Liz and I hit the road Dec. 28 and hit a few obscure areas during the busiest ski week of the season. We stayed in Beaver, UT Saturday night and skied Eagle Point Sunday.
Eagle Point is the 3rd incarnation of Mt. Holly, then Elk Meadows. If the objective is to avoid crowds this is certainly the place. The topography is very awkward. The day lodge, ticket office and parking are at almost the top of the mountain, north of the access road. There are two chairs up there, each about 400 vertical but quite long covering flat terrain, much of which faces south. The main attraction of this sector is a terrain park. Liz found this structure quite artistic.
Neither one of us figured out what skiers/riders were supposed to do with this feature viewed from the chair above.
Most of the terrain is south of the access road. 2 trails lead there from the parking/day lodge, one crossing the road on a thin strip of snow and the other through a tunnel. Once you go there, there are no lifts to get back; you have to take a shuttle bus.
The Lookout Chair rises 1,000 vertical and provides access to a quite expansive terrain pod dropping off a long ridgeline. The chair does not go to the highest point on the ridge, so you ski a short distance to a saddle and catch a snowcat shuttle to the high point.
We arrived here ~11AM (remember this is the Sunday after Christmas) and note Liz and I are the only ones on the cat! We rode that cat 4 other times, typically with 3-5 people total on board.
Unloading the cat we see that there used to be a chair to the high point.
A couple of the foundations have deteriorated, so the chairs were removed. There is a surface lift on the back to access the peak, but it was not running. When it does, Eagle Point will relocate the cat lower in the canyon to bring skiers back to the base of Lookout.
Now for the good news. The 7 or 8 cut runs from Lookout have nice consistent north facing fall lines. These are more challenging runs than at Brian Head, which is the logical regional competition. A few pics:
It had not snowed for quite a while so snow was variable. It was generally best to ski in skier packed snow. Only one of the Lookout runs was groomed, so not a good place for GPaul. Even though the trees between the runs looked way too dense for my tastes, the cut runs should provide outstanding skiing on powder days with the direct fall lines and almost zero competition. So it might be worth checking the past 2-3 days snowfall if you're driving to Salt Lake from points south.
There's a short chair coming from the base of Lookout up to Canyonside Lodge.
This serves a few condos, and we had a nice late lunch at the Outpost Grill before taking the shuttle back to the upper day lodge.
We enjoyed our day here, but I am not surprised this area has already failed financially twice. It's too close to Salt Lake for its size and too far from anywhere else. It's maybe an hour farther from Vegas than Brian Head, which is more intermediate friendly. The lift setup is awkward but who would want to spend the $$$ needed to improve it?
Eagle Point is the 3rd incarnation of Mt. Holly, then Elk Meadows. If the objective is to avoid crowds this is certainly the place. The topography is very awkward. The day lodge, ticket office and parking are at almost the top of the mountain, north of the access road. There are two chairs up there, each about 400 vertical but quite long covering flat terrain, much of which faces south. The main attraction of this sector is a terrain park. Liz found this structure quite artistic.
Neither one of us figured out what skiers/riders were supposed to do with this feature viewed from the chair above.
Most of the terrain is south of the access road. 2 trails lead there from the parking/day lodge, one crossing the road on a thin strip of snow and the other through a tunnel. Once you go there, there are no lifts to get back; you have to take a shuttle bus.
The Lookout Chair rises 1,000 vertical and provides access to a quite expansive terrain pod dropping off a long ridgeline. The chair does not go to the highest point on the ridge, so you ski a short distance to a saddle and catch a snowcat shuttle to the high point.
We arrived here ~11AM (remember this is the Sunday after Christmas) and note Liz and I are the only ones on the cat! We rode that cat 4 other times, typically with 3-5 people total on board.
Unloading the cat we see that there used to be a chair to the high point.
A couple of the foundations have deteriorated, so the chairs were removed. There is a surface lift on the back to access the peak, but it was not running. When it does, Eagle Point will relocate the cat lower in the canyon to bring skiers back to the base of Lookout.
Now for the good news. The 7 or 8 cut runs from Lookout have nice consistent north facing fall lines. These are more challenging runs than at Brian Head, which is the logical regional competition. A few pics:
It had not snowed for quite a while so snow was variable. It was generally best to ski in skier packed snow. Only one of the Lookout runs was groomed, so not a good place for GPaul. Even though the trees between the runs looked way too dense for my tastes, the cut runs should provide outstanding skiing on powder days with the direct fall lines and almost zero competition. So it might be worth checking the past 2-3 days snowfall if you're driving to Salt Lake from points south.
There's a short chair coming from the base of Lookout up to Canyonside Lodge.
This serves a few condos, and we had a nice late lunch at the Outpost Grill before taking the shuttle back to the upper day lodge.
We enjoyed our day here, but I am not surprised this area has already failed financially twice. It's too close to Salt Lake for its size and too far from anywhere else. It's maybe an hour farther from Vegas than Brian Head, which is more intermediate friendly. The lift setup is awkward but who would want to spend the $$$ needed to improve it?