Pajarito-Bred
New member
Brighton, Wednesday, Jan 19
The Canyons, Thursday, Jan 20
Snowbird, Friday, Jan. 21
It was time to linger over huge breakfasts, straggle to the lift after 10:00, then follow the sun until 4:00 all three days.
Brighton was a blast cruising the rolling, curving groomers until the snow softened up, and the south-facing runs were incredibly soft until after 4:00!
The canyons was more challenging to find soft snow, as it faces more north, and both me and and my ski buddy had never skied there before, so we made a couple of navigational errors-- which, due to the canyons funky layout, made us pay on steep nasty icy chunks. But we did find extremely nice spring bumps on 9990 lift, as well as a steep north-facing wall (called, aptly, North Face) plus we found the Abyss, another well-named face with soft yet firm and pleasant snow.
Super Condor lift was showing lots of bare spots, but there was one very slushy slot that was a blast.
Snowbird's Mineral Basin was slow to soften on Friday-- it is still January, one tiny cloud can yank that soft snow out from under your skis and slip in some ice really quickly. We followed the sun-- only the steep stuff that was perpendicular to the sun softened before 1:00. The afternoon snow on Little Cloud was great, though! If you can't have powder, what we got was next-best. I wouldn't want to be there on the cold, cloudy, windy day before the next storm!
We had a challenge trying to decide where to ski-- We'd been to Alta and Snowbird plenty, and wanted to try some others. but with the conditions, found that it was better to know where to go to find the soft stuff-- even then, it's still a matter of trial and error, and observation from the lift. There's plenty of snow at Snowbird and Brighton for another week of this crazy thaw. but the canyons are hiding lots of thin ice, with occasional gems.
We got discounted lift tix at Canyon Sports-- there's several locations, plus REI has them, too.
I was shocked to see the slide that killed one person (or more?) at the canyons-- I'll add some info in another post.
The Canyons, Thursday, Jan 20
Snowbird, Friday, Jan. 21
It was time to linger over huge breakfasts, straggle to the lift after 10:00, then follow the sun until 4:00 all three days.
Brighton was a blast cruising the rolling, curving groomers until the snow softened up, and the south-facing runs were incredibly soft until after 4:00!
The canyons was more challenging to find soft snow, as it faces more north, and both me and and my ski buddy had never skied there before, so we made a couple of navigational errors-- which, due to the canyons funky layout, made us pay on steep nasty icy chunks. But we did find extremely nice spring bumps on 9990 lift, as well as a steep north-facing wall (called, aptly, North Face) plus we found the Abyss, another well-named face with soft yet firm and pleasant snow.
Super Condor lift was showing lots of bare spots, but there was one very slushy slot that was a blast.
Snowbird's Mineral Basin was slow to soften on Friday-- it is still January, one tiny cloud can yank that soft snow out from under your skis and slip in some ice really quickly. We followed the sun-- only the steep stuff that was perpendicular to the sun softened before 1:00. The afternoon snow on Little Cloud was great, though! If you can't have powder, what we got was next-best. I wouldn't want to be there on the cold, cloudy, windy day before the next storm!
We had a challenge trying to decide where to ski-- We'd been to Alta and Snowbird plenty, and wanted to try some others. but with the conditions, found that it was better to know where to go to find the soft stuff-- even then, it's still a matter of trial and error, and observation from the lift. There's plenty of snow at Snowbird and Brighton for another week of this crazy thaw. but the canyons are hiding lots of thin ice, with occasional gems.
We got discounted lift tix at Canyon Sports-- there's several locations, plus REI has them, too.
I was shocked to see the slide that killed one person (or more?) at the canyons-- I'll add some info in another post.
