Plan was to fly out EARLY Friday Morning, over MLK weekend, to get into ski for Four days. We were staying in Eden in Wolf Creek (Inexpensive and nice!) and going to ski 1-2 days at Powder Mountain and 1-2 days at Snowbasin.
Other than the crappy Utah drivers, Utah was awesome. Although the mountains were "the most crowded they have ever been since I moved here 15 years ago" they were basically empty. In 4 days we didn't wait in a line ONCE. we skied on to every lift we were on. We never had an issue with crowds, or getting a parking spot, or a seat in a restaurant, or in the grocery store, or anything else.
Days 1-2 were at 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 (Day 3):
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:
Day 4, Deer Valley Resort.
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. This was in lieu of powmow or Snowbasin, which I felt like we were kinda "done" with for our "vacation skiing" and wanted to try someplace else.
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....
Other than the crappy Utah drivers, Utah was awesome. Although the mountains were "the most crowded they have ever been since I moved here 15 years ago" they were basically empty. In 4 days we didn't wait in a line ONCE. we skied on to every lift we were on. We never had an issue with crowds, or getting a parking spot, or a seat in a restaurant, or in the grocery store, or anything else.
Days 1-2 were at 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 (Day 3):
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:
Day 4, Deer Valley Resort.
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. This was in lieu of powmow or Snowbasin, which I felt like we were kinda "done" with for our "vacation skiing" and wanted to try someplace else.
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....
)
