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Northern Rockies/Alberta Ski Road Trip in the Covid Era

DanoT

RVer-Skier
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Nov 12, 2015
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4,788
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Sun Peaks B.C. in winter, Victoria B.C. in summer
Took a page from @dbostedo book and headed over to après Vous.
@Jwrags If you get a powder morning, don't waste your time in lift lines dealing with the tram/gondola/thunder chair etc. Instead take the après Vous lift and do laps in the Saratoga Bowl. Shorter runs and a traverse out of there but you will get far more powder turns vs the more popular part of the mountain.
 

Lofcaudio

Getting off the lift
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Apr 27, 2017
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344
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Columbia, Missouri
Looks like you were at Jackson the same time I was. I skied on the 10th and 13th (GT on the 11th and 12th). The snow was in great shape there, but it was pretty crowded for early January with lengthy lift lines at both the Tram and Bridger Gondola the whole week (especially when the wind shut everything down on the 13th. Quite a gorgeous inversion on the 10th.
 

Pajarito-bred

Getting off the lift
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May 20, 2020
Posts
142
Location
Grand Junction CO
My covid-era road-trip report to Jackson Hole: Feb. 2021.
We skied JH Feb 1, 2 and 3, and followed up with a day at Brighton (and a night in SLC) on the way home.
We'd planned a longer trip with friends who decided to defer their IKON passes, and decided we were up for salvaging a shortened version. Although we missed out on the deep powder of late January, we had 3 great sunny days of steep groomers, and 6" fresh (on top of crusty sun-bake) the last day.
JH notes:
  • 2nd trip to JH, but the first was in 1977. Newer lifts, but older knees......
  • It's 427 miles from home, 7.5 hours with about 5 traffic lights. (just 10 miles west on I-70 to start, a while later on, 10 miles east on I-80). Skier traffic? Saw plenty of cows, horses, and antelope. (Grand Jct. CO to Rock Springs to Jackson). Kinda crazy, considering the number of areas much closer....
  • Covid-crowding wasn't too bad, other than Bridger Gondola and Tram (tram had 60+ minute wait, not worth the covid risk. We avoided both, and stuck mostly to Teton and Casper, super-efficient HSQ's with plenty of steep groomers. The one day I got the JH app to work, we racked up 37k vertical, compared to our more typical 25-30k at Snowmass (I still haven't found a good alternative for the Trace tracking app, with maps and stuff).
  • JH is a busy summer tourist town, so hotels in town were nice and surprisingly cheap (ok not cheaper than SLC) we stayed near town square at Lexington for $105/nt, that included hotel shuttle to the base- reduced capacity but we were able to snag seats each day-- and hot breakfast. This was for a 2nd floor walk-up, outside entrance, well within our tolerance for "lack of luxury". There were plenty of other hotels that looked like they ought to be even cheaper.
  • We walked to pick up take-out dinners each night, sequestered in the room, and packed our own picnic lunch, found a secluded spot on the mountain to enjoy the view and sun.
  • There were some nice moguls along the sides of the groomers, but it was refrozen/crusty enough in places that we didn't venture into the Hobacks or other long challenging runs.
Our day at Brighton was mostly an excuse to pick up dinner at Red Iguana, explore a new ski area, stay over in SLC, and turn one long drive day into two ski/drive days (although with early quit times). Having the surplus IKON days allows some nice flexibility there, and I still haven't been able to get over the guilty feeling of leaving any of my 7 days at any IKON resort un-skied. Brighton seemed flat after Jackson.

I'll definitely not wait another 44 years to ski Jackson! ( I would be 105) but we will have to recommend to our friends who enjoy lower-intermediate terrain that we should ski with them at a different Ikon resort with better low-angle terrain choices for next year, and maybe spend up for ski-in/out (DV, Steamboat, BigSky, Snowmass....)
 

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