Christmas 2024

Sbooker

Well-known member
I’m in a far less than ideal situation here. My mother in law who is a wonderful lady is nearly 77 and recently widowed. She won’t travel alone. She hasn’t had Christmas with her sister who lives in Salt Lake City in nearly 60 years. In fact she has only seen her in person three times in those 6 decades. They desperately want to spend Christmas together. Due to health issues her older sister can’t travel. So we’ll have to take her to SLC.

Firstly the airfares are extortionate at that time of year. About $3700 per person. My son finishes school this year and is starting an apprenticeship in mid January and my daughter will be on Uni holidays so it’ll likely be the last family holiday on my dime. So I’m going to have to shell out for 5 tickets. There’s nothing I can do about that I guess.

The question is more on timing and which ski pass to get. Timing is dictated by Kylie’s work holiday allowance. She only has two weeks if she wants to have another couple of weeks in Europe in the March of 2025. We can leave just prior to Christmas (say the 23rd) or leave a week earlier. I’m thinking earlier avoids holiday crowds but is riskier from a snow cover perspective. When do the holidays crowds start to finish? Straight after New Year? Or the second week in January? And should we consider our first Epic pass? We’ve never skied Park City or any of the Colorado Vail resorts and would like to at some point. We’ll have a car so will travel from SLC for a period anyway. Or stick with Mountain Collective so we can go back to Alta and Grand Targhee/Jackson like we’ve done in the past.
Post Covid are the Epic hills likely to be busier than the alternative? We’ve had a great time skiing on not busy Christmas Days and New Years days in previous years. Is there any reason that this will have changed?
Or is trying to ski at that time of year just going to be a waste of time completely? Maybe we just drive down to Canyonlands and Zion to do some walking and sight seeing?
We pretty much have to go at the worst time but we’ll have to just make the most of it.
Thanks in advance.
 
Firstly the airfares are extortionate at that time of year. About $3700 per person.
I assume that's AUD, which would be 2,440 USD as the AUD is rather weak right now. We paid 2,200 USD to go to Broome and Perth last April, so there's a premium at Christmas but not a ridiculous one.

I’m thinking earlier avoids holiday crowds but is riskier from a snow cover perspective.
Marginally riskier but there's a huge difference in crowds before vs. after Christmas.
And should we consider our first Epic pass? We’ve never skied Park City or any of the Colorado Vail resorts and would like to at some point.
Park City is rarely in full operation at Christmas; you can really only count on the Cottonwood Canyons for favorable snow odds in Utah in December.

Vail's record (not Summit County's) is also quite good in December, but don't even think about Vail during Christmas Week; that would have to be before Christmas due to crowds. Vail the mountain, along with next door Beaver Creek are places that both you and Kylie would love if not there when it's too busy. But this is not Europe. It's a 6 1/2 hour drive from Salt Lake to Vail.
Post Covid are the Epic hills likely to be busier than the alternative?
The Epic Pass is 20% cheaper than Ikon and Vail the company was ill prepared for the crush of skiers in 2021-22 after they made that price cut. Presumably it's improved some since then.
Or is trying to ski at that time of year just going to be a waste of time completely?
During across the board bad early seasons like this one, yes. But during a solid majority of second half of Decembers the Cottonwood Canyons, Targhee, Vail/Beaver Creek plus Steamboat and Jackson on Ikon have very good skiing. And if you get lucky with a strong early season you can go to some more under the radar areas to minimize crowds.

The end of the holiday period is usually considered to be the weekend after New Year's. But no question the peak for crowds is Dec. 26-31.
 
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I assume that's AUD, which would be 2,440 USD as the AUD is rather weak right now. We paid 2,200 USD to go to Broome and Perth last April, so there's a premium at Christmas but not a ridiculous one.


Marginally riskier but there's a huge difference in crowds before vs. after Christmas.

Park City is rarely in full operation at Christmas; you can really only count on the Cottonwood Canyon for favorable snow odds in Utah in December.

Vail's record (not Summit County's) is also quite good in December, but don't even think about Vail during Christmas Week; that would have to be before Christmas due to crowds. Vail the mountain, along with next door Beaver Creek are places that both you and Kylie would love if not there when it's too busy. But this is not Europe. It's a 6 1/2 hour drive from Salt Lake to Vail.

The Epic Pass is 20% cheaper than Ikon and Vail the company was ill prepared for the crush of skiers in 2021-22 after they made that price cut. Presumably it's improved some since then.

During across the board bad early seasons like this one, yes. But during a solid majority of second half of Decembers the Cottonwood Canyons, Targhee, Vail/Beaver Creek plus Steamboat and Jackson on Ikon have very good skiing. And if you get lucky with a strong early season you can go to some more under the radar areas to minimize crowds.

The end of the holiday period is usually considered to be the weekend after New Year's. But no question the peak for crowds is Dec. 26-31.
Thanks.
 
Instead of silence, I'm going to say "what he said" about Tony's response. For your questions, those answers are absolutely spot on.
 
Instead of silence, I'm going to say "what he said" about Tony's response. For your questions, those answers are absolutely spot on.
Kind of as I suspected but I had to ask as I haven’t skied in the US since March 2020 aside from a brief ski/tourist trip to Oregon last mid April which gives no indication of the ski season proper in more populated areas.

Covid has changed a lot here in Australia but it feels like it may be normalising to a degree. This summer tourist season wasn’t quite as crazy as the previous one.
 
Percents of terrain open at areas sbooker is considering, since 1988 for Colorado and 1997 elsewhere:
mid-DecemberAverageMedian75th percentile25th percentileXmas - New YearAverageMedian75th percentile25th percentile
Alta79%
90%​
96%​
69%​
Alta95%
100%​
100%​
91%​
Snowbird61%
68%​
90%​
42%​
Snowbird79%
87%​
96%​
66%​
Brighton/Solitude70%
70%​
93%​
50%​
Brighton/Solitude86%
92%​
97%​
80%​
Snowbasin44%
45%​
66%​
20%​
Snowbasin74%
86%​
95%​
47%​
Park City44%
41%​
63%​
24%​
Park City69%
77%​
92%​
45%​
Jackson53%
48%​
73%​
32%​
Jackson80%
81%​
100%​
68%​
Targhee94%
100%​
100%​
98%​
Targhee99%
100%​
100%​
100%​
Steamboat64%
70%​
91%​
37%​
Steamboat97%
97%​
99%​
90%​
Vail64%
73%​
88%​
44%​
Vail82%
95%​
98%​
71%​
Breckenridge48%
50%​
63%​
27%​
Breckenridge69%
71%​
84%​
60%​

In mid-December and/or poor holiday seasons like this year, only Targhee and Alta fall into a high confidence category. Unfortunately with the Epic Pass, Park City and Breckenridge are laggards in this group. For destination ski areas as a whole Park City and Breck (and Snowbasin) are quite representative. The other places in the chart are in the top tier for early season reliability.
 
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North American pricing means those "half price" Mountain Collective days can be over $100.
Yeah. Painful. But if we get two days at each of Alta, Snowbird, Targhee and Jackson and maybe a day or two at Snowbasin……….
I’d probably nominate Alta as the third day.
Plus I’ll use it in NZ and maybe even Chamonix as I’ll do a March 2025 trip to Europe.
 
Before I forget -- if you make it to Wyoming next Xmas, Bob Peters' Unofficial Guide to Skiing Jackson Hole and Unofficial Guide to Skiing Jackson Hole/Steep Terrain are great resources. I'm not sure if he's updated it to reflect recent changes in uphill transport but regardless, the mountain is still the same.

Also, my December 2010 interview with Bob provides lots of background on the resort from someone who moved there during its early years.
Thanks. I think I read Bob’s guide before I visited the first time.
I think I’ll stay in Driggs. I love the town of Jackson but Driggs will give much easier access to Grand Targhee which in theory should have better snow cover and should be a little less busy at holiday time?
I’ll read your interview now.
 
Before I forget -- if you make it to Wyoming next Xmas, Bob Peters' Unofficial Guide to Skiing Jackson Hole and Unofficial Guide to Skiing Jackson Hole/Steep Terrain are great resources. I'm not sure if he's updated it to reflect recent changes in uphill transport but regardless, the mountain is still the same.

Also, my December 2010 interview with Bob provides lots of background on the resort from someone who moved there during its early years.
Nice interview with Bob. I note that Bob first visited Jackson Hole for “spring break”. He obviously didn’t check with @Tony Crocker first. 🙂
 
I'd agree with others to go MCP/Ikon rather than Epic if SLC is your focus. You'll get more choices and better snow. Save Epic for another time when CO is perhaps your focus.
 
Ah, the irony!
As noted in the interview, the injury occurred on a) what sounded like his second-ever lifetime ski trip and b) in deep, ungroomed snow, but hey, a data point is a data point if it supports the "don't ski at JH after February 6" edict.
:eusa-whistle:

To be fair, the latest I skied in my four visits there up through 2010 was January 31 so perhaps I'd already internalised the Crocker Rule without being aware of it at the time.
 
the Crocker Rule
It's not a hard and fast rule by the standards we routinely use on our Euro trips. As it's a primarily summer resort, Jackson always has reasonably priced lodging in town in the winter, even at the last minute. So if you're on a road trip within driving distance, chasing powder there is an option.

February 6
President's Week is the logical place to draw the line. President's Week itself is vulnerable to crowds, particularly since JH lift capacity has not kept pace with explosive growth in skier visits. Bob Peters said in 2010 that skier visits were 475,000. In 2018-19 they were 715,000.

Once you get to late February, inversion season is essentially over. Since JH fans out from a peak at the top to miles across at the bottom, about 3/4 of terrain is below mid-mountain. The prime terrain of the southeast exposed Lower Faces is usually maintained midwinter by the inversion keeping temps in the 10F range.

In March you are dependent upon new snow and a lot of it to cover the subsurface on terrain with Jackson's typical pitch. See odds of that in the 350-inch Rockies area table here. Jackson's mid-mountain average is 370. By that criterion you need at least the top 15% snowy weeks, and you could argue that it's more like top 10%. But that's where Jackson is right now!

Can you get good spring skiing? There is unfortunately a gap between sun strong enough to melt/freeze and sun strong enough to yield corn, particularly on ungroomed snow. And the better the powder is, the more it gets churned by skier traffic and the longer it will take to settle into smooth corn. This is an issue in LCC in April/May where a typical week will have day or two of powder but the ungroomed in the sun is mashed potatoes the rest of the time.

The scenario I have seen a few times in big years at Jackson is more or less continuous snowfall through February and a week or so into March. So the first warmup/melt/freeze on Jackson's lower mountain doesn't happen until after that. You can also be unlucky and get the warmup in January/early February. That has not happened to me on 4 trips, but I think snowave mentioned that once.
 
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Thinking more about this. I might stay on by myself a bit longer. I could buy a 4 day Epic pass and drive down to Vail/Beaver Creek/Breck to check out those areas considering I may not get the chance in the future. I’d be able to go to Park City too.

Is Monday the 6th of January to Friday 10th likely to be settled down as far as crowds go?
 
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