• For more information on how to avoid pop-up ads and still support SkiTalk click HERE.

Utah Little Cottonwood Canyon 2018-2019, Reports, Pics, and Banter

jmills115

Making fresh tracks
Skier
SkiTalk Supporter
Joined
Apr 25, 2017
Posts
1,158
Location
Salt Lake City, Utah
I joined @GNARpts at Alta midday after meeting him earlier in the week to drop off skis. Pulling into the Alta lot I realized I had left my midlayer and shell at home only having a badelayer on. With the sun out and warmer temps the Alta hoodie I purchased should have been adequate.
A bad decision on the High T tested a few things.
1-How will the cotton hoodie do to keep me dry and warm if wet.
2-My ability to see exposed rock after skiing over the slightly covered neighbor rock and avoid landing on them.
3-My ability to slide headfirst close enough to a tree that my ski would catch a branch and stop me.
It was a still a good day for me with the hoodie keeping me warm and the freshly ground QSTs being the only thing damaged.
Thanks for the laps and have fun at Snowbird tomorrow.
 

Tricia

The Velvet Hammer
Admin
SkiTalk Tester
Joined
Nov 1, 2015
Posts
27,297
Location
Reno
We have one last morning to ski before heading back to Tahoe.
Anyone want to entice us to ski a couple hours this morning?
I'm leaning toward Alta. Phil is leaning toward Snowbird.
 

Tricia

The Velvet Hammer
Admin
SkiTalk Tester
Joined
Nov 1, 2015
Posts
27,297
Location
Reno
We skied Alta today. Judy was not a happy camper as for some reason they had glitches in the RFID system and a good portion of the passes, both IKON and Mountain Collective were not reading or not releasing the gates. She had to go down to customer service and they gave her an Alta/Bird pass. My IKON worked fine all day, but I guess I was the exception. The sun was out for a good portion of the day with occasional clouds and fog rolling in just to keep you on your toes.
Aw, We went to Park City for the afternoon and it was okay, but I wish we'd communicated and skied with you and Judy.
Are you skiing today? Where?
We have the morning to make some turns, but need to leave by noon to head back to Tahoe.

RE: the RFID
We were encouraged to have our passes tested to make sure they worked because they've been having issues with passes that aren't Alta specific.
Both mine and Phil's worked.
 

Philpug

Notorious P.U.G.
Admin
SkiTalk Tester
Joined
Nov 1, 2015
Posts
42,624
Location
Reno, eNVy
We have one last morning to ski before heading back to Tahoe.
Anyone want to entice us to ski a couple hours this morning?
I'm leaning toward Alta. Phil is leaning toward Snowbird.
Snowbird. ;)
 

Tricia

The Velvet Hammer
Admin
SkiTalk Tester
Joined
Nov 1, 2015
Posts
27,297
Location
Reno
I joined @GNARpts at Alta midday after meeting him earlier in the week to drop off skis. Pulling into the Alta lot I realized I had left my midlayer and shell at home only having a badelayer on. With the sun out and warmer temps the Alta hoodie I purchased should have been adequate.
A bad decision on the High T tested a few things.
1-How will the cotton hoodie do to keep me dry and warm if wet.
2-My ability to see exposed rock after skiing over the slightly covered neighbor rock and avoid landing on them.
3-My ability to slide headfirst close enough to a tree that my ski would catch a branch and stop me.
It was a still a good day for me with the hoodie keeping me warm and the freshly ground QSTs being the only thing damaged.
Thanks for the laps and have fun at Snowbird tomorrow.
Dude!
 

Tony

tseeb
Skier
Joined
Jan 17, 2016
Posts
1,284
Location
Northern CA
I'm going to Park City today with @Wasatchman and hoping to take some runs with @Jim Kenney who I barely saw at Big Sky, even though we were staying in same place, and never saw on the mountain.

@Wasatchman and I had a very good Monday at Brighton. I had six laps into Brighton's easily accessible side-country, some that were nearly all gravity and a couple that had 3-5 minutes of suffering to get into or back to lift. We didn't start until about 10 and on first lift found there was an Ikon pass problem at Brighton that required going into an office where staff quickly handled short line. I heard it was Ikon's system was down. Not sure how Ikon was working at Altabird for @Johnny V.

@Wasatchman led a couple of warmup laps on Crest and I think we also rode Snake Creek before we moved to Milly and skied a couple of excellent lines to lookers left of the chair. We tried to get to area of Mary's Chutes that we could see from Crest chair, but went right when we should have gone left and ended with too short of a drop for the effort.

I led a couple of laps into Hidden Canyon area off Great Western that I had been shown last Thursday. The first one was nearly all gravity and included a big bowl that had a couple of inches of new snow which had not been skied on top of a soft base. The second one had a very short hike and traverse to get to this. 7189BrightonSideCountry.JPG 7195AlInHiddenCanyonPowder.JPG 2nd picture above is @Wasatchman - We got a little low on long exit and had a couple of minute walk through cabin area where snow was very deep to get to trail that we skied back to Great Western. 7196TonyBySnowbank.JPG

We didn't want to pole over to Brighton Center so we rode lift and skied steep run off Western Trail that had great coverage and snow. During late break, I talked to Mountain Manager, who had given a great tour of Hidden Canyon last Thurs. about where else we should try and he recommend the powder field behind the top of Milly chair over Mary Chute area. I lost @Wasatchman on way from top of Crest to Milly when I went too deep into Wren Hollow and had a hike to get out. He left as he had an appt. to get to and he'd probably had enough of skiing with me.

The powder field behind the top of Milly chair was great, but too short unless you do a lot of hiking across snowfield where you should have avy gear and partner. 7213PowderByMilly.JPG On the exit, when I was trying to keep up my speed, I tore my jacket sleeve on a branch sticking out of a tree where bumps on trail put me too close to it. It was a 17 year-old North Face Gore-Tex that I bought at a great discount when niece was working at long since closed outlet and I had resumed using as it has very long pit-zips, useful for days when temps and activity level varies. On second lap, I took a higher exit which still sent me past the offending tree and then caught up to two skinners who were exiting area between Brighton and Solitude - I even passed one on an uphill.

I rode Milly one more time and from chair saw someone skiing Elevator Chute that starts at top of Mt. Millicent ( center top of photo). 7229ChuteAboveMillys.JPG I took picture after guy had skied chute and was trying to direct partner (who I saw come out but can't see in picture) around rock band in chute. I was on traverse to Mary's Chutes area where I found entrance to little bowl I had spotted. 7230Entrance2LittleBowl.JPG It was much tougher than expected, but I did it and snow in the little bowl was worth the drop-in. 7234LittleBowlInMarys.JPG I rewarded myself with a beer at Molly Green's. I went back out at about 5 PM and rode Crest lift twice, skiing to within 5 feet of my car at 5:30 PM. Night skiing at Brighton seems to be mostly locals who were streaming up BCC as I was going down. Apologies to @AmyPJ and other Snowbasin skiers as you probably didn't think they need to do this to attract more customers. 7238SnowbasinTicketDeal.JPG I took picture of poster at 7-11 at base of BCC. I was on my way back to LCC where I took this picture of Snowbird at about 10 minutes to 8 after a quick soak in near 90 degree pool and 104 degree hot tub while waiting for another excellent dinner at Iron Blosam. Sunday night was 35 lbs. of brisket, slow cooked in 3 ovens while we were skiing. Monday night was a similar amount of ribs with a lot of sides. 7239Snowbird@752PM.JPG
 
Last edited:

Johnny V.

Half Fast Hobby Racer
Skier
SkiTalk Supporter
Joined
Nov 12, 2015
Posts
1,424
Location
Finger Lakes/Rochester NY
We're leaving shortly for Snowbird. Booting up in the locker room in the Snowbird center. Judy will have her light green pants and I'll wear my yellow jacket.
 

Tricia

The Velvet Hammer
Admin
SkiTalk Tester
Joined
Nov 1, 2015
Posts
27,297
Location
Reno
Phil will be wearing his yellow jacket with Dark Blue pants and pink helmet.
 

Rostapher

All Praise Ullr
Skier
SkiTalk Supporter
Joined
Nov 12, 2018
Posts
279
Location
SoCal - Inland Empire
Any instructor recommendations to request for Alta’s off-trail workshop, especially any women to help my wife build off piste confidence? In general, she has had much better experiences skiing with women instructors.

We’ll be at Alta next week for some spring skiing!
 

jmills115

Making fresh tracks
Skier
SkiTalk Supporter
Joined
Apr 25, 2017
Posts
1,158
Location
Salt Lake City, Utah
Any instructor recommendations to request for Alta’s off-trail workshop, especially any women to help my wife build off piste confidence? In general, she has had much better experiences skiing with women instructors.

We’ll be at Alta next week for some spring skiing!
My wife took a private with Laura Bonner a few weeks back and was happy with her. I believe she has 20+ years at Alta and her communication with my wife was focused on having fun and challenged her more than her previous instructor (me).
She was off piste from her first run in areas she hadn’t been
 

jmills115

Making fresh tracks
Skier
SkiTalk Supporter
Joined
Apr 25, 2017
Posts
1,158
Location
Salt Lake City, Utah
Do we have any numbers yet on what percent of skier visits are coming from the Ikon Pass for the Utah resorts, and how many of those are incremental visits? Personally, this is my third year in a row of visiting Alta. I visited Alta before the Ikon Pass, and I'll continue to visit it after the Ikon Pass. My last three ski days were tacked on at the last minute to a week-long trip that I have had planned for a long time with my family because all of the forecasted snow. I'm glad I pulled the trigger on these extra days, they have been some of my best ever!

This was posted on the Alta site today.

https://www.alta.com/blog/weighing-...ntopia&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=12070695
 

Tricia

The Velvet Hammer
Admin
SkiTalk Tester
Joined
Nov 1, 2015
Posts
27,297
Location
Reno
Any instructor recommendations to request for Alta’s off-trail workshop, especially any women to help my wife build off piste confidence? In general, she has had much better experiences skiing with women instructors.

We’ll be at Alta next week for some spring skiing!
Brooklyn Tracy
Tracy Price, is pretty incredible.
 

Tricia

The Velvet Hammer
Admin
SkiTalk Tester
Joined
Nov 1, 2015
Posts
27,297
Location
Reno

Sponsor

Staff online

Top