@tromano I did not ski Snowbasin last season so I did not witness the sh*t show that it was. I only ready about it here and in other forums. Hopefully, some of those problems were driven by the pandemic. I read somewhere that Epic Pass skiers who could not get reservations for Park City would use Snowbasin as their backup plan, which most likely contributed the crowding along with lower lift capacity due to pandemic rules.
The food, I agree, a has been on the decline for a while—I also noticed the same issue last season at Sun Valley. I think the lack of J-1 and H2B visas are one reason as is the lack of serice workers in general due to the pandemic. Hopefully, this problem will be solved. I recently ate at a restaurant in Cape Cod that had an amazing crew of J-1s/H-2Bs from South Africa—a really cool group of young people, so there may be some hope in this regard.
But other issues are more intractable. Without a new lift on Strawberry, that area will continue to be underutilized. Lodge space could be alleviated by building a day lodge on Strawberry or where the Club Med hotel will be but I see no plans for such a facility. With a few notable exceptions, resorts these days seem to place a low priority on day use facilities.
The lack of lower intermediate and beginner terrain is another one that will be hard to solve. Widening the Ogden Road was a start, but Main Street and Elk Ridge are still solidly intermediate IMHO, especially the top of Main Street (as
@AmyPJ points out). The mountain Is just steep—plain and simple. Most of us like it that way. Sun Valley has a similar “steepness problem,” especially at Warm Springs. What I would hate to see is more blasting and contouring. I have seen a lot of this in Europe and it really transforms beautiful natural terrain into paved highways down the mountain. It turns interesting into borring.
I can’t say I have noticed decreases in grooming and snowmaking, but anecdotally, shark’s teeth (bare rocks) seem to be more and more prevalent. Creative grooming and spot snowmaking could eliminate some of the worst of them, especially on the Needles Side. It does seem like Snowbasin is falling behind when it comes to Snowmaking. I don’t see as many fixed towers as many other resorts.
I also can’t comment about costs and passes. I was in the Needles Lodge on the day that Snowbasin announced it would join Epic and it was amazing: everyone started booing. Very funny at the time but now I understand their dismay.
