Snowbird Utah 1/14-1/15

Arrival: Thursday night 1/13
Most of the crowd arrived earlier in the day.  I got in around 9pm local time and hooked up with another guy for the cab ride into Salt Lake.  We stayed at the Marriott Downtown which I highly recommend.  It is clean with very comfortable beds and has a pool, hot tub, and sauna which are great after getting back from the mountain.  There is also a good restaurant, nice lounge and a Starbucks on property.  We met up with the rest of the gang just as they were leaving Red Rocks Brewing.  Red Rocks is a decent place for a meal and has a good beer selection.  Just make sure you get bottled beer as all draft beer in Utah is 3.2%ABV or below.  You might as well drink water mixed with Listerine.  Since the early crew was already finished at Red Rocks we went next door to a locals special – the Poplar Street Pub.  It looks like a dive from the front, but the food is pretty good and the beers (and whiskey) are cheap.  We proceeded to catch up on things and 6 shots of whiskey later we were debating where we should go the next day.  I thought I had everyone convinced that we should head up to Powder Mountain for our first day but the crew woke up with different ideas.

Day 1: Friday 1/14 - Snowbird
After lobbying hard for Powder Mountain the night before, I was overruled on Friday morning and the crew decided that on what was day 1 of the season for most of them we should go to the steepest mountain in Utah.  No warm up for them.  Go big or go home.  We arrived at the tram building around 10:30AM.  Valet parking is $12 and is a great deal if you are running late or want to be parked right by the tram building.  Hardly anyone uses it and it is literally 50 feet from the entrance to the tram building.  

Tram from base lodge


Rode the tram to the top and took the Road to Paradise cat track around the Mineral Basin bowl.  The further you go around the cat track the more moderate the pitch becomes when you drop in.  All the way to skier’s right at the end of the track is the best powder, but you pay a price if you stay all the way to skiers right because the runout is partially uphill and it can be impossible to get enough speed to prevent poling/walking in powder.  The cat track had a sign indicating avalanche debris and the ride was pretty bumpy.  Since the track is only about 10 feet wide it can be a little scary.  

Paradise Road Cat Track


We dropped in about a quarter of the way around the track into moderate sized fluffy moguls that made for sweeping turns down the steep terrain.  Snow report indicated 5 inches of new snow, but it was either cut up or blown around so we didn’t see much new snow.  The snow was still in great condition.  

Mineral Basin Bowl off Paradise Road


Once we were down into Mineral Basin we did laps on the Baldy lift which services more low to moderate pitch terrain.  We found a few inches of powder over light crust.

Halfway down Baldy side of Mineral Basin - from the Baldy lift
 

Made the mistake of staying too far left towards the bottom and had to hike out about 200 yards.  No easy task at 10,000 feet.  

Stay to the right of the final ridge.  If you go left you will be polling/hiking out - view from Baldy lift


The rest of my crew was already in line for the Mineral Basin lift so I hoped to catch up with them at the top.  When I got up to the top they were just pulling away on the cat track that takes you back around to the front side of the mountain.  They told me they would stop and wait, but by the time I got strapped in and around the corner the visibility had dropped to 10-15 feet.  This is a common occurrence at the top of the Bird and I knew it was probably the last of them I would see for the day.  I would say more than half the time I have been at the top it is very low visibility.  I had my new Oakley Splice goggles on and I was wishing I had picked the yellow lenses instead of the persimmon.  I could see a little bit, but not as much as I would have liked when traversing down a cat track with a 45 degree pitch off the side.  

Skiers left of Mineral Basin Chair - visibility can turn to nil in minutes


The other guys were in the mood for bombing and I was taking my time.  I also felt like crap between the Jameson’s from the night before and a slight case of altitude sickness.  I worked my way back down the front side to the outside deck near the tram to grab a bite to eat and hopefully feel a little better.  One thing to watch for as you come down the front side to the skiers right of the tram is the cat track that zig zags back and forth down the mountain.  It is only marked with patrol sticks here and there and it can be a real RUDE awakening to be bombing powder and hit a groomed cat track out of nowhere.  Once at the bottom I figured I might see the crew since you have to walk by the outside seating to get to the tram.  Lunch was just what I needed and having not seen the guys I decided to go back out on my own.  Back up to Mineral Basin.  The visibility had improved so I alternated laps on the Baldy lift and the Mineral Basin lift until the visibility turned to crap again.  At that point I decided to go check out the Gad Valley area which we had never really explored in the past.  Found lots of powder in the trees and had a great time running laps on the Gadzoom and Gad 2 lifts.  

Trees to left about halfway up Gadzoom lift


Lots of moderate to steep pitch terrain with nicely spaced trees.  This is probably the best area to take an intermediate as there are plenty of blue cruisers you can access from the Gadzoom lift.  

Gad Valley from Gadzoom lift


Most of the other blue/green runs on the mountain are just cat tracks that zig zag back and forth across some of the steepest terrain you will ever see.  I finished the day by working back across the mountain from the top of Gadzoom to the tram for a well earned beer in the Tram Bar which is located directly under the Tram loading station.  

Working my way back across the front side - Tram building is in the lower middle


Yes that is a Fan Gun.  I saw a few of them here and there.  Odd sight for a mountain that gets 500+


The hard chargers had all packed it in between 2-3pm so I felt vindicated with my moderate pace since I made it until 4pm.  One of the guys rented a pair of brand new Nordica Hellcats.  He was one of the earlier ones into the bar and when he left the skis were gone.  A serious bummer for the first day of the trip.  The rental shop was fairly cool about the whole deal.  They said the skis were list price of $1400 but they would only charge the guy $700.  Still, a bitter pill to swallow on day one.  That night we hit up Ruth’s Chris for what ended up being a 3 hour steak dinner.  We found out afterwards that Spencer’s in the Hilton is supposed to be the best steakhouse in town.  We got burned last year by a local recommendation to go to the New Yorker steakhouse which was terrible so we decided to stick with a good predictable steak.  We wrapped up the night with a few beers at the Beerhive.  The Beerhive has a huge selection of draft and bottled beers from Utah and around the world.  They also have a really cool frosty/refrigerated bar.  Having learned the lesson about draft beer we all ordered bottles.  There are some good local brews from Squatters, Red Rocks, and the Beerhive.  I especially like the Squatters Porter, IPA, and Belgium Blond.

Day 2: Saturday 1/15 Snowbird
A few of my buddies from grad school happened to be in town visiting and they wanted to ride the Bird.  My crew wanted to hit Solitude so we split up and I went with my guys from grad school.  We got to the mountain around 10:30 and they didn’t want to pay to park so we parked down by the Creekside lodge which is the base for the Gadzoom lift.  We all paid for tram tickets which we didn’t even use.  If you want to save yourself $10 then get a lift only ticket.  You can access all of the same terrain by just riding the lifts.  It makes getting a few places more difficult, but you aren’t missing anything other than a packed warm ride up the mountain.  We rode up Gadzoom and did a couple of laps to warm up.  Then we took Gadzoom up and rode over to the Little Cloud lift which takes you all the way to the top.  Snow conditions were almost exactly the same as the day before and there were blue skies everywhere.  

Bluebird day at the top


We took the Mineral Basin cat track and dropped in for more sweeping turns.  

Mineral Basin Bowl from the MB chair


Did some laps on Baldy and then came back up the Mineral Basin lift.  

Last ridge on Baldy


Baldy into Mineral Basin


At this point it was back down to 10-15 foot visibility.  It is amazing how quickly the weather can change at the Bird.  You can literally go from blue skies with miles of visibility to whiteout conditions with near zero visibility in less than 5 minutes.  There are hardly any trees up that high so it can be very disorienting.  We decided to take the Road to Provo cat track over to the bowls that sit on the skiers left of the Gad Valley.  

Gad Valley


I had never been that far over on the gad valley.  When we got over there two of us decided to stay as far left as we could to find some powder.  The other two dropped into a steep black groomer.  They made the better choice.  My partner and I found some great powder but we ended up in an area with a steep slope that dropped into a really flat runout.  We both bombed it hoping we would have enough speed to get over the ridge.  Unfortunately I hit a roller which caused me to bite it.  I had to hike out probably 200 yards in boot to knee deep powder.  The guy I was riding with waited for me and by the time I got down to where he was I had to rest for a few minutes.  The other guys were long gone so we just stuck together and did some more laps and exploring off the Gadzoom and Gad 2 lifst. Our favorite runs were Organ Grinder to Carbonate and Gadzooks.  We caught the last chair on the Gadzoom lift at 3:55 and got off the mountain around 4:20.  

One of the downsides of riding any of the Cottonwood Canyons resorts on a weekend is that all the locals also ride there on the weekends.  Since the road in and out is a narrow two lane winding road through the canyon it takes close to an hour to get down to the valley.  Without the traffic it takes 20-25 minutes.  When we got out of the canyon and my grad school buddies dropped me off at Porcupines for après ski with the guys who hit Solitude.  The guys had a decent day at Solitude, but not great.  Most of the front side runs were groomed and the runs in Honeycomb Canyon were mostly tracked out.  They almost ended up in trouble going off the backside of the summit lift towards Brighton.  If you ever see the dam from the top of Solitude turn around – you are going straight into trouble. Think the ridge off Chatiemac.  

Porcupines is a great spot for après ski.  It is located right next to the 7 eleven at the intersection of Big Cottonwood Canyon road and the road that comes down out of Little Cottonwood Canyon.  That night we hit Takashi for excellent sushi and a much smaller bill than the one we had at Ruth’s Chris the night before.  Takashi is rated as one of the best restaurants in SLC and I highly recommend it.  I know that sushi isn’t something you would think of in SLC but this is the second year we went there and it was great again.  We wrapped up the night by meeting up with my buddies from grad school for a raucous round of drinks at Gracies which was packed.  More bottled beers and toasts to the day.  

I'll post up TR's from Powder Mountain and Brighton in the next day or two.

Great TR ..thanks

just one question..why do you start mid-day ??? 10:30 is lunch time..

Haha.  Good question.  If it were up to me alone I would definitely get on the mountain earlier.  There are a few factors that go into the 10:30 start.

1. Beer, whiskey, vodka, etc.  The group that I go out with likes to party too so it is usually a feat to get everyone out of the hotel by 9 or 9:30.  There were 9 of us on the trip this year so there is a bit of herding of cats.  We had a bang up with one of the cars last year so I elected not to rent this year and was therefore at the mercy of others.

2. Staying in downtown SLC is good because you have your pick of mountains on any given day.  The downside is that you have to drive 45 minutes to a 1 hour 15 minutes to get to the mountains.

3. Most of the mountains don't open til 9AM.

4. Other than the first day we didn't ever stop for lunch

5. Going bell to bell at a place like Snowbird may work for one day, but on a 5 day trip I would be pretty wiped out by day 3 or 4.

6. Days 4 and 5 at Powder and Brighton were very crusty so it paid to get out a little later.

I did make it till closing every day except the last day at Brighton because I had a 5pm flight.  All that said I would much rather have been at the mountain every day by 9AM.  Especially on day one at Powder.

As a boarder, what do you think of Brighton? I always wondered if that mid-mountain saddle was a hassle for the single-plank crowd.

Not a boarder so can't speak to Brighton from that perspective. But, it is a nice mountain and is big with boarders.

Good report on Snowbird, love that mountain!

Sounds like an interesting discussion on the Day 1 choice.

Danzilla wrote

All the way to skier’s right at the end of the track is the best powder, but you pay a price if you stay all the way to skiers right because the runout is partially uphill and it can be impossible to get enough speed to prevent poling/walking in powder.

I'm assuming that the two are related? In other words, the snow is better over there because it's harder to access? Or is it an aspect thing?

Danzilla wrote

Made the mistake of staying too far left towards the bottom and had to hike out about 200 yards.  No easy task at 10,000 feet.

Any flatlanders have headaches? 10,000 seems to be the magic number for me. Above that I'm hurtin' and drinking is totally out. What's the base elevation?

Danzilla wrote

...visibility had dropped to 10-15 feet...

As much as this isn't a lot of fun to ski, I really made improvement skiing in (Switz) those kind of conditions.  Seems like the best skiers don't seem to look down.

Nice report Danzilla. Can't wait to see Pow Mow.

Harv - the traverse around the bowl is pretty long.  There is so much wide open steep good snow on the way around that it is easy to "get pulled in" before you get all the way to the end.

The wife and I lived in Laramie for 2 years at 7600 feet and we felt the effects for the first 3-4 days we were there.  I never was able to run very long at that altitude either. After 10-15 minutes I felt like I was swallowing razor blades.  That being said, this trip was the first time I felt any altitude sickness affects while sking.  It certainly could have been the Jamesons - it was at least a contributing factor.

James - I loved Brighton.  I stayed to the left and right sides of the resort and mostly avoided the middle of the mountain.  I thought the lift layout was perfect (as opposed to Solitude) and made the mountain very accessable.  It is a great first/last day place.  I'll post some pics and more detailed thoughts in the next day or two.