, which bans gay marriage. I saw it as a civil rights issue, not as a threat to my or anyone else's wedded bliss.

But even though the conservative Mormon church aggressively supported the proposition with money and foot soldiers, I'm not going to boycott Utah ski resorts this winter, a tactic some activists have called for.

Granted, Utah is the center of Mormonism, where 62 percent of residents belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And tourism does bring in $6 billion a year to the state. So it's an obvious target for those angry over the vote.

But the ski industry is one of the most secular parts of the Beehive state. And Park City, where I'm headed with my wife and two of my kids next month, has a reputation for being one of the most progressive (read un-Mormon) parts of Utah.

Two more California resort have cranked up their lifts for skiing and snowboarding - with one of them staying open during the week.

Mountain High, near Wrightwood, opened the East Resort for the weekend, with a 6 to 12-inch base. To celebrate the operation of the Easy Rider Chairlift and its beginner terrain and rail garden, DJ Mike RoBless spun beats.

Northstar, on the north shore of Lake Tahoe, fired up three lifts on Saturday and plans to keep operating as long as Mother Nature cooperates.

A whopping three resorts are open for skiing and snowboarding in California and they don't have a heck of a lot of snow.

So thank you very much, Mother Nature. Now bless the Golden State with some serious storms before Christmas rolls around.

Mammoth Mountain, which has a base of 12 to 48 inches, is making snow and grooming 29 runs on and 334 acres of what it calls "fresh corduroy." Ten lifts are running.

Up around Lake Tahoe, Heavenly and Boreal are the only resorts operating. Heavenly is reporting a base of 18 inches and five lifts running. Boreal has a base of only eight to 10 inches, with one lift operating.

The good news is that Boreal's new Castle Peak Quad chair gives access to a full terrain park at mid-mountain, as well some groomers for intermediates and novices.

Alas, the five-day forecast shows only sunny skies.

Conditions are better in Colorado, where Breckenridge is reporting a base of 23 to 45 inches; Loveland has a base of 51 inches and Silverton is reporting in with a base of 26 to 55 inches.

But not all resorts are open there just yet, either. Aspen Highlands and Buttermilk don't plan to open until Dec. 13 and a batch of other resorts have less than two feet of snow on a limited group of runs.

We'll likely be reading and hearing a lot about skiing and snowboarding in British Columbia this winter, what with the 2010 Winter Olympics set to take place primarily at the huge Whistler/Blackcomb Resort near Vancouver in a little over a year.

But there's a lot more to snow sliding in British Columbia than just Whistler. Over on the eastern side of the province in the Kootenay Rockies along the "Powder Highway," the white stuff is deep and dry, the runs are long, the resorts abundant and the heli-skiing is out of this world.

In fact, this region boasts the highest concentration of ski resorts, touring operations and back country helicopter and cat-skiing outfitters. Moreover, its where chopper skiing was birthed some 40-plus years ago.

A few years back, I feared that June Mountain might not survive as a ski and snowboard resort.

Fortunately, this pundit was wrong about June, which is about 20 miles north of its sister resort, Mammoth.

Now June Mountain, one of the best kept secrets in the Sierra -- I feared it was it was toooo secret -- is going strong and offering a batch of great deals that give schussers of all types passes 50 percent off if they buy them by Dec. 13.

This may be the year the try out demo and performance packages -- while saving money and a lot of inconvenience in the process.

That's because most major airlines are now charging extra fees for nearly all luggage on flights to ski destinations. That means taking a ski bag and a boot bag and a suitcase (at $15 a pop each way for each bag) could cost you an extra $90-plus for a trip to the mountains.

Besides, I've always considered schlepping my skis along to be a real pain in the buttocks. And once, on a trip to the Spanish Pyrenees, an airline all but crushed my bindings.