@bbinder would you plese give. Your take on lcc commuting so folks can get 2nd opinion. I tend to look at things with rose glasses.
Happy to, but I think that your assessments are fair and honest. Some caveats on my take on this: we tend to sleep late and drive up LCC between 10-11am; February to March of 2022 was not marked by huge amounts of snow, and I think that this has an impact on traffic on the canyon roads.
First of all: if you are driving make sure that you have a vehicle with 4 wheel drive or all wheel drive. And snow tires. Any more than 2-4 inches of snow on the road and 4/all wheel drive and/or chains will be required on the canyon roads.
Weekdays are not a problem parking-wise or traffic-wise in general. If there is fresh snow then driving up the canyon can be slower than normal (for fun, let's say an additional 10 minutes per inch of snow - not because of road conditions, but due to crowds). I have never had a problem parking at Alta on a weekday, even with fresh snow.
Weekends can be a general shit-show. If there is fresh snow, then you can anticipate a bumper to bumper grind up the hill. One Saturday this past winter there was 4-5" of fresh overnight, I left my apartment at 8:45am, and spent 20 minutes standing almost completely still approximately 2 miles from the bottom of LCC canyon road. I finally gave up and headed to BCC - in BCC I got into a backup *only* two miles from Solitude. All the parking lots were full, but someone was leaving just as I pulled up (only a quarter mile from the parking lot). If we skied on weekend days when there was no fresh snow, our strategy of leaving our apartment between 10-11 worked fine (assuming that I had made a parking reservation at Alta): little traffic driving up, and we always got a place to park.
The biggest risk with staying in the valley is if there is a major snowfall. The canyon roads may close temporarily. Or (as happened 2 years ago during a storm of 4 feet), the canyon roads may close for days. Admittedly, the latter is very rare. And during that storm 2 years ago, everyplace in LCC was on interlodge (when you can be arrested for even walking outside, much less ski) for 3 days - so my friends who were staying at GMD went a little stir crazy. Again: very rare. It is more likely that any interlodge will be very temporary and anybody staying up the canyon will have a "country club day" on the mountain until the roads open up.
My experience with the bus system is very good. When I took the bus, I got on at the first stop (so I always had a seat). Even on a day without traffic, the bus will take longer because of the stops they make along the way (our drive from the bus stop would be 20-25 minutes, and the bus would take 40 minutes without traffic (plus waiting for the bus)). If there is traffic and or slow travel due to snow, the bus will (of course) take longer. But I have utmost trust in the bus drivers' ability to keep me safe.
Unless you are not renting a vehicle (and therefore committed to taking the bus everyday) and are also renting a place with a kitchen, it just makes sense (to me anyway) to stay at the GMD or the Peruvian. IMHO, once you factor in the cost of a renting a capable vehicle for a week with meal costs, then the daily cost of staying in even a cheap hotel room will add up to close the daily rate at one of these lodges.
YMMV
