SLC Resort Wrap Up 1/12 - 1/16

Five days and five resorts.  I didn't take much in the way of pictures but all in all it was a great trip.

Day 1 - Thursday 1/12 - Park City Mountain Resort
The first 4 of the crew all arrived around 11AM on Thursday morning.  We knew Park City was going to be all groomers based on intel from firsttracksonline.com and others.  We toyed with the idea of hitting Alta, but since our lift tickets for PC were free with same day boarding pass we decided to head there for some warm up laps.  All of the groomers at PC were in great shape.  A chalky mix of manmade and leftover snow made for very carvable conditions.  These were by far the best groomers we had during our stay.  Almost no ice underneath.  Everything off trail was closed and groomed terrain was limited mostly to blues and greens.  We hit a couple of black mogul runs but they were mostly ice with rocks and tree branches sticking through.  We bombed the blue runs off the Silverlode/Motherlode lifts and the Payday lift.  The two blues off McKonkey's were OK but rather boring so we only hit that once.  Thaynes and Jupiter were both closed.  We called it a day just after 4pm and hit the No Name Saloon for a good burger and beers before heading back to SLC.

Day 2 - Friday 1/13 - Alta and Snowbird
The rest of the crew showed up on Thursday night.  After a late night of drinking and toying with the idea of heading for Grand Targhee we decided to stay put at least for Friday.  The crew split in half with the skiers all heading to Alta and the snowboarders heading for Snowbird.  I only had 4 days on my new alpine gear and my boots aren't quite broken in yet so I decided to snowboard on Friday.  Yes I brought both sets of gear with me.  There were multiple comments about my commitment issues.  What can I say - I like to ski and snowboard.  Its also easier on my body on a multi-day trip as the muscle groups used are slightly different.  Friday was the best day all around for everyone.  The skiers found plenty of powder while hiking Catherines and a few other spots and the snowboarders got lucky when mineral basin opened around 10AM.  Mineral Basin had been listed as TBD all week and I think this was the first time it was open this year.  The snow was a little inconsistent - a mix of pure powder, sugar, and crust, but the base was good and we had a blast.  It actually got better as it got broken up through the day.  We tried to spread out a little heading up Baldy and trying out the Gad Valley, but the best snow by far was up on Mineral Basin so we just kept lapping that lift.  We finished up with some beers and apps at the tram bar.

Day 3 - Saturday 1/14 - Brighton
After much back and forth over which mountain to hit on Saturday we decided on Brighton.  We wanted to do a group riding day and figured we would have our best shot at good conditions there since it is at the end of the canyon like Alta.  We decided on Friday night that GT was too far.  We also figured Mineral Basin would be pretty crusty and we knew the rest of Snowbird wasn't in great shape.  We started off on Milly's which was a bit of a pain since you have to take a cat track from the base lodge through the edge of the parking lot to the Milly's lift.  There were quite a few cars parked all the way up to the track leaving only a few feet to maneuver.  After almost broad siding an F-150 I decided to unstrap and walk.  Only one run was open on Milly's and it was pretty much the same thing we found everywhere on the mountain - semi icy groomers with occasional rocks/trees popping through.  After a few laps on Milly's we decided to head over to great western.  We were hoping for better conditions over there, but most of the good stuff was roped off and what was open was similar to Millys.  We ended up lapping the runs off the Crest lift.  The runs there were more carvable and there were some goods to be had if you ventured into the trees.  A few of the guys hiked into the easily accessible backcountry and found some powder - but not much.  We finished with a few beers at Molly's.

Day 4 – Sunday 1/15 - Alta and Snowbird
After riding PCMR, Snowbird, and Brighton the skiers decided that Alta was the best bet for conditions.   I decided to head with the skiers as well after boarding at the Bird and Brighton.  We rode up the Collins lift, skied down to Supreme and did a few warm up laps on the groomers.  Then we hiked Catherines and found the best snow of the day.  Nice pockets of powder and pretty good cover.  There was one sketchy chute we had to negotiate, but other than that it was nice.  After a while a few of us decided to venture over to the sugarloaf lift and check it out.  The wind was brutal on the way up so we decided to keep rolling over to the Collins area.  We did the traverse into the broadway bowl which was in pretty good shape and then bombed the blue and black groomers at the bottom.  We lapped combinations of that till the end of the day and ended with some beers, pizza and nachos at the goldminers daughter.  The guys that went to snowbird didn’t fare so well.  The wind we experienced on sugarloaf really beat down snowbird.  The tram went to wind hold at some point and mineral basin was wind scoured.  The front side was also wind scoured and the groomers were super icy.  The guys considered the conditions dangerous and packed it in after just a few runs.  I was glad to get a fun day in at Alta.

Day 5 – Monday 1/16 – Solitude
There was lots of excitement about a fast moving storm that was supposed to start dumping snow on Sunday night.  The word was 6-8 overnight.  That continually got revised downward and pushed until it was 3-6 starting in the mountains at 8AM.   Since Snowbird was in bad shape the day before and LCC has a better chance of road closure we decided to check out Solitude.  I had to make a 5pm flight so we figured BCC would be the safest bet.  Solitude was pretty scratchy.  They had 1-2 inches of new snow and it snowed lightly all day.  Temps also dropped to about 10 degrees.  We were bummed to see that very few of the black runs on the front had been groomed out.  The new snow was good, but it wasn’t enough to fill in the icy bumps.  The further up the mountain we went the better snow we found with some fun runs off of powderhorn.  We got word around lunchtime that the summit chair was open and that honeycomb canyon might also be open.  Honeycomb has also been closed for sometime so we were excited.  When we got to the top HC was indeed open and we just couldn’t help ourselves.  Lots of freshies in there and pretty good coverage.  I got myself into an aspen stand that abruptly ended with the only way out being a drainage ravine.  I made it about 50 feet down the ravine until I broke through the top layer and totally submarined to chest level.  There wasn’t enough pitch to plow through so I had to unstrap and hike my way out.  Not fun at 9000 feet.  It took me about 20 minutes to find stable packed down snow and by that time I was wiped.  There is a reason people out there carry a shovel (along with other avy gear).  What we realized soon after was our only big mistake of the trip.  We knew that the honeycomb return lift was not running, but we had forgotten how long/semi uphill the runout to eagle express was at the bottom.  Without honeycomb return it is a long ride on a snowboard with lots of unstrapping and restrapping.  Think pipeline traverse x5 with a cliff on one side.  All in all it was worth it just to get one run in HC.  Won’t make that mistake again though.  We finished up with some groomers on the front side and headed for the airport.

They are calling for 2-3 feet this week and if they get it, it will go a long long way.  They definitely need lots more snow.  We had a few core shots in our group.  At this point I would recommend your rock skis or insurance for your rentals.

A few pictures from Snowbird:

Gad Valley


Mineral Basin

Catherine's area was definitely pick of the trip for consistent pow. My buddy and I skipped out on the lift tickets and skinned up there on Thursday. 2.7 miles in and did 3 laps. I have a few POV shots from it I'll get up once I do my TR.

Brighton was definitely marginal. The best snow we found was heading towards the St Catherine's area. We took the Crest express and bootpacked up to Pioneer ridge. Definitely sketchy area.. especially since we didn't have any shovels/beacons/probes on either of us. Upper half of the chute was sketchy, lower half was AWESOME.

I decided to sit today out so I can ski Thursday morning. Flight is at 3:45.. the Canyon shuttle should be picking me up at 12:45. Then again, we'll see if the flight cancels or not. Best case: my flight is overbooked and delayed, I volunteer to stay back, rescedule my flight for Sunday, have an awesome powday on Friday and Saturday, and then get a voucher for another round trip flight and I'll be back in March. But that's all a pipe dream.

Great TR, thanks. I've never been to Utah, have to do it one of these years. I didn't know there was such a thing as insurance on rental skis. I learned a lesson at Taos two seasons ago. If there is a section of a bowl not tracked out four days after a storm, there's probably a good reason. I made it through unscathed twice, on my third trip through, my ski just stopped. I was thrown forward and harmlessly landed in two feet of fluff. I looked up the hill and saw half of my ski sticking over a little cornice. I had skied on top of a rock. It left a core shot a foot and a half long. I had to pry the ski off the rock. I was nervous the rest of the day that I would be charged for damage. The guy at the rental shop asked how my day was, I said "great till I did this", showing him the gouge. I asked if I'd be charged for repairs, he just laughed.

Rental insurance covers little scratches. Not 1.5 ft Coreshots. I'll get a shot of our "insurance example" skis at the shop tomorrow.