Utah - first week of April 2025 and more

Apr 1-5, 2025 in the Wasatch has been wonderful. Winter came back with 20" new, powdery snow at many resorts on Apr 1, then there was 2-6" more the next two days. It's been one of my favorite stretches this winter, and best of all - low crowds the whole time, even today a Saturday at Snowbird. I'm hoping tomorrow is good too.

Apr 1 at Alta:
Me:

Friends.

Supreme lift line 10 AM.


Apr 2 Snowbird, a real fine day of high quality leftovers from the day before. You can see small parts of Gadzoom and Little Clouds chairs in this pic taken from Gad 2 area.

Friend entering Great Scott.

Random hucker in the Forbidden Zone of Upper Cirque.

Saddle section of Tiger Tail area. I had 2 really great laps through here and very quiet.

Apron of the Rasta Chutes area in Little Cloud Bowl.



Apr 3 Brighton, puking again with small lift lines again.

Good place on storm days!

Great Western area soft and friendly.


Took the 4th off.

Apr 5 Snowbird again.
Me in Silver Fox area near summit.

My friend in same area.

Tracks observed in Pipeline Chute, possibly the first this spring!

Gorgeous blue sky day in Mineral, skied the Bookends in center background shortly after taking this photo.

This one's for @tseeb , good beer I bought in Missoula recently.

jimk said:

Gorgeous blue sky day in Mineral, skied the Bookends in center background shortly after taking this photo.

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Until what time of the day does the snow stay nice in Mineral in spring?

Sbooker said:

Until what time of the day does the snow stay nice in Mineral in spring?

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It all depends on air temp. Today I skied it from 11-1230pm and it was great. On a milder April day you gotta get out of there about noon or earlier. Today is was only about 40 degs up there, but with gorgeous sunshine. Primo day.

Apr 6, 2025 was a special day for me. After ten years of skiing Snowbird fairly regularly I climbed Baldy from the Snowbird side for the first time ever. Better late than never.

A view of Mt Baldy from Snowbird. Our goal was to climb it and then ski down Main Chute on the backside and into the Alta ski area. Then use the Blackjack traverse to get back to Snowbird. A big, burly lap.



The boot pack involves a hike of maybe 500' vertical at 11,000' and took me about 30 or 40 minutes. I went slow.


Nice 360 degs views at the top. There was a good crowd up there, maybe 40 people. And I gotta be honest, at age 71, I might have been one of the oldest.


Looking back at the Bird as a hiker approaches on the route we took. I think Baldy is actually about 50' higher than the lift served summit of Snowbird.


We first traversed past the entrance to Little Chute. It was narrow and fairly rocky. We passed on that one.


A peek down Main Chute from the top. It was pretty "fat" with good snow conditions and plenty of room to operate.


Looking up, about 50 yards below the drop in.


Main Chute's pretty long, but considering the effort to get there, it's over quick The terrain in the background is the Collins side of Alta.


My friend at right, inside Main Chute.



Near the bottom, in geezer survival mode Sensationally beautiful day!


The second week of April in the Wasatch will be much more Spring-like with day time highs on the mtn in the 50s Fahrenheit. Can be fun, but limits the window for good snow conditions to only a few hours per day.

We now have conclusive proof than JimK is aging more gracefully than I am.

I can reminisce about the times I was comfortable hiking and skiing Baldy, the first time being in 1990 after driving the night before from SoCal.
3/13/2007 with Ben and Stefan
3/14/2023 with Ben and Stefan
These three times I skied Main Chute hiking from the Alta side.

Only on 3/12/2014 did I hike the shorter distance from the Snowbird side. That one was memorable because it was the only time I skied Little Chute. That was the last time I hiked Baldy, at age 61, ten years younger than JimK is now.

Rereading those reports reminds me how the pace of my Iron Blosam weeks has slowed way down the past few seasons.

Man..I have to up my game...its been years since I hiked up there. Little chute is scary..only did it once and it almost killed one of us..she slid almost 400 feet breaking her shoulder. So thats a one and done. Main is fun..at least you have room to move.

Tony Crocker said:

We now have conclusive proof than JimK is aging more gracefully than I am.

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Skiing Snowbird 3-4 times a week all season may be a contributing factor!

Of course you guys only see the active, fun side of Jim. There's also the sore back, cross-eyed, aching feet, burning thighs, grumpy side of Jim. I don't post too many reports on that

Here's another aid that I find therapeutic in my old age:

jimk said:

Can be fun, but limits the window for good snow conditions to only a few hours per day.

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That's for a specific piece of terrain. It's often easy to get pleasant conditions all day long by being in the right places at the right times. Hopefully we will demonstrate that the next two days at Mammoth.

Snow return thursday.....

April 2025 continued to be a very excellent month for skiing in the Wasatch Mtns. It's also been quiet to very quiet.

There was a great string of spring ski days in the second week. This is my lunch time view from the porch of the mid-mtn Roundhouse Restaurant at Solitude on 9 Apr 2025. Good day with very few people, the Solitude of old


There's a very neat old patrol building at the summit of the Powderhorn chairlift at Solitude.


I rode UTA Bus 972 for my day at Solitude, 9 passengers up, 7 down. Love bus on quiet days. It's free with a season pass or an Ikon pass, but it stops running in mid-April as the skier/boarder visitation level dwindles in Utah.


10 Apr 2025 was a beautiful spring ski day and I visited Deer Valley with a couple of friends.


This is part of the new 2000 acres of expanded ski terrain coming to Deer Valley next year:


The famous Daly Chutes are in the background of this photo. They were closed to skiing by this point in the season at Deer Valley.


Chillin' outside the Silver Lake Lodge on a gorgeous day.


Enjoyed a fine day of spring skiing at Brighton ski area on 15 Apr 2025 with these two friends:


Scenic terrain beside the Millicent chairlift:




16 April at Snowbird was the last mild weather day for a while. Sunroof open on 1st tram at 9 AM.


View from the Road to Provo cat track:


Storm brewing and a return to wintry conditions coming soon:


On 18 April I skied with friends at Snowbird. It was a nice pow day!




There was a FIS mogul competition being held beside the new Wilbere chair that day. This is a lady skier doing the inverted aerial.


19 Apr 2025, was a super beautiful day at Snowbird, intense sunshine, clear visibility, high of only 40 degs. The recent snow stayed wintry for much of the day.

L-R: Two friends and myself, this is at the top of the Far Bookends in Mineral Basin. Mary Ellen Gulch (a potential area of future ski terrain expansion at Snowbird) and Mt Timpanogos (far background) are behind us.


The spot where we are standing above is the snowy saddle a bit left of center in this photo from a higher point in Mineral Basin at Snowbird.


One of my companions this day was a really fine and super fit 70 year old telemarker!

Yesterday at solitude..everyone was at Alta.

I was up there today with four friends. Enjoying the small April crowds. Snow stayed pretty fast even though a bit slushy by time I quite around 1pm.
Eagle sixpack:


One friend is a fine telemarker and Soli is his home mtn: