Snow King was my 100th lift serviced ski area. I have another 18 cat, heli, plane and backcountry.
Snow King's lifts rise right out of the 6,300 ft. town of Jackson to 7,800 ft., with a nearby hikable knoll at 8,000. In the shadow of the Tetons the natural snow is not reliable, but that is not a problem this year. It was windy at the top, foggy at the bottom and snowed all morning. Temps close to freezing resulted in a heavier snow than we had experienced the previous 3 days at Jackson Hole.
The upper half of the mountain had 2-3 inches new snow over a packed powder but fairly firm surface. There are about 5 cut trails up top that have fairly steep pitch and some moguls. The moguls must get there on the weekends, because Patrick and I were among maybe 10-20 skiers on the hill this Monday. Snow King sells tickets in 2-hour increments so locals can get in a few runs, early, late or during lunch.
As you get lower down the runs widen out to boulevards, and the skiing was trickier due to bad visibility and thus inability to distinguish among wind drift, groomed and hard subsurfaces. I later read that the lower mountain has enough snowmaking to allow pro skiers to race train in November, so that accounts for the hard or variable snow down there.
Views of the town are nice, and Patrick may post a couple he took despite the fog and snow. We left at 1PM to drive to SLC for the rest of his trip. I cleverly left a bag at admin's place (which contained my cell phone) and wound up spending the night there and flying home early Tuesday.
Snow King's lifts rise right out of the 6,300 ft. town of Jackson to 7,800 ft., with a nearby hikable knoll at 8,000. In the shadow of the Tetons the natural snow is not reliable, but that is not a problem this year. It was windy at the top, foggy at the bottom and snowed all morning. Temps close to freezing resulted in a heavier snow than we had experienced the previous 3 days at Jackson Hole.
The upper half of the mountain had 2-3 inches new snow over a packed powder but fairly firm surface. There are about 5 cut trails up top that have fairly steep pitch and some moguls. The moguls must get there on the weekends, because Patrick and I were among maybe 10-20 skiers on the hill this Monday. Snow King sells tickets in 2-hour increments so locals can get in a few runs, early, late or during lunch.
As you get lower down the runs widen out to boulevards, and the skiing was trickier due to bad visibility and thus inability to distinguish among wind drift, groomed and hard subsurfaces. I later read that the lower mountain has enough snowmaking to allow pro skiers to race train in November, so that accounts for the hard or variable snow down there.
Views of the town are nice, and Patrick may post a couple he took despite the fog and snow. We left at 1PM to drive to SLC for the rest of his trip. I cleverly left a bag at admin's place (which contained my cell phone) and wound up spending the night there and flying home early Tuesday.