Alta/Snowbird March 30-April 1, 2019

Then just you wait for my report on today’s adventure.

On the way to Superior



Superior summit.



The End of the World



No, we didn’t ski that (south facing)

The day involved 4k of vert, a classic big objective, a serious boot pack up a steep, sketchy spine, and lots and lots of soft north facing pow....but now, dinner and booze!  Well earned after covering 8 miles on skis today.

I may have missed it earlier in this thread, but have you gotten any feedback from locals about the Ikon effect on crowds?

A recent article:
https://www.ksl.com/article/46517067/udot-working-toward-solutions-to-big-and-little-cottonwood-canyons-traffic-woes

Great that you hit paydirt with conditions.

Wow.  I'm envious.

I’ve met some who hate it with a passion and think it’s changing the character of Alta......and others who don’t quite get that hate.

The bigger hot topic with everyone is the situation with LCC road.

JTG4eva! wrote

The bigger hot topic with everyone is the situation with LCC road.

Aren't the two issues interconnected, or the Ikon pass is exacerbating the existing peak/powder-day red-snake problem, which has been an issue for years?

It’s not just Ikon skiers contributing to the nightmare up and down LCC road, I don’t think.  With the proliferation of use by all types the situation seems to be out of control.  Apparently it can take as much as 3 hours to get up or down on a big day.  The guys were talking about a few proposals, with the idea of not allowing cars up the canyons.  One was to put a transit center at the base of the canyons and run some kind up railway (cog?) up LCC canyon, then from Alta/Bird run the railway over/through the mountains to the top of BCC and down.  Neat idea until the up to $6b price tag was attached, meaning the $66m appropriated by the UTC might not make a dent.

I should give a few words about the Rustler and my dorm experience.  It’s been great.  Six person room, I had one roommate for one of the two nights.  Room is huge and comfortable.  Charles, an older gentleman from Carolina, was a great guy.  Saturday we met up for dinner after his massage and my hot tub.  Breakfast and meals are included in the rate (I paid $150 plus tax).  Really good breakfast buffet, and the dinners are higher end.  The marinated Waygu flank last night was superb.  The setting of the restaurant and lounge, looking up at Eagles Nest and Alf’s, is spectacular.  Outdoor heated pool, two hot tubs, sauna, eucalyptus steam room....anything you could need for recovery.

Oh, and if you are into swirly wanded toilets to auto cleanse your nether regions, they’ve got that, too.



No, I didn’t avail myself of the wand, but the heated seat was nice!

A little powder porn to keep you interested/salivating...



Yes, we were the only three out in Cardiff yesterday!

With a solid re-freeze last night and mostly empty chairs out of the Collins base I guess I’ll got hit the hot tub for a bit while the April sun works it’s magic and the temp climbs.

Don’t worry mranz, 12 to 20 in the forecast tomorrow thru Wed pm.

Wow that Mt. Superior day looks like a bucket list item. Need more details!  I'm guessing you're going to write it up later, I'm interested to know about the guide, group, etc and how you found it.  I haven't been to Utah since 2016, btu used to go there pretty consistently for my annual out west trip.  We have a good friend lives in Park City.  I need to get back to LCC.  Still have to use my free 1/2 day voucher to Alta that they gave me when I got injured in 2009!  Hope it's still valid lol

Don’t worry, I’ll break yesterday out into its own report.  Definitely a bucket list day.  I’ve had some great backcountry experiences, and skied as much very/pow, but none that involved such a classic objective. Alas, right now I guess I better go start skiing!

The skiing looks pretty nice and all but the shitter, with the heated seat, lawd that’s epic.

It’s painful to sit on an ice throne first thing in the morning.

Alas, robo-shitter wasn’t in the room.  If you want to have a toasty morning meeting you have to go down by the spa.

So, another great day today.  I was pretty beat up from yesterday so I got a leisurely start.  First run did a warm up out to Catherine’s.  Still soft powder on N facing aspects up high, but got crusty/crudy as you got lower.  So, rather than ski groomers or crust I decided to take a walk.



It was a loooong walk, shouldn’t have left the skins back at the Lodge.  That’s the side-step/boot pack/skin track to East Castle, starting lower left with the peak in the upper right.  

Seeing as I didn’t have two hikes in me I had to choose between East Castle or the Baldy Chutes.  A rare treat to have either available.  East Castle is extremely avalanche prone and doesn’t open often, plus it still had lightly tracked powder, so East Castle it was.











Here is a shot straight down the gut of 1st Chute, 850 vertical, 38 degrees, straight down the fall line.  



Of course, the views along the way were spectacular....



Time to head for the airport.  I did drop over to Snowbird, I’ll give you my thoughts on that later...

Even though I got a later start than I usually do, I wanted to keep my options open and I got the dual mountain ticket.  I def wanted to drop into Mineral Basin, and if I decided on Baldy chutes I wanted the less demanding option.  So, after East Castle and another run or two I took Sugarloaf up and dropped into Mineral Basin.  Even though it never really seemed to get as warm as forecasted, Mineral Basin gave up nice soft, but not slushy, turns.  The Basin is huge.



A few more big views of the Bird, from the couple of runs I took over there.




When it comes to Snowbird, the size is what struck me.  I mean, Alta is BIG, but Snowbird is MASSIVE, to the point of being unmanageable.  At least that’s how it seemed only being over there for an hour or so.  The terrain is massive, they have much more groomed for beginners and intermediates, and right off some easy trails they have lots of hairball steep and cliffy stuff.  Every aspect you seemed to look at provided a good place to make turns

So, of course I’d like to get back there and explore, and I’m sure getting to know the terrain a little makes it much less overwhelming.  That said, I definitely prefer the feel of Alta, with it’s seemingly smaller lodges and small, friendly base areas, to the scale of Snowbird with its huge base areas, its transportation center, and huge lodges/hotels, all of which made it feel like a small ski city.

At least that was my quick impression.  Didn’t spend enough time to get a feel for the people.

Epic trip JTG. I think you need a couple more days out there...