flyover":v0hpcpmc said:
Four or five years ago, we found ourselves waiting for the bus in one of the BCC park and ride lots on a deep powder day near the beginning of March.
When I was a local I found that getting on the bus down in the Fort Union area (or even earlier in the route) was necessary to get a seat on busy days. The closer you get to the canyon mouth the higher the odds of a full bus...
flyover":v0hpcpmc said:
In prior years, we have been really happy to have had AWD when skiing Powder Mountain on, or even a day or two after, a powder day.
The road to Powder Mountain is by far the most dicey in Utah - I've never seen that highway not have chain control posted (even when it's clear). I always consider PM to be a dice throw - if it's a day or two after a storm it's doable (though maybe a little scary) with 2WD. Luckily, PM usually retains untracked for that long. Otherwise, we have to skip it.
flyover":v0hpcpmc said:
Here’s a question for the locals: are chains and/or AWD legally required to get up the Snowbasin and/or Powder Mountain access roads, even in dry conditions during the winter?
Like I said above, I've never seen the PM highway to not have listed chain control when I look online. Snowbasin, in my experience, rarely has chain control (only under heavy storm conditions). Note that the Utah Highway Patrol is very lax about chain control/4x4 restrictions. It's nothing like California, where they'll force you to put on chains even if there's no snow on the road. I've only been turned around once in Utah at the BCC Canyon mouth, and that was during the crazy 100" storm of a few years ago. Note also that no rental agency will allow you to put chains on their cars. Of course, they would likely never know, but it's still a pain to go buy them for what is essentially single-use.
flyover":v0hpcpmc said:
Another question for locals: how reliable are the shuttle busses that run up and down the Powder Mountain road and is there an equivalent for Snowbasin?
I've never taken the shuttle, but scheduling-wise it's very limited (you have to wake up pretty darn early if you're staying in SLC or Park City). To me, these kind of tradeoffs where it's costing you 2+ hours to get to the slopes begins to kill the advantages to SLC.
flyover":v0hpcpmc said:
Having said all of that, I have noticed that the rates for AWD cars seem a lot higher this year. I’ve got a four-day trip planned at the end of February and the cheapest in-terminal AWD I could find, will run us just under a $100 a day (which is admittedly, completely and totally ridiculous, even if split 2 or 3 ways) with all of the fees and taxes. This is a lot more (by at least 25%) than we have had to pay in the past.
Ya, it's a dilemma. But in Utah you have a lot of options to work with. One suggestion is to hit Sundance on a big snow day - it's low elevation so the road is normally friendly, it's normally uncrowded, and it has some fun steeper stuff up top that can get great snow. You'll likely be skiing untracked while the masses are breathing fumes in LCC/BCC... Finally, with a near $70/day differential between AWD and 2WD you're well on your way to paying the difference to staying at the resorts themselves and not having to worry about driving at all...
So, I think us destination skiers have 2 options:
