So, you’ve made it to our house and unloaded your car. You’ve settled on your lift access strategy. Now, you’re starting to wonder about how to get you and your group to and from the lifts each day.
Of course, you could pile in the car and drive. But do you want to do that? You don’t have to. If you’ve brought the food you plan to use with you or plan to eat your meals at the resort, it’s possible that you won’t need to drive your car again until you leave Northstar. More often than not, that’s what I do when I come up.
Northstar Shuttle
The Northstar resort operates an on-demand shuttle service that will come pick you up from the bottom of our driveway. You use the Northstar Village Transit App to request the shuttle and the app will give you an estimated pick-up time (usually less than 10 minutes).
The resort runs different routes. On the route that serves our house, we’re one of the closest to the Northstar Village drop-off area. That means that when you get on the bus at our house, your next stop is likely to be the Village, and upon return, when you board at the Village, our house will be one of the first stops for the bus. You won’t spend lots of extra time riding the bus around the neighborhood.
The shuttle operates while the resort is open, and the operating hours vary by the day during the season. Here are the hours the shuttle kept during the 2023-24 season.
The shuttle runs during the summer season as well, but the focus of this article is resort access in the winter.
Resort Parking
If you do decide you need to drive to the lifts, you’ll need to know a few things.
Drop off circle
Right at the village, there is a drop-off circle where you can’t “park”, but you can pull up, unload, and then drive away. This is only really an option if you have someone in your group who doesn’t intend to ski but is willing to drive the rest of your party. Or, perhaps there might be someone in your group willing to drive the rest of you up to unload and then go park in the lot and meet you back in the Village.
I don’t think that this option is much more convenient than the shuttle bus, even for those who are getting dropped off. On busy days, there can be a line of traffic on Northstar Dr that will take time to negotiate whether you are in a car or a shuttle bus.
Parking Lots
Northstar is built on former logging land and as such, is hilly and has lots of trees. There is no single massive parking lot at the base of the lifts as you might find in other resorts. Northstar has four parking lots in regular usage:
- Castle Peak – this lot is on your right as you enter the resort from CA-267. It’s the largest and always free and does not require reservations, though it can fill up. It is also the furthest away from the lifts and is serviced by shuttle buses.
- Village View – this lot is closer to the lifts. It is possible to walk to the lifts from here using a series of stairs and pedestrian paths. (A small number of the spaces are very close to the Highlands Gondola, too.) There is also shuttle service to this lot.
Northstar has implemented a reservation system for this lot. On peak and weekend days before 1pm a reservation is required. Additionally, if you have less than 4 people in your car, you also need to pay $20 to park here before 1pm on those peak and weekend days. Four or more in your car waives the $20 fee, but you do still need a reservation. - Preferred Parking – this lot is adjacent to the Village and requires a reservation before 3pm. This lot will cost you $40 to park on peak and weekend days and $20 to park on other days.
- Premium Parking – this is a tiny lot as close as you can park to the shuttle bus and drop-off circles. There are no reservations for this lot and it fills very quickly. You pay once you park, if there is a spot available. It costs $50 on weekend/peak days and $25 on other days.
The Village View and Preferred parking lots reservations and payment in advance are done via the Park Northstar site and you need to do that before you arrive at the lot. The Park Northstar site also has an FAQ section that may answer more of your questions about parking policies, as well as a means to pay for any parking violations you may receive.
More general information about parking and resort access is available on the Northstar website.
EV Charging
Our house has a regular 120V household current in the garage and you can “slow charge” your EV there provided you have your charging equipment. If you want or require faster or more elaborate charging, there are EV chargers available in Northstar.
Parking at the House
Garage
Whether you use the shuttle bus or drive to the lifts, you will certainly be parking your vehicle at our house. When staying at our house, I recommend parking in the garage if your vehicle(s) fit. Check vertical clearance and remember to remove any roof carrier from your vehicle. Parking in the garage will keep the snow off your car and leave the driveway open for the snow removal service to clear snow that falls on it.
You’ll also find racks in the garage for storing your skis and boards and benches where you can sit to put on your ski boots. I highly recommend carrying your boots down to the garage and putting them on and taking them off there. You can just leave your “street shoes” in the garage while you ski and this avoids having to tromp up and down the steps from the driveway in ski boots. That’s much safer and easier on the stair treads, too. There’s good wifi in the garage and there’s where I usually use the app to call the shuttle after putting on my boots. They really do come that quickly more often than not.
Driveway
You can park in the driveway if you must. (You cannot park on the street from Nov 1 through May 1.) The garage roof sheds snow and ice onto the driveway, so to avoid damage or injury, you should avoid parking where snow will shed on your vehicle.
Use this picture as a guide.
For the snow clearing service to clear as much of the driveway for you as possible, you should park as far up the driveway as you can if you choose to do so. This allows the service to clear behind your car. They’ll come up as far as they can, but not past where you park. What they cannot clear, you may find yourself clearing to get out. There are shovels in the garage. That’s another reason to park in the garage if you can. Whether you park in the driveway or not, you might find that you need to clear a small berm in front of the garage door yourself. There is a push shovel in the garage.
The snow clearing service will come out at most once in a 24-hour period (usually in the early morning) when there is at least 3-4 inches of snow in the driveway. For more information on the service and their policies, you can consult their FAQ web page.
Are you looking for a place to stay when at Northstar? Consider our house.
