Utah Powmow/Snowbasin Road Trip

[Jeff N]

Trip impressions-

This is the second winter owning our motorhome. Last year, we hit up New Mexico over Spring Break and Crested Butte in April. It remains awesome, especially at areas that don't care if we stay in their parking lot. It won't take many more trips before we've paid for it just in savings from resort hotels, let alone what we do with it in the Summers...

This is the first trip we've done in full winter. I got a LOT more practice driving on icy and snowpacked roads. I'm not sure it stops being scary, but aside from my ineptitude in piloting it out our driveway, it really was surefooted.

Powder Mountain was mind-blowingly good for us. I don't know how a ski area like this can exist 20 minutes from a population center- Purgatory is much busier than this place and it is in the middle of nowhere with no good access I think a lot of the local skiers are aware that Powder Mountain is in a tenous position. The new owners concern a lot of folks, both in that they may be successful in getting more skiers and in concerns that they will change the culture. Worrying talks about private villages and areas that would not be accessible to rank and file skiers.

I think for what I look for in skiing, Powder Mountain is the best I've skied, replacing Wolf. Better terrain. Less People, about 5 times as large. I wouldn't move to Ogden for it though- I think my days of wanting to live in an urban setting are long gone...

We will be back Powmow may figure into our annual plans.

Snowbasin- The biggest reason we went is because we got advice from a lot of people that Snowbasin was better and if we were in the area, we should give it a shot. We did. It didn't knock us back on our heels like Powmow. Anne and I talked a lot about it, and came up with a few reasons.

1. We had to pay, while our 3 days at Powmow were built into our pass. Of course getting something good for free colors your impression.
2. We aren't fancy people. Snowbasin is built around the top flight resort experience. Powmow was more our speed.
3. Conditions were much worse at Snowbasin than Powmow. A good deal of that is due to being one more day post storm, but we felt it also reflected more powder competition and more traffic in general. The groomers at Snowbasin were much firmer than those at Powmow (on any day). I think that reflects the difference in traffic.
4. Snowbasin has a few choke points that funnel lots of people into specific runs. Bear Hollow is not fun with a few hundred skiers of all abilities.

That said, Snowbasin is a stellar value. We paid $85 for online tickets. That is only slightly higher than Monarch's walkup rate! For a major resort, Snowbasin is much nicer than almost all for much less. The terrain is very, very good, and I can see catching things on a powder day could be pretty sublime. Don't steer clear of Snowbasin based on anything Anne and I say- we are weird.

 

[Jed Peters]

Great Report, @Jeff N!

I think I may look for a little different stuff in my ski areas/resorts than you do. Gone are the days of me wanting to deal with "funk for funk's sake" unless it's on the planned agenda. I LOVE the niceties like infrastructure, lifts getting you where you want to go, decent grooming, etc.

Powder Mountain:

First off, let me say that we skied untracked pretty much every run we skied. We got to the resort a half day after they got 60" of snow and were closed for 4 previous days. That's called perfect timing. Snow was heavy-ish which was just fine when you're from Tahoe. It was untracked, but it didn't really billow up over the bottoms much. We skied it with a local the first day and saw quite a few nice lines. The second day we cat skied in the morning and then skied more fresh snow the rest of the day. So, we had it pretty much perfect.

And that's not to say that we didn't hike, or traverse, or take 8 different lifts to get 500' of vertical and 20 turns...because we did. We also rode a snowcat 5 times to get to COMPLETELY untracked.

Here's an example. PowMow is beautiful, but this is all WAY lower angle than it looks.



So here's the thing. The mountain is funky. Sure, we know that, we've all read the reviews, seen the lodges, checked out the "vibe". But reality is, that it's not "good" funky. it's got crappy infrastructure in the lodges, hard to get from place to place on the mountain, their new "village" is in a totally inaccessible area on a crappy lift, the lifts themselves are cheap and afterthought/poorly placed.

This, in and of itself, is why this place retains powder--because stuff is so hard to get to and isn't consistent for periods of time. Sure, it's like "steep 6 turns, traverse/pole uphill, steep 12 turns, etc. Even the "steep gnar" isn't really all that and a bag of chips. I don't know. I skied with @4ster while there and that's what I came away with.



Note also that I got into the "best" terrain from what I've been told on Saturday (The davenport area) and saw what PowMow really has to offer. And honestly, except for the snow quality, how cheap it is, and the fact that you can ski untracked that long after the storm, it's kinda "meh".

This is our last run of our second day there, 3 days after a storm.



Snowbasin:

INCREDIBLE ski area, again, we had fantastic cold snow. Got to meet the beautiful and friendly @AmyPJ who, although she couldn't ski with us (hey, I invited her!) she did give us a "mountain host" tour of the trail map in the base village.

Also, didn't return a text from @tromano because apparently when your phone is in 3 degree temperature and apple decides that a 2 year old phone is totally obsolete, your battery dies and you don't have the option of communication. No pictures because, well, no phone.

So, what does Snowbasin offer? Cheap lift tickets ($89 online/$109 walk-up), incredible infrastructure (normal base area, not 4 disjointed ones where they stack you in so close you can't open your bumper--Literally parking is that tight at powmow). Grooming that actually makes it safe to ski the groomed runs. (Literally powder mountain it's unsafe for me to ski the groomers, the grooming is so bad--no joke.) The most incredible lodges and infrastructure I've ever seen on-mountain. Including Sun Valley, their sister resort. Impossibly, this place is nicer. And I used every bathroom facility on the mountain, in every lodge. Because I had to. The vertical and different aspects. Although the mountain faces mostly East-Northeast, it felt like you could get into some nooks and crannies sufficient at the different aspects to get good differences in snow.

And the vertical. With a decent infrastructure, you could ski really long runs and get easy/good rides back. Linking to/fro wasn't very hard, and getting from place to place felt fairly easy.

The food. Oh, the food. I like eating. A lot. And the food here was INCREDIBLE. I ate a beautiful grilled cheese, drink, fries, and bowl of soup for $15.41. @Rich Peters had Buffalo Chili and a beautiful green salad for the same price. The food, at 8700' was some of the best I've had anywhere...and I've eaten at some pretty good places. Nevermind it was at a flipping ski area!

We ate at the John Paul Lodge, and again had a desert and coffee at the Needles lodge. We booted up downstairs in the main lodge at bottom (I forgot the name.)

Now, where does Snowbasin fail? There aren't lifts to the highest/best parts of the mountain like I would prefer. It's a lot of hike-to terrain. There aren't that many good "meandering" groomers that are between green/blue level. There are some INCREDIBLE groomers in the high blue/black level, but it felt like a lot of the "easier" groomers were just glorified cat tracks. I guess the rumor is the snow isn't very good, but heck if that was the case with us. It was awesome for us.

Also, remember that Snowbasin IS NOT A RESORT. It is a SKI AREA. There is very little "commercial" infrastructure in terms of housing (there is none) or ski shops, restaurants, etc. Because other than the one on the hill, there isn't a shop. BUT if you accept it for what it is, as a commuter mountain, it's INCREDIBLE.

Okay, I'll throw in our final day for you all:

I got the idea to take @Rich Peters over to Deer Valley. I hadn't been there myself in 25 years and wanted to see what all the hubabaloo was all about.

Well, we both like to be pampered (the Peters Boys are kind of princesses), like the niceties (we both are high end equipment whores), and we were ready for a ripping groomer day.

So Sunday night I called the Montage Deer Valley and booked a Spa day. We arrived at the Montage (upper Empire Village) and checked in. We dropped our equipment in the hands of the valets and went to a beautiful skiers breakfast buffet in the main dining room. From there we went down to the locker rooms in the spa to get ready.

Our lockers for the day:



We followed with some light stretching in the hot tub, and a nice beautiful pampered morning to get dressed/booted up.

We then leisurely strolled outside where the ski valets had placed our equipment out on the rack right by the Empire lift for us.

Needless to say we were starting off right.

We skied from Empire to Lady Morgan, Over to Ruby, and then proceeded to ski every high speed quad on the upper mountain all the way over to Mayflower. We skied low angle groomers, high speed groomers, steep bumped up runs....all of it.

We then went shopping! @Rich Peters tried on some of the new Mountain Force at Cole Sport in Silver Lake Village, and I bought a steezy new POC helmet and goggles! Fancy!

After Lunch (on the deck of the Stein Ericksen Lodge, which didn't suck but honestly was not as good as Snowbasin!) we hit the mid-mountain groomers, I raced @Rich Peters in the nastar course (he took me!) and then did a couple runs on the "lower" mountain down to the base-base. Oh, after we stared at the St. Regis and wondered if we should have gone there instead of Montage.

Lunch on the deck:



Deer Valley, in my opinion, is the best ski RESORT in the united states. From the "designated school zone areas" to the kids facility at the bottom, to the ability for EVERY LEVEL of skier to have an experience, it was AMAZING. Do you pay for it? Absolutely. It is expensive. But is it more expensive than Park City next door for the day? NO--it is cheaper and a better mountain/experience overall. Get this--food at the Stein Ericksen lodge was less than I would pay in a cafeteria at Park City.



Okay, so enough about the skiing, the grooming, the perfect high speed quad on EVERY meaningful lift, the perfect trail maps, the ease of getting from area to area, the signage, etc.

On to what we did after the ski day....well, we had a "drink" at the bar of the Montage, went over the day....then we proceeded to head back to the spa for our "treatments".

We did the cycle from Hot tub, to cold water "shocking the system", to dry sauna, back to cold water, to hot tub to cold water, to wet sauna to cold water back to hot tub! It was about an hour and a half of pampering.

We then went into the "Lounge at Montage" where we put our legs up and had a little 30 minute "quiet time".



Fully relaxed, we then hit the shower, where we each had beautiful huge double shower rain head areas and incredible products. That followed with shaving (kit provided), a little lotion (smelled so good) and teeth brushing. This all capped off by having the car pulled around, where we packed our bags and got headed off to our flights.

Shower and Shave before the flights:



My day at Deer Valley was literally the BEST ski day experience I've ever had. Simply unreal.

The drive out....

 

[Jeff N]

@Jed Peters Interesting take.

I think it is reasonably clear that your view is more mainstream than my view, otherwise Powmow would not be Powmow. If it was everyone' favorite mountain and got skied, it wouldn't be the same experience I had.

I also think what you wrote is accurate, aside from grooming. I didn't run into any issues with groomers at Powmow, but then again, I don't know I took a single run there in 3 days that was top to bottom on groom- I was only on groomers to return to lifts or get me out to ungroomed stuff. As I mentioned, I found groomers in better shape at Powmow than Snowbasin, but I recognize that was probably reflective of the specific day- obviously Snowbasin has sunk $$$ into their grooming fleet just based on the amount of groom that needs winch cats to do...

Tell me if this hypothesis makes sense. Do you think our different takes on Powmow reflect that we value untracked pow differently? For me, untracked snow defines my ski experience. I'll hike for it, I'll ski mild terrain, I'll take 3 lifts. I value places with a fair bit of hikable terrain AND places that have terrain that requires multiple lift rides because it preserves snow.

I like skiing steeps, I like bumps, I'll take in a groomer here and there, but I'll forego all the rest and spend most of my day skiing low angle pow if that's were the snow is.

It is that access to pow (and access to pow in perfectly spaced trees) that makes me value Wolf so much. But Wolf's terrain is several levels below Powmow's. It has steeper stuff than anything I saw at Powmow (and probably steeper than what I saw at Snowbasin, but that's a much closer thing) but the steeps are dreadfully short. True steeps for maybe 300 vertical feet, steeps that would probably fall under a black run classification for maybe 800- and every single line has low angle sections. Still, absolutely love the place.

Based on what a lot of people reported, I expected Wolf style terrain. I was truly surprised. I'd call it at least Vail style terrain with a sprinkling of more interesting chutes, couloirs, cliffs and other technical stuff here and there. I didn't see anything that looked north of 45*, but that is true of a lot of ski areas. Snowbasin clearly has a lot more sustained, but I saw plenty of reasonably steep stuff at Powmow run for at least 1000 feet, which is "good enough" for me. I drooled at James Peak the whole time I was there. Big Bowls, Steep enough, 2500 vertical down to Paradise- sign me up. Next time.

The two new lifts that will serve the future village were not open, so I didn't get to try out anything over there. I agree, access to those lifts looks torturous for being the new nexus of the ski area. If you park in the main lot, If I am looking at things correctly, To get to Marys you would:

1. Ski down drifter.
2. Ride Timberline lift
3. Ski Down Burntwood
4. Ride Hidden Lake.
5. Ski Down East 40.
6. Take Sunrise Platter.
7. Ski down Ojeebus (that is an intriguing name for a majority Mormon state...)
8.Congratulations! You can now ski Serenity to get to Mary's!

I'd guess that would take you about an hour and 15 minutes. Lifts are clearly set up to maximize acreage, not to help one move from one area to another and definitely not to lap stuff. Bad for getting 75k vert in a day, good for powder availability.

To me, Powmow was still funky good. But definitely funky. In my eyes, if you dream of that one day that you got to the Back Bowls right when they dropped the rope and got that perfect run in before the horde, give Powmow a shot.

 

[Jed Peters]

@Jeff N

Couple thoughts.

1. I love skiing untracked powder, even low angle stuff. It was great for two days, and a nice "rest". I also skied the Davenport area, which is apparently the longest and steepest terrain available in the land "run" by the resort. Note that Davenport is all outside normal ski area property and pay-to-play--it's not accessible from the resort and is beyond the boundary. And it was awesome. But not that great.

2. The stuff out off and above lightning ridge is surprisingly low angle and not as big as it appears. But it is gorgeous.

3. The whole village thing is ridiculous. It will never happen. And there is no planning surrounding it.

4. I did get firsts on Village lift and Mary's. Imagine barely an intermediate pitch but open untracked. It was memorable and fun, for sure....but to build a whole area around beginner and low angle intermediate terrain? Dumb.

5. My comments on the groomers--I ski a little faster than the average groomer zoomer. And their inability to groom properly, is DANGEROUS to me, and it would suck to the average stem christy person as well...the humps, ridges, and lack of any uniformity is crazy. And just a head's up, Jeff...I didn't ski any groomers on purpose either--just to get to-fro.

 

[4ster]

As someone who skis both mountains (80% Snowbasin, 20% Pow Mow), I agree with Jed's assessment, at least from my POV & I rarely go in the lodges at either place .
I do believe that the terrain & snow at PM are perfect for the majority of vacationing skiers & totally understand its appeal to those who love it. Hell, I love it... but only 20% of the time. It did take me a couple of years to learn how to maximize the lifts, busses, cats, hikes & terrain to get the most out of my days there.
I would agree with Jeff that the grooming is really good at PM. I think Jed just didn't get a good sampling. It had just snowed 5', road closed for a few days & all resources, including groomers were stretched to their limits. I've seen the same thing at Basin it takes a few grooms to get a run seamless. Pow Mow has almost no snowmaking so good or bad, all of their snow is natural which makes for cushy groomers.

The two areas are almost opposites & each have their own character .
Snowbasin, from Powder Mountain.

Powder Mountain, from Hidden Lake

 

[Jeff N]

As someone who skis both mountains (80% Snowbasin, 20% Pow Mow), I agree with Jed's assessment, at least from my POV & I rarely go in the lodges at either place .
I do believe that the terrain & snow at PM are perfect for the majority of vacationing skiers & totally understand its appeal to those who love it. Hell, I love it... but only 20% of the time. It did take me a couple of years to learn how to maximize the lifts, busses, cats, hikes & terrain to get the most out of my days there.
I would agree with Jeff that the grooming is really good at PM. I think Jed just didn't get a good sampling. It had just snowed 5', road closed for a few days & all resources, including groomers were stretched to their limits. I've seen the same thing at Basin it takes a few grooms to get a run seamless. Pow Mow has almost no snowmaking so good or bad, all of their snow is natural which makes for cushy groomers.

The two areas are almost opposites & each have their own character .
Snowbasin, from Powder Mountain.
View attachment 18694
Powder Mountain, from Hidden Lake
View attachment 18695

So, what are the 20% days that you love Powder Mountain? If you have access to ski both, do you ski Snowbasin the powder day and powmow the day after? That would make sense to me.

Now that I think of it, I bet my mediocre experience with the groom (firm to icy, pronounced groomer ridges in several areas) at Snowbasin was likely due to them being stretched. IIRC, they had just opened Strawberry the day before, which probably took up their groomer resources to fine tune things.

Powmow opening Paradise doesn't change the groomer picture much, as it just means they have to groom the 3 cat tracks down the valleys (which were NOT good- they reflected they had gotten a quick pass with the plow to open the terrain).

It seems you could do a lot worse than Odgen to live and ski. Tons of good terrain, cheap tickets and reasonable season passes, off the radar. I feel totally validated driving by Alta and Snowbird, Solitude and Brighton to get up to the Eden Valley. It was a great trip.

Where will the dirtbag roadshow head next? We are looking at Sipapu/Pajarito maybe for presidents day. If snow doesn't cooperate, plan b would be Powderhorn Sunlight Aspen.

 

[lonewolf210]

It seems you could do a lot worse than Odgen to live and ski. Tons of good terrain, cheap tickets and reasonable season passes, off the radar. I feel totally validated driving by Alta and Snowbird, Solitude and Brighton to get up to the Eden Valley. It was a great trip.

Where will the dirtbag roadshow head next? We are looking at Sipapu/Pajarito maybe for presidents day. If snow doesn't cooperate, plan b would be Powderhorn Sunlight Aspen.

I really like PowMow and despite what some of the others have said, find their main lodge really cool. Getting beer there and listening to the bands play is pretty fun. That Being said I can't say I recommend it over Alta, Snowbird or Solitude. Solitude especially is a really cool resort with some of the coolest terrain around.

I do really enjoy untracked powder but I value interesting terrain more and while PowMow is a cool stop for a rest day or to nab some powder a few days after a storm it's not a place I would recommend over the others if there is limited time to be spent in SLC.

 

[tch]

Jake... tell us more about the "coolest" terrain that Solitude has. I've been 6 times and, while I really appreciate it, I've never thought of it as a particularly great area for terrain.

 

[4ster]

So, what are the 20% days that you love Powder Mountain?

As I said to Jed, I go to PM for rest & a change of pace. It really depends on the particular conditions & my mood. A big day at Basin can be 50k vert., maybe 1/3 that at PM. Basin is about terrain variety, long runs & quick access. It is in your face. If you can see it, you can ski it!

I don't think either area is flying under the radar anymore. That all began to change 5 or 6 years ago & has built exponentially since. Cheap passes at least at Basin, have been a huge contributor. It is not the out of area guests either but people coming up from the greater SLC area that prior to cheap passes went elsewhere.
I think both areas are experiencing growing pains.

My powder skis are at least 6 yrs. old & only see a small percentage of my ski days. If skiing was about powder, I think I would be at Alta, Targhee or somewhere in British Columbia.

 

[Crank]

I am a Powder Mountain fan boy... am leery of this Summit Group and what they may or may not do with and to the place. The last time I was out there Pow Mow was getting 4-8" a day while Snowbasin was getting 1-2". I always go with the snow. If SLC areas had been getting more we would have been skiing there.

One day I hope to ski Snowbasin with good conditions. Have not had that experience yet.

BTW, despite the funky lodges at Powder, the food is pretty good and the après ski scene is fun.

 

[AmyPJ]

I am a Powder Mountain fan boy... am leery of this Summit Group and what they may or may not do with and to the place. The last time I was out there Pow Mow was getting 4-8" a day while Snowbasin was getting 1-2". I always go with the snow. If SLC areas had been getting more we would have been skiing there.

One day I hope to ski Snowbasin with good conditions. Have not had that experience yet.

BTW, despite the funky lodges at Powder, the food is pretty good and the après ski scene is fun.

Snowbasin has had day after day after day of good conditions this season.

Never thought of Powder as having an après' ski scene. Who knew?!

 

[Kyle]

I don't think either area is flying under the radar anymore

Totally agree with Jim on this point. Snowbasin has generally been much busier than it used to be and the reputation of being quiet and undiscovered is largely outdated. December 26th and January 2nd had huge crowds and big parking hassles. It took an extra 45 minutes on the 26th for us to get there and parked on the 26th. Both days they ran out of parking options at some point during the day as evidenced by the sides of the access road etc. Sure, you can still have a fairly quiet experience on the weekdays if there is not a big storm but most places in Utah are fairly low key during the week absent significant snowfall.

 

[Jeff N]

Totally agree with Jim on this point. Snowbasin has generally been much busier than it used to be and the reputation of being quiet and undiscovered is largely outdated. December 26th and January 2nd had huge crowds and big parking hassles. It took an extra 45 minutes on the 26th for us to get there and parked on the 26th. Both days they ran out of parking options at some point during the day as evidenced by the sides of the access road etc. Sure, you can still have a fairly quiet experience on the weekdays if there is not a big storm but most places in Utah are fairly low key during the week absent significant snowfall.

Snowbasin was busier than I expected- but that has a lot to do with the chokepoints I mentioned.

Powder Mountain was even more deserted than I expected. We skied there Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday. Judging by the cars in the lot, less people were out than come out to Wolf Creek on similar days. It was dead.

A Powmow local told me that Snowbasin has slashed their season pass to be much lower than Powmow and is grabbing a much higher share of local visits as a result. Accurate?

I really like Powder Mountain's lodge. Fireplace, comfy couches, friendly environment that lent itself well to talking with others. We met a lot of cool people that we then would greet when we ran into each other the rest of our trip. Breakfast Burritos were tasty and very reasonable.

 

[AmyPJ]

Yep, tons of growing pains at Basin this year for sure. Lucky me, I have my days off midweek and it was SO quiet today. Got to bomb the groomers as fast as I wanted