Utah 2020-2021 Utah Resorts, Weather, Conditions and Stoke

[AmyPJ]

So, how was it?

EDIT: you were reading my mind

The first run down Strawberry was almost a blur because of the feeling of having to rush to beat the hoards descending behind me. But, it was a HOOT-soo deep and fluffy, and just being able to time it right (they announced on Twitter an anticipated 9:30 opening, so we beat feet down there at 9:20) and get on the first gondola was really special. I think there were some snyde comments from those in line, but they can do the same and hire an instructor, which, when divided by 5 is pretty inexpensive for a day especially for full passholders, who can do it for 25% off. And the instructor, (you know who who said he just wanted to ski, is an instructor at heart and spent a fair amount of time instructing. I frankly think we were all pretty cooked and appreciated some time resting and listening.

For me personally, the powder day frenzy wipes away the joy of it. But you and I are a lot alike in that we are sensitive to the crowding and chaos of it all. My skiing suffers because I can't focus on my skiing but am instead focusing on hustling or trying to avoid being hit. I had as much fun last week when it snowed about 4" overnight and underneath was not set up hard. I was alone and limited on time, so I skied in a few places that I would never have ventured alone on last year, and was relaxed and happy despite it not being a deep powder day. I'd do it again, but on a weekday!

 

[Phelmut]

Today was a good day at Snowbird, UT, 2/28/21. It snowed more than a foot in the last 24 hrs and parts of the mtn were finally opened after being closed for weeks, so they skied even deeper. I missed the mid Feb storm and started skiing Snowbird fairly regularly since Feb 19. Today was the best conditions I've seen since I got out here to UT.
Many of these shots are from Red Lens Line, Tiger Tail and Thunder Bowl. View attachment 126145 View attachment 126146 View attachment 126147 View attachment 126148 View attachment 126149 View attachment 126150 View attachment 126151 View attachment 126152 View attachment 126156

Around 130PM we met up with @Spooky He's a real strong skier, in fact he had climbed Mt Superior at 530AM today, skied down it and then put in a full day of resort skiing! Nice to meet you Spooky.
View attachment 126157 View attachment 126158 View attachment 126159 View attachment 126160 View attachment 126161 View attachment 126162

Oh man, I pretty much resigned myself to not going out west this year and then i see that fantastic snow and terrain. I skied with Spooky a few years back and yes he's an excellent skier and good people. Are those enforcers there? I love mine.

 

[Jim Kenney]

Oh man, I pretty much resigned myself to not going out west this year and then i see that fantastic snow and terrain. I skied with Spooky a few years back and yes he's an excellent skier and good people. Are those enforcers there? I love mine.

I think they are, he said they were 93mm underfoot but still performed well in the deep snow.

 

[4ster]

Another thing I've noticed this year that I've never seen or noticed before is the number of straight line cuts across some of the best not so traveled powder stashes, including the Diamond and also the area off the track to get to the Diamond if you drop skiers right. People traverse across those pitches instead of skiing the fall line, and I'm not really sure where they're going? Is this just a symptom of the straight line culture combined with the inability to buy a turn in powder even on fat skis? Do people not understand the fall line anymore? (I'll venture the answer to that is "yes".) I'd like to order up a Tuesday powder day. It's still busy, but nothing like the weekends. Forecast looks like a taste of spring skiing this week. I'll definitely take advantage and hope for a bit of quietness.

I think you just never noticed. I have posted about the issue many times. The mid slope traversing has been going on for quite a few years now but it continues to get worse and worse. In fact, I renamed “sisters bowl” “traverse bowl” a few years ago.
The solution is to eliminate all the lower gates in our roped avalanche control areas. One gate at the top and the terrain does not open until it can be opened all at once.
At Kickinghorse in British Columbia the chutes and bowls are roped in sections with no traversing signs. You are encouraged to ski from the top of the ridge to the valley below in the fall-Iine.
Realistically I don’t think the degradation will stop without some required education before people are allowed in certain areas.
I have actually reevaluated and adjusted my ski condition preferences. Where most people’s list has deep powder as #1, mine is more like this lately
1. Corn snow
2. Wind buff
3. A few inches of fresh
4. Deep powder (untracked)
5. Well formed moguls
6. Seamless groomers
& chewed up, traversed powder is worse than ice!

with that said, it was still a beautiful day to be in the mountains and still some good skiing to be had. Just had to work a little harder to get to it.

 

[Kyle]

They released pass prices for next season, up by what, $150? I feel it's overdue, the problem is, the skier experience is going downhill (no pun intended) yet the cost is going uphill. The Epic pass needs to go. Bring back the Mountain Collective if we have to be on a mega-pass. I'm not remotely alone in those sentiments.

So the big question for me is will the price increase materially reduce the number of skiers?

I really enjoyed the Mountain Collective benefits. The Epic partnership is nothing but a big loser for Snowbasin pass holders. Epic Pass holders get 7 days at my resort and I get the privilege of skiing Park City for $100 a day (assuming I can get a reservation which I have been unable to do when I have tried to ski with my kids there on a Saturday).

Snowbasin is being run like a property that is maximizing its current revenue in anticipation of being sold.

Glad you had a great day @AmyPJ

 

[Kyle]

For me personally, the powder day frenzy wipes away the joy of it. But you and I are a lot alike in that we are sensitive to the crowding and chaos of it all. My skiing suffers because I can't focus on my skiing but am instead focusing on hustling or trying to avoid being hit.

That is the irony of the whole thing. You compromise so much of what is enjoyable or zen-like about powder skiing when you are racing to get on a slope or to a lift before this limited resource disappears. Additionally, powder days bring out the bad side of a lot of people when it comes to common courtesy, lift line etiquette, etc.

 

[Kyle]

I have actually reevaluated and adjusted my ski condition preferences. Where most people’s list has deep powder as #1, mine is more like this lately
1. Corn snow
2. Wind buff
3. A few inches of fresh
4. Deep powder (untracked)
5. Well formed moguls
6. Seamless groomers
& chewed up, traversed powder is worse than ice!

Interesting list. My preferences have definitely been changing as well. I don’t get to ski corn snow very much but I am all in on wind buff a those stealth powder days when has not snowed that much but it is nuking or blowing hard enough to fill in tracks quickly.

 

[justaute]

For me personally, the powder day frenzy wipes away the joy of it. But you and I are a lot alike in that we are sensitive to the crowding and chaos of it all.

Yup.

 

[AmyPJ]

I think you just never noticed. I have posted about the issue many times. The mid slope traversing has been going on for quite a few years now but it continues to get worse and worse. In fact, I renamed “sisters bowl” “traverse bowl” a few years ago.
The solution is to eliminate all the lower gates in our roped avalanche control areas. One gate at the top and the terrain does not open until it can be opened all at once.
At Kickinghorse in British Columbia the chutes and bowls are roped in sections with no traversing signs. You are encouraged to ski from the top of the ridge to the valley below in the fall-Iine.
Realistically I don’t think the degradation will stop without some required education before people are allowed in certain areas.
I have actually reevaluated and adjusted my ski condition preferences. Where most people’s list has deep powder as #1, mine is more like this lately
1. Corn snow
2. Wind buff
3. A few inches of fresh
4. Deep powder (untracked)
5. Well formed moguls
6. Seamless groomers
& chewed up, traversed powder is worse than ice!

with that said, it was still a beautiful day to be in the mountains and still some good skiing to be had. Just had to work a little harder to get to it.
View attachment 126200

I guess I never noticed the traverse lines (except in Sisters Bowl, I've always noticed those) until recently, maybe because I wasn't skiing that terrain very often? I notice them in DeMoisy, too. But the Diamond? I agree, skiing chewed up traversed over crud is not easy! This is partly what exhausted me yesterday.

I can concur with your list the more I ski. I truly did have a better day overall by myself in 4+ inches of very fluffy stuff on top of a very soft underlayer, that even where lumpy, it wasn't jarring, than yesterday, even though it was amazingly deep and one run untracked (we did harvest a few pretty nice lines after that) but it was just so hurried. I like to take a deep breath, choose a line, look up at the sky and smile and show some gratitude. (I came around the corner on the Diamond last week to find a guy standing there peeing. I chose to not let it steal my moment out there, because save for him, it was quiet.) But still, could you at least go deep into the trees?

So the big question for me is will the price increase materially reduce the number of skiers?

I really enjoyed the Mountain Collective benefits. The Epic partnership is nothing but a big loser for Snowbasin pass holders. Epic Pass holders get 7 days at my resort and I get the privilege of skiing Park City for $100 a day (assuming I can get a reservation which I have been unable to do when I have tried to ski with my kids there on a Saturday).

Snowbasin is being run like a property that is maximizing its current revenue in anticipation of being sold.

Glad you had a great day @AmyPJ

Based on the prices that homes are fetching in the area these days, no, it will not decrease the number of skiers. The learn and earn doesn't help. And the number of people who abuse that program...I mean heck, I should sign up for the snowboarding option since I've never once been on a snowboard.

100% agree about the MCP vs. Epic. We actually bought a MCP this year to ski Targhee and Jackson and Big Sky. We'll use them to hit up Alta for some spring skiing soon. We absolutely get screwed as local passholders with the 50% off ($100 instead of $200--woohoo!) deal at Park City, which I have really no interest in skiing. Yet they can come ski our mountain for free.

My one hope is if they are gearing up to be sold (definitely a rumor that's been around for awhile now) I hope they sell to Boyne, who also owns Big Sky.

 

[Kyle]

My one hope is if they are gearing up to be sold (definitely a rumor that's been around for awhile now) I hope they sell to Boyne, who also owns Big Sky.

It may help or it may be the devil you know being better than the one you don't know. I would hate to lose the Sun Valley benefits if the areas were to be separated. I am also not seeing any attractive alternatives to my Snowbasin pass yet (based only on my own situation).

 

[Ogg]

My one hope is if they are gearing up to be sold (definitely a rumor that's been around for awhile now) I hope they sell to Boyne, who also owns Big Sky.

If Boyne buys it you may just end up trading Epic crowds for Ikon crowds.

 

[AmyPJ]

If Boyne buys it you may just end up trading Epic crowds for Ikon crowds.

Good point. IKON has turned Solitude into anything but its namesake.

 

[AmyPJ]

For $1mil for a lot and $1mil in the bank plus $75,000 per year in dues, you can buy into Wasatch Peaks. (The Uber wealthy are taking over my little rural farming county.)

 

[BC.]

Today was a good day at Snowbird, UT, 2/28/21. It snowed more than a foot in the last 24 hrs and parts of the mtn were finally opened after being closed for weeks, so they skied even deeper. I missed the mid Feb storm and started skiing Snowbird fairly regularly since Feb 19. Today was the best conditions I've seen since I got out here to UT.
Many of these shots are from Red Lens Line, Tiger Tail and Thunder Bowl. View attachment 126145 View attachment 126146 View attachment 126147 View attachment 126148 View attachment 126149 View attachment 126150 View attachment 126151 View attachment 126152 View attachment 126156

Around 130PM we met up with @Spooky He's a real strong skier, in fact he had climbed Mt Superior at 530AM today, skied down it and then put in a full day of resort skiing! Nice to meet you Spooky.
View attachment 126157 View attachment 126158 View attachment 126159 View attachment 126160 View attachment 126161 View attachment 126162

Always great trip reports....true stoke! It would be great to be able to get out and ski with you and your son sometime...your pictures are the exact terrain I enjoy and am always in search of....

 

[4ster]

Snowbasin is being run like a property that is maximizing its current revenue in anticipation of being sold.

Sure seems that way.
Cutting back on everything but the # of folks on the hill
Still better than many others.

 

[Jim Kenney]

met up with @cosmoliu and friends Jeff and Kirsten at Snowbird today, 2 Mar 21. It was a mild, sunny and low crowd day. Very nice.
Here are a few pics, these are from the vicinity of Little Cloud chair:
Jeff, solid efficient technique, knows the mtn very well


Kirsten, tireless and very skilled lady skier:

K and J

cosmoliu taking the scenic route


I'll post a couple more later, have to grill some burgers right now.

 

[Jim Kenney]

L-R: Kirsten, Jeff, @cosmoliu
L
I like this shot, Jeff staring down his shadow in Little Cloud bowl

 

[cosmoliu]

@Jim Kenney in Little Cloud on a sunny March 2 afternoon. What an epic day!

 

[jmills115]

They almost made it today @bbinder. The QST got pulled leaving the Titan behind to spend a quiet afternoon alone in the car.

 

[AmyPJ]

It was a beautiful day. The groomers were perfection. The views were, too. I watched someone come down that chute (Mt Ogden Chute) while I was on Porky chair. Saw lots of tracks in places I know @4ster skis.