Given that my trips to SLC are usually in mid-December, I hadn't skied Snowbasin in seven years. While driving up, I realized that hitting paydirt like my March 2009 visit wasn't in the cards. Whereas the Cottonwood Canyons were basking in blazing sunshine, Snowbasin was blanketed by dense clouds. Moreover, when I arrived at 9 am, the main parking lots were almost completely full and the base area was busy.
Snow conditions were really nice, but the first half of the day was challenging due to the top third of the mountain being completely socked in with fog and steady snow. Visibility was as bad as some storm days I've skied in the Alps and not conducive to great photos:
Still, I skied nonstop, starting with Grizzly and Wildflower (the men's and women's Olympic downhill runs) on the far skier's left off the John Paul lift. Given how many cars were in the parking lot, it was amazing how few people I ran into on the hill.
Finally, around 1 pm, it started to clear up, so I made a beeline to the Strawberry terrain zone, which had been a borderline whiteout until then:
My legs were too shot to go on any long traverses or hike for completely untracked powder, so I lapped gullies for the next 2.5 hours:
Snow conditions were really nice, but the first half of the day was challenging due to the top third of the mountain being completely socked in with fog and steady snow. Visibility was as bad as some storm days I've skied in the Alps and not conducive to great photos:
Still, I skied nonstop, starting with Grizzly and Wildflower (the men's and women's Olympic downhill runs) on the far skier's left off the John Paul lift. Given how many cars were in the parking lot, it was amazing how few people I ran into on the hill.
Finally, around 1 pm, it started to clear up, so I made a beeline to the Strawberry terrain zone, which had been a borderline whiteout until then:
My legs were too shot to go on any long traverses or hike for completely untracked powder, so I lapped gullies for the next 2.5 hours: