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Ya, what k722070 said. On a good powder day it is hard to decide where to go from SLC. Check out the Google images for Snow Basin and for Powder Mountain.
Consider Snowbasin. Two express gondolas from bottom to top, 10 mins to gain ~2300 ft. Check out the map. The Sisters, DeMoisy Peak, Middle Bowl Cirque, and Needles Cirque are easily accessed from the top of the Strawberry Gondola. If there are no tracks in the chutes on the south side of Mt Ogden I'll sometimes hike up there from the top of the Porky lift. A bit of a hike at 9500 ft for a few turns though. Incredible views from the top of the Strawberry Express and Allen Pk. There is so much terrain, relatively few people, and a lot of lift capacity.
I like Powder Mtn. But on any given day the distance, a bit over an hour from SLC, and the steep road usually tips the scale to one of the other great resorts.
Speaking about hiking.... this is from my last visit to Verbier in 2012. Spent a day on the backside of Mont Fort. To get there you traverse along a VERY steep ridge... I dropped my other pole down the wall during the traverse. Skiing down with one pole feels strange but trying to hike with one pole is a disaster. (no AT bindings). The half an hour hike around the frozen lake took me about 1,5 hours or so... Guys were waiting on the other side of the dam and took this photo of the "tired soldier" passing the dam. I think it's a cool photo:
Been Skiing Alta and Snowbird my whole life and they are both unbelievable mountains, especially when the snow is fresh. Alta has more of a "low key" feel to it. More locals ski there to avoid the out of towers it seems like. You can't go wrong with either one. Pray for snow because we are off to a terrible start so far this year.
Always looking forward to the next turn.. Home (NZ), plus Revelstoke, Kicking Horse, Whistler, and enjoyed Jackson, Alta, and many more, but Japan may not have the steep, but last year 19 days skiing, 19 days of continuous snow & powder... insane.
Always looking forward to the next turn.. Home (NZ), plus Revelstoke, Kicking Horse, Whistler, and enjoyed Jackson, Alta, and many more, but Japan may not have the steep, but last year 19 days skiing, 19 days of continuous snow & powder... insane.
I hear ya on the Japan! We skied 7 days and it was 7 days of fresh tracks every single run!!
There was some steep stuff too but very short. The good side is access is straight from the lifts and you can ski right back to the lifts. I think we skied more powder in a day than on a typical Cham, vernier, Anton etc. trip.
I will definitely go back to Japan. But this time we want to try out the NA powder!
If you're looking to ski on a budget Whistler isn't it. The weather there is also very hit and miss but as stated above the mountain offers just about everything.
Revelstoke is one of the best hidden gems in Canada, imho. Ridiculous amounts of snow, great vertical and empty slopes. It's also close to Kicking Horse which is another great hill with lots of advanced terrain. With the CDN dollar in the crapper it might be a good time to ski north of the border.
Bang on, +993.
Kicking Horse, Fernie, and Revelstoke should be on your list Juha.
it gets kind of silly really. there are more than a handful of ski areas that NEED to be skied in BC, red mountain is a great place but last time I was there it still had decades old 2 seat slow chairlifts. you need 2 weeks of driving around the canadian rockies to get a feel for it. and a real problem is a place like kamloops, the girls are so amazing you might not leave.
think about landing in SLC and trying to test out ski areas. there are about a dozen before you leave town, then going north there's jackson and telluride, takes 2 days to deal with big sky, you can't imagine ever leaving kalispell while skiing whitefish. then someone says head to southern colorado and you discover wolf creek; then find out taos has a new lift this year so you hit the road again. after deciding taos is a great place to grow old you go north to telluride and wonder why you didn't start there, course silverton is the top of the world and just around the corner. then somebody else mentions a storm coming in from the pacific and you realize you forgot about the sierras, ahhh squaw valley, kirkwood, why ski anywhere else? course its just over 3 hours in sunny weather to mammoth, easily the best high speed wind pack on the planet.
just as you get comfortable you hear people talking in hushed tones of a place called crystal mt in washington, its only 15 hours north...
I live in Utah, and have some opinions which I hope are helpful.
For skiing, you'll love Alta. Snowbird is in fact crowded, and it has a TON of cat tracks which severely interrupt your skiing. You also rarely get fresh tracks.
Being ski-only, Alta gets a lot less traffic. I snowboard, so I can't go to Alta or Deer Valley, but I have heard that Alta is the best skiing in the U.S. Two others you'd like are Brighton and Solitude.
Alta and Snowbird are in Little Cottonwood Canyon, and Brighton and Solitude are in Big Cottonwood Canyon. Both the canyons get a lot more snow than Park City, where the Canyons ski resort, Deer Valley, and Park City Mountain Resort are located.
The snow is Utah is unlike anywhere else in the U.S. The air is dry, so the snow is not slushy at all. The Salt Lake puts salt molecules into the air, which makes the snowflakes wider than usual, and much more powdery. Although places like Colorado have great terrain, the snow doesn't compare.
Lodging will be a lot cheaper outside of the Park City area, so both the canyons are a great option. You may want to look at staying somewhere down in the Salt Lake valley and driving up. There's a Hyatt Place in Cottonwood Heights, which is a 15 minute drive from Alta, Snowbird, Brighton, and Solitude.
Another option is Snow Basin and Powder Mountain, which is 45 minutes north of Salt Lake City. Those two are far less crowded and have great runs. They either get way more or way less snow.
We are all set for Alta. (flights and hotels booked). Flying in on the 25th and we'll be staying at the Marriot Residence inn in Sandy. It will be me and two of my best buddies and we have a big 2 bedroom suite for the three of us that cost less than half of what a cramped room would've cost up on the mountains.
We have nothing but time after the lifts close so a pint (or two) and some Porsche talk is definitely in order!
We are all set for Alta. (flights and hotels booked). Flying in on the 25th and we'll be staying at the Marriot Residence inn in Sandy. It will be me and two of my best buddies and we have a big 2 bedroom suite for the three of us that cost less than half of what a cramped room would've cost up on the mountains.
We have nothing but time after the lifts close so a pint (or two) and some Porsche talk is definitely in order!
It's not looking good for epic skiing. Marginal may be the word. It has been up to 70 degrees F in the valley.
Yep...that's a bummer... but we'll keep our options open. The hotel reservation can be cancelled until the day before our arrival so in worst case scenario (no snow in Alta and no snow expected for the week) we can always drive to Jackson or even further.
Allthough, I'm really stoked about Alta now and really really hope we get to ski there!
dry this week, but still two weeks left and you never know. I had a friend in town last week that caught the tuesday to thursday powder skiing at alta, she couldn't understand why we were complaining.
good weather/ski information can be found here http://wasatchweatherweenies.blogspot.com/
snow conditions plot is very useful http://www.cbrfc.noaa.gov/lmap/lmap.php?interface=snow
you can see most of utah is having a tough go of it, but grand targee, sun valley and jackson hole are +100% and only 4.5 hours away.
Have been at jackson since thursday and its been quite warm during the day and cold at night. They're getting a little bit of snow at the top and mixed at the base. If it doesn't cool down with another storm expect icy hardpack off the groomers, icy groomers up top and slush starting mid mountain. Basically feels like spring here, not what you expect in Feb.
12-12-2014, 02:04 PM
