Salt Lake City

The Christmas to New Year's "zoo week" is in there, but that's what Powder Mt. is for.
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I think this is a non-issue for Utah skiing in general. It is way more crowded the first week of Feb than during the Xmas week, from what I hear. Utards...feel free to give your 2 cents on that.

I also think that not as many people are going to be travelling next season anyway, especially during the holidays, due to increased fares.

But generally, eastern skiing still sux in December. It really doesn't get good until late January anyway. Many seasons Xmas was barely a white ribbon of death at many ski areas. Full operation at eastern resorts is usually not the norm for the holiday week, though they all hope and pray for full operation, it just isn't usually the case.
 
I seldom find holiday crowding a problem, even at the big boys.

I suspect that increasing fares will have little to no impact. Fares rose throughout this season and we set our 5th consecutive record for skier visits. Think about that.
 
Admin":3aray2tu said:
I suspect that increasing fares will have little to no impact. Fares rose throughout this season and we set our 5th consecutive record for skier visits. Think about that.
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But the significant increase occurred at or after the end of the season for many.

A rumor I heard yesterday from a Bird employee was that Snowbird has suspended all their planned capital improvements. The reason given was that they're bracing for an expected bad 08/09 season. OTOH, I did notice some tower parts and many spools of cable in what would be a logical staging area for either a Little Cloud or Gad II upgrade. But that might already be fully funded. If the rumor is true though, it does throw into question the Mineral Basin Express changes and the new lift back there.
 
Marc_C":3323vzgr said:
they're bracing for an expected bad 08/09 season.
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It seems that the SLC-area resorts should do better than most ski regions considering how comparatively little driving is needed to get there.
 
Have you seen airfares lately? The other concern is the impact of energy costs on operating profit.

If skier visits to Snowbird next season stay flat relative to this season, they'll have a worse year financially. Already it looks like season passes are going up $100 - $200 next season, and not just at the Bird.
 
It is way more crowded the first week of Feb than during the Xmas week, from what I hear.
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I would be very surprised if that is true. Park City blacks out its free-skiing-with-boarding-pass promotion from President's weekend through late March, which implies to me when the mid-season peak is. There is also Sundance Film Festival, of course.

I seldom find holiday crowding a problem, even at the big boys.
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That's because you haven't been in Utah for a lean-snow Christmas week, as I was in 1986-87. If Alta (or just a few areas) have the only decent coverage, they will be overrun with holiday visitors fleeing the Park City group.

Nonetheless I think Sharon's logic about mid-December to mid-January is correct. Odds of good snow are low in the East, and while not a slam-dunk, very high in BCC/LCC and reasonable elsewhere in Utah during that time frame.
 
Tony Crocker":1jfhmhu3 said:
I seldom find holiday crowding a problem, even at the big boys.
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That's because you haven't been in Utah for a lean-snow Christmas week, as I was in 1986-87. If Alta (or just a few areas) have the only decent coverage, they will be overrun with holiday visitors fleeing the Park City group.
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So there was a "lean snow year" 21 years ago..?? cmon....grasping now..

Now ...I havent been here long, but I did ski 81 lift served days this season both at Alta and Snowbird. Coming from the east....the holiday PEAK days...were hardly a bother...NEVER longer than a 10 minute wait...and remember we had a LEAN LEAN november!!!!!

M
 
Out of curiousity I searched for flights from Syracuse to SLC and this is what I found:

If you fly any time this summer, you are looking at about $450 (Orbitz) on certain airlines.

If you want to book a flight for next Feb, you can buy at ticket today for $350. I don't suspect that price will hold, but if you know you want to fly in Feb, I would buy a ticket asap. I'll have to get on Pam about that.
 
Sharon":2kl79uur said:
If you want to book a flight for next Feb, you can buy at ticket today for $350.
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Which isn't terribly different from where decent prices were pre-jet fuel price surges. Especially from a two-bit airport like Syracuse.
 
So there was a "lean snow year" 21 years ago..?? cmon....grasping now..
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That was an anecdotal, not statistical observation. That week at the Alta Peruvian remains my all-time worst liftline experience (average 45 minutes at Germania), which would hopefully be cut at least in half with the new Collins lift in place.

It's hard to tell from the abundant Alta data, but I did recently acquire the stats from Summit House 9,300 ft. at Park City, where I have both November and December for 32 years.

The worst recent season was 2002-03, with 28 inches November and 44 December at Summit House. Also only 10 in January, so off-piste at the Park City group must have been mediocre at best during the first half of the season. FYI Alta was getting 145 inches over this same time frame as that 82-inch 3-month total at Summit House. I should mention that Snowbird only had 79 inches in November/December of 2002-03, which presumably produced some fairly rocky holiday conditions.

My 1986-87 trip did hit the second lowest November/December at both LCC and Summit House but there are 8 November/Decembers at Summit House lower than the 72 inches of 2002-03.

My interpretation of the above is that advanced skiing at the Park City group will be limited on January 1 20-25% of the time. That probably applies to Snowbasin also. I'm not sure how well Powder Mt. does in getting terrain open early season. This past year had the dry November, and my impression was that Powder Mt. was more like Snowbasin than BCC/LCC in terms of opening up.
 
Nov/Dec/Jan of 95-96 at Alta:
56.00 48.50 178.50

That's 60% of normal for Nov/Dec, and probably fairly representative of that bottom quartile of seasons. Based upon similar Alta totals in 1986 (95 Nov but only 12 Dec) I would not describe it as "lcc had barely any skiing" as about 75% of Alta and Brighton were in good shape. Snowbird/Solitude would have been more restrictive than Alta/Brighton (maybe 50% decent cover) and Park City/Snowbasin were likely marginal until the January storms. FYI Snowbird/Solitude/Park City/Snowbasin had more snow in Nov/Dec 1995 than Nov/Dec 1986.

If Sharon is OK with this for the first half of her trip (and it will be better ~75% of the time) she should go for it. Skidog has a point in that we wouldn't take many ski trips if we insist on covering off the 5th percentile. I think looking at something like the 25th percentile makes sense, and if those conditions are unacceptable you should consider a different resort and/or different time frame. That is the point of the weekly snow conditions charts I developed last year: ( http://bestsnow.net/utahhist.htm for Utah).
 
well not going by data as i did live there and was present and sharing in the doldrums of nov/dec of 95, most of the november snow melted b4 the lifts could open and the december snow just barely got us goin. i can remember a bunch of us non-climber nountain bikers meeting up in the parking lot by albion and heading off to strawberry resevoir, pipeline and ogden to go mountain biking till the holidays as the skiing really wasn't worth hangin around and the riding was prime even up to almost 9000 ft. we had many hard liquor snow sacrifices with red eyed bill himself on the deck of the alta lodge that year before the jan storms showed up. one storm dumped 11 ft in just 5 days, then it was on.
rog
 
Well it looks likely that my winter will be open (meaning no job), so I'm thinking of moving out to SLC for the winter and just enjoying being unemployed. Plus, I'm sure it'll be much cheaper than paying rent plus living expenses in LA.

Can you guys give me a rough idea of what rent on a 2br apt would be? I'm not sure if it would be better to be in Cottonwood Heights (close to LCC & BCC) or move closer to downtown and have more non skiing activities to enjoy. Plus I'd think moving away from the canyons would mean cheaper rent (I guess?) Also, know of any furnished units? I'd rather just leave all my furniture in storage. I know this is a pretty broad question, but I'm kinda just trying to generate some ideas and get ready for the winter. If all goes well there I should have more than enough in savings to just enjoy my time out there and not worry about working.

Thanks in advance.
 
A 2BR apt in the Ft Union area should be ~$750/mo. It's much pricier downtown, actually, and areas just south and west of downtown are cheaper but in somewhat undesirable neighborhoods. North of downtown are trophy homes and east of downtown is the University area.

And yes, there are furnished options available in the Ft. Union area.
 
750 for ft union. well, that makes for an easy decision. so cheap out there. ft union could be the ticket as you could frequent some of the more esoteric/exotic lines of the target basin, cirque du city west bowl and the not yet mentioned mountain view school road gap and slip rail. epic!
rog
 
Great, that's just what I was looking for to get started. At 750 a month (well anything under 1000) it'll be hard to say no if I don't have a new job. Why pay more than double that in rent plus huge cost of living in LA when I'll want to fly out to Utah every weekend anyway. Sounds like a win win, I either find a new job or ski bum it in utah for the winter.
 
Check the housing links on the Snowbird employment page. (I posted them here recently - don't remember which thread.)
 
I forgot that 1995-96 was the first season I was following snow conditions online, though at a much more cursory level than now. http://members.aol.com/crockeraf/seas96.htm

"Utah had below average snow and warm weather in the early season, so only Alta and Brighton (highest base elevations) were adequate by Christmas." So 1995-96 probably was comparable to 1986-87 for those first 2 months.
 
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