In my opinion, Presidents' Day weekend has the greatest likelihood of being the most crowded of the entire season in BCC and LCC. If it's a powder weekend or if the days leading up to the weekend experienced significant snowfall and the weekend is bright and sunny, one can almost be assured of the following scenario: parking lots at the resorts fill up by the time lifts begin loading passengers or very soon thereafter; vehicles begin parking (many illegally) along the canyon roads and quickly stretch for long distances from entrance roads/access to resorts; other vehicles enter already full parking lots and relentlessly circle looking for empty spaces until gridlock ensues due to a continuous flow of more vehicles doing the same; traffic in the canyons becomes bumper to bumper with very little movement taking place in the upper canyons due to full parking capacity everywhere and more vehicles arriving by the minute; canyon patrol closes the canyons due to over-capacity and begins ticketing and/or arranging for towing of illegally parked vehicles. In addition, travel down the canyons beginning around 3:00 p.m. or so will potentially take three or more times longer than normal. I use to strategize for these situations by arriving very early and departing very early. Lately, depending upon the circumstance, I either take the day or days off and do something else or head into the backcountry up canyons not named BCC or LCC.
If snow conditions or weather are less than superb, the aforementioned scenario is still possible but will be less severe at its peak and will take longer to fully engage. The week leading up to Presidents' Day weekend and the week thereafter are typically busier than normal but are easily in the tolerable range.
Utah is the fastest growing state in the nation and has the country's lowest unemployment rate. The economy here is roaring. The housing market is insane and open space along the Wasatch Front is quickly disappearing. I mention these facts because I think the combination of a rocket propelled economy and rapidly escalating population will likely take insane days in the canyons to levels possibly never seen before.
Read blackke17's response above, which sums up the situation in two sentences.
