Colorado Best grooming in the Rockies?

[musicmatters]

I don’t share the same DV experience as you. Conditions are everything, and I have certainly had some hard pack days, but it was like anywhere would be if they didn’t get snow for an extended period. I think like any mountain, you have to know where and when to go.

1. If you go during the week you almost never wait in a line, and on busy days if you know where to go you can avoid most lines. Like all resorts, the lifts that start lower at the base are going to be more crowded. Once you spread out you can avoid the lines. Quincy will get a line as it is the only way (other then the slow Red Cloud lift) to get over to the Flagstaff side. You take this lift once to get you over there and then stay over there till you need to come back. Northside can also get a line as quite a few runs funnel down there, but even these are a few minutes on the worst days. All of the Bald Mtn lifts never have more then a few people in them.

2. I can’t speak to the grooming schedule, but I have seen very good grooming conditions there whatever scheduled they are using.

3. They don’t get the most snow compared to the other Utah resorts but they still get a very similar number as Park City does, and in line with many Colorado resorts. There are certain areas like Bald Mtn, that are fantastic first thing in the morning, but by afternoon it can get very skied off and wind blown, especially at the top. Flagstaff Mtn at the Northside and Silver Strike lifts ski great in the afternoon on most any day. The snow really lasts over there as it’s not as steep as Bald Mtn. And Empire lift is in the shade in the AM and doesn't soften up untill the afternoon once the sun gets on it.

That being said, it is getting more crowded then it used to be with IKON and Alterra having a higher daily capacity. I still find it a place where I rarely wait in a line if you can avoid a few areas.

I am (again) surprised by all the love Deer Valley gets around here, especially in the grooming department. I've skied DV around 15 days scattered over 20 seasons, at various times of year. I have consistently encountered lousy conditions. It's just icy. (Excpet maybe Empire.) And it's often the firmest kind of boilerplate, the kind my Eastern well-tuned carving skis can barely bite into. And I'm an ice-loving New Englander!.

My theories:
1. DV is very crowded and the trails are fairly narrow. The layout seems to channel skiers down the same slopes at the same time. Many have lower skill sets and slide around, pushing snow off the trail. The groomed runs have been skied out within 30 min of opening by the most damaging kind of skier traffic.
2. DV seems to groom right after closing. All the awesome technology in the world is for nothing if it's not timed right. Unless it's really cold, grooming should occur late at night or early in the morning, after the deep freeze has set up the snow. If you groom at 5 PM before the temp drops 15 degress you end up with frozen corduroy the next day. Groom at midnight after the freeze and you get a much more skiable corduroy.
3. DV is not blessed with abundant snowfall, a double whammy. It keeps people on the regular trails and out of the woods. And older snow tends to get pretty firm after so many grooming sessions.
4. Maybe I just have bad luck, a theory I accept is possible but am not willing to retest. I'm done with DV.

Here are my choices:
1. Grand Targhee
2. Powder Mountain
3 Snowmass
4. Jackson Hole

I think these places benefit from some combination of ample dry snow and/or lower ski traffic per acre. I am intrigued by Sun Valley after reading this thread.

 

[Bad Bob]

@Pdub here is a pretty good example of grooming at Sun Valley. Posted it somewhere else a couple of days ago, sorry for the repetition. These are both showing SV version of Blues

Seattle Ridge area, those are greens, taken Jan or Dec last season. Don't you just hate crowds.


This Ridge Run in November. A Blue you only get about 3,000 vertical of this kind of stuff, but many choices. Sun Valley is my vote for best groomer in the Rockies, I count 5 snow guns in this picture.



No great love for DV me either.

 

[Pdub]

Thanks Bad Bob for those pics...nothing like steep sustained corduroy! Haven't been to SV since the 80s so maybe it's time to check it out. When is the best time of year?

 

[Bill Miles]

Thanks Bad Bob for those pics...nothing like steep sustained corduroy! Haven't been to SV since the 80s so maybe it's time to check it out. When is the best time of year?

Not Bad Bob, but anytime after the Christmas Holidays is good, February and first half of March being the best. If you haven't been there since the HSQ's went in, it has changed a lot. You didn't zoom up and down back then like you can now.

 

[Steezus]

Pretty much every resort sends out cats as soon as the hill is closed. DV keeps them out until the resort is about to open. SV brings the cats in about an hour before opening. The snow sets up within hours, so even things groomed at 2am are still going to be just as firm as the first shift stuff. A lot of runs are groomed on first shift to remain firm on purpose as high traffic areas would be skied to dirt or require a lot more cat work to maintain if they groomed certain areas just before the mountain opens. I was a little peeved that we would come in so early at SV as once the sun even barely peeks over the ridge, you can groom at a much higher speed because the snow is a lot softer by then, so you miss out on a lot of acreage in that last hour of grooming.

I have groomed at a third resort and they actually mounted water tanks to two of their cats and we would spray down these high traffic areas trying to ice up the base as much as possible. That resort is Alta. Not sure if they still do that or not, it was twenty years ago when I worked there.

I used to think DV was icy, but over the years I think the tillers are so much more aggressive that ice spots aren't as prevalent anymore. That goes for any mountain I have skied at recently.

I am surprised at the perception of grooming between DV and SV. SV has half the cats, they are often broken down a lot and very few experienced operators compared to DV. The cord just sticks around much longer due to less skiers at SV, but there's a lot less acreage groomed and the work I would see other people leave made me cringe. You still have random people at DV leaving bad work, but that is pretty rare. The quality difference is a big part of why I left SV. Even if SV pushed for perfect cord, they don't have the experienced operators that mountain requires to pull it off.

SV's snow making system is fully automated and extremely nice, but DV covers a lot more runs and a much thicker base, it is almost fully manual, but that also means guns are moved into a better position rather than being stuck on the sideline no matter what. It's actually insane how much snow DV puts on each run. The whales of snow they make over there are the biggest I have ever seen, pushing them is the best part of the job!

If you want the grave shift cord at SV, hit anything on Seattle Ridge and Canyon. The winch cats are more random. Christmas Ridge is the first run to get sun in the morning and is usually softer than anything at Seattle Ridge other than Broadway, which is the last run that gets groomed before the mountain opens.

At DV, grave shift hits everything on Bald Eagle, Deer Crest, and almost everything on Flagstaff. Blue Bell, Bandana, Star Gazer and Hidden Treasure are the only runs that are often done on swing shift on that mountain. Tycoon is the first run to soften in the morning and Steins is usually not far behind.

 

[New2]

The cord just sticks around much longer due to less skiers at SV

Thanks for an all-around great & informative post, Steezus! Just quoting a snippet here, but yes... as important as good grooming is, crowd levels matter tremendously, too. Lots of more remote or less-visited areas have really nice cord just thanks to the lack of crowds.

When it comes to great grooming that stands the test of big crowds, I agree that Deer Valley is a rock star... I'd add in Brighton, along with Mountain High and Snow Summit in SoCal.

 

[Steezus]

Yeah for sure, nothing like a resort that has cord late into the day. I hit Powderhorn Resort in Colorado before and had fresh cord on one side of the resort the entire day. It was actually a pretty good job as well. I am for sure bummed with how crowded DV is just like all the resorts in that area, but the one upside is that it makes the job a lot more fun.