Haven't had a chance to get my pictures off my camera but I thought I'd just post up some info from my trip out last weekend. I'll post pics in the next few days.
12-24-09 Snowbird:
Cold day but nice skiing. Coverage is surprisingly good considering the amount of snowfall. We started with a run through the tunnel (was with intermediates) and into Mineral Basin. For the most part everything skied nicely. Snow was pretty firm in place but edgable and the less skied areas were pretty soft. I think the constant cold weather has kept nice packed powder conditions. Road to provo was pretty decent all the way out, but I dropped in early and it was stiff chunks of snow that was pretty miserable to ski. Did a bunch of laps on Little Cloud, snow was excellent soft packed powder.
Little Cloud
Road to Provo
Some gully lower down the mountain on the Peruvian side.
Just below the Bookends Traverse
12-25-09 Brighton:
This was my first trip to Brighton and likely my last. There were zero crowds, the place was empty. Even though they have the highest reported based coverage was pretty pretty thin off trail. I won't spend too much time because I just ended up skiing most of the day with my girlfriend on the groomers. I will add that coverage off the Milley Express was pretty poor. Not sure why you'd go to Brighton (other than side country access) with Solitude right next door and LCC close by as well.
12-26-09 Alta:
I was able to get a day away from the girlfriend (boarder) and had a chance to show her friend (intermediate skier) around Alta. Weather was beautiful and there was zero crowds. We got there around 10:30ish and found a 1/4 full parking lot. Lines at collins ranged from ski on to 2 minutes. Overall the mountain skied very well. Ballroom was nice, as were the groomers under collins.
A little later I was able to convince my friend to ski a little of the High T, she dropped into Sunspot which was nice; bumped up but really soft and edgeable and nice in the sun. I took a trip by myself out to High Rustler because it seems like something I do every time i'm there. The High T before Piss Pass is pretty thin, as to be expected but it wasn't too hard to avoid the rocks. High Rustler itself was excellent up top (after a really rocky entrance from the top). Up high the snow was soft and chalkly and lightly bumped. About 1/2 way down the bumps got much larger but were still fun and soft enough.
Next up I took another ride up Collins and took the traverse around the Sugarloaf side (not the backside hike on the ridge), never can remember the name of that. I went all the way out above Glory Gulch and the snow was great, small bumps and soft. We finished the day cruising some groomers off Sugarloaf in the sun, skiing was excellent in most places with some icier spots but overall very good.
View from the bottom
Ballroom
Gully just below the Collins Mid Station
Shot of me on Collins
Sunspot (I think)
Backside?
Entrance to High Rustler
Looking down High Rustler from the top
Looking up at the top of High Rustler from about 1/4 the way down (sorry for all the pics but I thought they did a good job of showing what coverage looks like, plus I took'em so why not post them)
Looking out towards Devil's Castle
12-27-09 Solitude:
First off, I must say I don't really care for the the new location of the Powderhorn lift. with it's base now to the lookers right of where it used to be it seems that you can't do laps on the terrain that used to be under the old lift (small cliff bands were fun as was that gully below). With that said the runs off Powderhorn to the lookers right (Paradise, Vertigo, etc) were good, bumped up but really nice soft snow. A little thin on the coverage down below but not an issue for me. The snow was so fun down there i was able to do a few drops off some of the rocks that I believe are usually covered with more snow.
Over on the Eagle Express side the groomers were excellent for the most part and off trail was bumped up and soft and fun.
I took a run without the girlfriend over in the Head wall Forrest, this was excellent up high with soft lightly tracked snow. Unfortunately the lower part which is steep and narrow tree chutes just didn't have enough snow on it and i found myself somewhat stranded above a lot of exposed rocks (nothing that you could huck over either). Pretty sure most of the low cover was due to the fact that that steep area had avalanched a bit and took snow down with it. You could see an obvious 12-18 in crown where the snow released.It was a tough finding a route down and my skis paid for it. Snow in the main open area there (avy path) was very nice though, obviously wished i took the traverse all the way out to there.
Finally I ended the trip with a long traverse out into Honeycomb (off the Summit Chair). Being the last run of the trip I went out further than usual and ended up with about 7-10 untracked turns which were excellent as were the trees below. The long gully on the way back to the chair was in decent shape, some rocks but easily avoidable.
And yes, people do still ski in jeans :-"
And a grainy video capture of me. I was the photographer all weekend so no good action shots of me besides this
Some final thoughts. I was pleasantly surprised how nicely everything skied given the fact it hadn't snowed much recently. Obviously the cold weather helped but coverage was pretty good. I think that Solitude and Alta are in great shape and worth a trip to check out. Snowbird was good, but I don't know what it is, but I can understand why admin and the rest of the crew just prefer Alta. Every time I'm at Snowbird I just have "ok" days, and over at Alta just seem to have much more fun.
Finally, I was shocked how uncrowded everywhere was; didn't wait in a lift line more than 2-3 minutes all weekend.
Working on booking a long weekend trip out for the weekend after MLK. We were originally going to try and squeeze Jackson Hole in but given the coverage already in UT and the fact that Jackson requires 2 travel days, I'm going to be back in UT (def not a bad thing).
12-24-09 Snowbird:
Cold day but nice skiing. Coverage is surprisingly good considering the amount of snowfall. We started with a run through the tunnel (was with intermediates) and into Mineral Basin. For the most part everything skied nicely. Snow was pretty firm in place but edgable and the less skied areas were pretty soft. I think the constant cold weather has kept nice packed powder conditions. Road to provo was pretty decent all the way out, but I dropped in early and it was stiff chunks of snow that was pretty miserable to ski. Did a bunch of laps on Little Cloud, snow was excellent soft packed powder.
Little Cloud
Road to Provo
Some gully lower down the mountain on the Peruvian side.
Just below the Bookends Traverse
12-25-09 Brighton:
This was my first trip to Brighton and likely my last. There were zero crowds, the place was empty. Even though they have the highest reported based coverage was pretty pretty thin off trail. I won't spend too much time because I just ended up skiing most of the day with my girlfriend on the groomers. I will add that coverage off the Milley Express was pretty poor. Not sure why you'd go to Brighton (other than side country access) with Solitude right next door and LCC close by as well.
12-26-09 Alta:
I was able to get a day away from the girlfriend (boarder) and had a chance to show her friend (intermediate skier) around Alta. Weather was beautiful and there was zero crowds. We got there around 10:30ish and found a 1/4 full parking lot. Lines at collins ranged from ski on to 2 minutes. Overall the mountain skied very well. Ballroom was nice, as were the groomers under collins.
A little later I was able to convince my friend to ski a little of the High T, she dropped into Sunspot which was nice; bumped up but really soft and edgeable and nice in the sun. I took a trip by myself out to High Rustler because it seems like something I do every time i'm there. The High T before Piss Pass is pretty thin, as to be expected but it wasn't too hard to avoid the rocks. High Rustler itself was excellent up top (after a really rocky entrance from the top). Up high the snow was soft and chalkly and lightly bumped. About 1/2 way down the bumps got much larger but were still fun and soft enough.
Next up I took another ride up Collins and took the traverse around the Sugarloaf side (not the backside hike on the ridge), never can remember the name of that. I went all the way out above Glory Gulch and the snow was great, small bumps and soft. We finished the day cruising some groomers off Sugarloaf in the sun, skiing was excellent in most places with some icier spots but overall very good.
View from the bottom
Ballroom
Gully just below the Collins Mid Station
Shot of me on Collins
Sunspot (I think)
Backside?
Entrance to High Rustler
Looking down High Rustler from the top
Looking up at the top of High Rustler from about 1/4 the way down (sorry for all the pics but I thought they did a good job of showing what coverage looks like, plus I took'em so why not post them)
Looking out towards Devil's Castle
12-27-09 Solitude:
First off, I must say I don't really care for the the new location of the Powderhorn lift. with it's base now to the lookers right of where it used to be it seems that you can't do laps on the terrain that used to be under the old lift (small cliff bands were fun as was that gully below). With that said the runs off Powderhorn to the lookers right (Paradise, Vertigo, etc) were good, bumped up but really nice soft snow. A little thin on the coverage down below but not an issue for me. The snow was so fun down there i was able to do a few drops off some of the rocks that I believe are usually covered with more snow.
Over on the Eagle Express side the groomers were excellent for the most part and off trail was bumped up and soft and fun.
I took a run without the girlfriend over in the Head wall Forrest, this was excellent up high with soft lightly tracked snow. Unfortunately the lower part which is steep and narrow tree chutes just didn't have enough snow on it and i found myself somewhat stranded above a lot of exposed rocks (nothing that you could huck over either). Pretty sure most of the low cover was due to the fact that that steep area had avalanched a bit and took snow down with it. You could see an obvious 12-18 in crown where the snow released.It was a tough finding a route down and my skis paid for it. Snow in the main open area there (avy path) was very nice though, obviously wished i took the traverse all the way out to there.
Finally I ended the trip with a long traverse out into Honeycomb (off the Summit Chair). Being the last run of the trip I went out further than usual and ended up with about 7-10 untracked turns which were excellent as were the trees below. The long gully on the way back to the chair was in decent shape, some rocks but easily avoidable.
And yes, people do still ski in jeans :-"
And a grainy video capture of me. I was the photographer all weekend so no good action shots of me besides this
Some final thoughts. I was pleasantly surprised how nicely everything skied given the fact it hadn't snowed much recently. Obviously the cold weather helped but coverage was pretty good. I think that Solitude and Alta are in great shape and worth a trip to check out. Snowbird was good, but I don't know what it is, but I can understand why admin and the rest of the crew just prefer Alta. Every time I'm at Snowbird I just have "ok" days, and over at Alta just seem to have much more fun.
Finally, I was shocked how uncrowded everywhere was; didn't wait in a lift line more than 2-3 minutes all weekend.
Working on booking a long weekend trip out for the weekend after MLK. We were originally going to try and squeeze Jackson Hole in but given the coverage already in UT and the fact that Jackson requires 2 travel days, I'm going to be back in UT (def not a bad thing).
