Ski Utah on a Budget

Kirby Stiening · Feb 3, 2001

Part 1 - in which the traveler introduces himself and the planned journey I’m in my early 50’s and came to skiing rather late in life. I actually had a pair of skis as a teenager growing up in Pittsburgh but without a car there was nowhere but the side yard hill to try them out. A brief residence in Vermont after college graduation should have gotten me off to a quick start, but those old spring cable bindings and wooden skis led me to fear for my health so I shifted to cross-country skiing for a couple of years. I didn’t ski again for 25 years. I got married, had a family and moved to Virginia where my wife and I eventually began to ski 5-10 days a year at Wintergreen in the Blue Ridge Mountains. We enjoyed midweek daytrips and became confident on the green slopes. We even ventured to Killington to try some real mountains. It was at Killington that my wife injured her knee, bringing an end to our ski vacations together. As tell my tale, please remember that I am a Type I skier who is generally comfortable on green runs, but who had not skied for almost 2 years. My skills will not allow me to provide details of death-defying runs through untracked powder or sagas of leaping through the air. I aim simply to encourage the new skier to take a chance and visit the mountains of Utah. Part 2 – getting to the slopes The hardest part of the planning was actually deciding to go alone as my wife and I had never taken a vacation alone in the 26 years of our marriage. She graciously consented to my trip to Salt Lake City for several days of skiing. Southwest Airlines offered an Internet fare of $189 round-trip non-stop from Baltimore. I decided that I could stay in downtown SLC inexpensively and use public transit to get to the slopes. I would not need a rental car. I would rent equipment at each resort rather than carrying my own. Plans made, all I could do until January 6 was check the snow reports. The flight from BWI was scheduled to depart at 6:55AM and there was a moment of danger when a Southwest representative announced that SLC was under a fog alert. The fog had blanketed SLC for the past ten days, but we were able to land without problems at 10AM local time. I gathered my bags, called for the hotel shuttle and bought discount lift tickets at the airport for Brighton and Park City. I was ready to hit the slopes! Using UTA (Utah Transit Authority) to get to the slopes worked just fine for me but may not be for everyone. TRAX light rail took 30 minutes to get from downtown to the 7200 Ski Bus transfer point. The Ski Bus took another hour to get to the Brighton Lodge. Total cost $3.50 roundtrip. Part 3 – Brighton I had decided on Brighton for day 1 for a simple reason. They offered night skiing so I figured that I could stretch my half-day into a twilight session. The fog broke enroute to Brighton at about 6000 feet and everyone on the bus was greeted by a beautiful sunny day with clear skies and 40-degree temperatures. I was on the slopes by 1:30 amid a modest crowd. You will probably recall that Utah got huge snow dumps in November and early December, but at the time of my arrival there had be no significant snow for two weeks. Nevertheless, the packed base was in the neighborhood of 60 inches of real snow and the mountains were incredible. The Explorer slope is where us greens find out if we remember how to snowplow and where we test our boots and skis for fit. Secure that some skill remained after a 2-year break, it was on to the Majestic lift. I skied on Mary Back, Lost Maid, Lower Majestic, Deer Park & Hawkeye Access and I remember being scared most of the time. I did an incredible forward fall when I hit two bumps on Lost Maid. Looking at the trail map I see that I never even sampled the Sunshine, Canyon or Main Street runs. I gave up on twilight skiing by 5PM and rushed back to my hotel bed – sound asleep by 8PM. I must now confess that I did not realize how tired I was. I had been awake almost nonstop for 36 hours, including work the day before and the drive to Baltimore in the middle of the night. The runs were steeper than I expected, but I should have been able to handle any of them. When I look at my trail map, I realize just how much of Brighton I might have skied if I had been fresh. Odd Observation - ski rentals are on level 2 of the lodge but the lockers are on level 1. As a result I had to walk down one flight in ski boots to put my gym bag in the locker and had to walk down that same flight in sock feet to get my shoes after returning my rental boots. The steps are open steel and most unpleasant on sock feet. Remember to get you gym bag before you turn in your rental boots! Lesson from day 1 – there are major differences in stamina levels when you are 50 instead of 20! Be realistic and take it easy if you plan to ski on the day you arrive. Part 4 – Park City Park City was a perfect fit for day 2. TRAX does not run on Sunday until 11AM and you cannot get to Park City on TRAX so it was just the place to go on Sunday. I walked a couple of blocks to the nearest hotel served by the Lewis Brothers Stage Company Park City Ski Express. Round trip cost $24 plus tip. After a beautiful ride though the canyons we were at the resort by 8:30AM. I briefly wandered around the base village area and then rented my equipment and got to the Payday lift just as the slopes opened. My pre-purchased ticket would not scan so I had to get a replacement ticket, but the delay was only a few minutes. I had planned to ski down the bottom half of Homerun but was encouraged to go to the top of the hill on the Bonanza lift and ski all the way down. The advice was wise, but I wasn’t quite ready for the run. Now you experts can laugh if you wish, but I know the problem was my boots and not my skills. All the way down I struggled to maintain control and I finally fell on the longest steepest part of the trail. No hurt other than my pride, but as soon as I got to the base, I went back to the ski shop and upgraded my rental boots. What a difference the right equipment makes! I set a goal of making the run from top to bottom on Homerun without stopping or falling and it took me until noon to succeed but I finally did and rewarded myself with part of a Hershey Bar. Park City offers a wide variety of green slopes and I tried them all. Drift was a slow, gentle trail that has an easy to miss connection with Blanche, but the combination was a nice alternative to Homerun on the lower half of the mountain. The First Time lift is a good place to restore your confidence after a fall and practice your turns on a wide, gentle slope. The Three Kings lift runs are short and both narrower and steeper than the First Time runs but they are a nice transition to the top of the mountain. I continued to sample the variety until the 4:30 shuttle departure approached. Park City was my most expensive resort. Soup and soda cost $8, pizza was $5 a slice and the breakfast buffet was $20. The lift ticket was $60. Park City definitely caters to the upscale crowd. Conclusion: if I were richer, I would spend a week at Park City. I would take lessons every day and I would get past the green slopes. I would take my wife along and, even if she couldn’t ski, she would never be bored. Part 5 – Alta If you are going to use public transit you must be prepared to rise early and get home late. I left my hotel in downtown SLC at 6:45 and got to Alta at 8:15AM. I left the slopes at 4:15 and got back to the hotel after 6PM. Alta is a skier’s Nirvana, no doubt about it. When a beginner says that, it must be true. It’s the home of $35 lift tickets, $.50 lockers and chair lifts without guards. It’s the only resort I’ve been at lately that has rope tows. I noticed that there were very few children out – perhaps a consequence of the no snowboard rule – and more older men and women. I had forgotten that the lifts at Alta do not open until 9:15 so I stood in line at the Sunnyside lift with a gathering herd for a few minutes. My company on that first ride was two guys from Houston. The crowd was so small that all the rest of my lift rides were solo. I decided to take the Crooked Mile run and throughly enjoyed its mix of wide open spaces, hills and flats. There is a run not on the trail map that branches off to the right called Pratley Valley that has a few steeper sections. The Homerun portion at the bottom would qualify as a trail at some slopes! On my next ride I went straight instead of turning left and skied the Dipsy Doodle/Homerun combination. Eventually I got bold enough to take the Sugar Way trail to Homerun. Homerun has several spots where the trail separates into easier/harder options. As my confidence grew I began to bypass the easier choices. My plan for the afternoon was to shift to the Cecret lift, sampling its trails and sometimes continuing the run back to the lodge on Homerun. The Rabbitt trail is the only green run I’ve seen that has trees that split the trail in half on a flat section. I hit a bump on Sweet N Easy and went down but even this fall could not spoil a beautiful day. I heard the joyous cries of other skiers all day long as well. Conclusions: Alta is the place I would return to if I ever went to Utah again. The fact that there is no apres’ ski scene is not a problem for me. The mountains and the trails seem to be made for each other and I don’t doubt that you could ski on Alta’s hills every day, forever, and never get to know all her secrets. As a final note , I should note that I buy very few souvenirs on a vacation, but I bought an Alta ski hat. Part 6 – Snowbird Another 6:45AM journey to the slopes on the final ski day of the vacation, but by now I felt like an expert on the UTA system. I arrived at the slopes by 8:30 again and went straight to the rental shop. I want to digress for a moment to say that Snowbird is a destination resort like Park City but it has none of Park City’s charm. There is no historic mining town, just Little Cottonwood Canyon. The lodges are formed concrete structures that would look at home in downtown Moscow. I found the staff as cold as the concrete. I stopped by the rental shop and got my equipment. I tried to tell the clerk that the boots were too small, but it was apparent that he did not want to write up the exchange so I walked out and went to put my gym bag in a locker. Apparently the folks at Snowbird consider skiers unorganzied. They offer no day lockers, just infinite-access baskets for which they charge $4/day. Stowing my bag for the day, I went upstairs and exchanged my boots. There is a beginner lift right next to the Lodge. Unfortunately, it has the demeaning name of Chickadee and it is about the tamest slope I’ve ever seen. It’s probably excellent for those who have never skied but nobody else. The other beginner lifts are quite a distance from the Lodge. You can get to the Wildbere lift from the Lodge with a little bit of poling so that’s where I began. I soon learned that Snowbird green runs come in only two flavors: (1) narrow traverse trails that are used by the groomers and (2) straight down the hill shots. I really makes no difference whether you are on West 42nd Street and Bass Highway at the Wildbere lift, Alice Avenue and Easy Street at the Baby Thunder lift or Big Emma and Miner’s Rd on the Mid-Gad lift. The pattern is the same – traverse trails that have an blue or black run laid across them and a green run down the hill to lift at the end. I felt sufficiently intimidated by the green runs that I had no interest in trying a blue on this final day. I asked one of the lift attendants whether it was possible just to ride the tram without skis and he allowed as it was, but he could not understand why anyone would consider doing such a thing. My rationale of self-preservation was unconvincing to him. It is one of the ultimate ironies of my vacation that I did ski a blue run at the one place where I tried to avoid them. I made a wrong turn and ended up on Lower Bassackwards. I was at least as worried about being hit by those above me as I was about falling as I tried to traverse the hill. Conclusion: Maybe I was tiring from the daily skiing or maybe I was just frustrated that Snowbird was so different from Alta, but whatever the reason I did not enjoy Snowbird. There was simply too much testosterone in the atmosphere for my taste. Part 7 – The tourist in Salt Lake City returns home I have not had any other place to discuss dining out in SLC, so I will simply put it here at the end of the tale. There are an enormous number of restaurants in Downtown within walking distance of the hotels so I ate burgers, Italian, Chinese, Mexican and Memphis-style BBQ. I must confess that I developed a craving for beef on this trip like no other I can remember. I slept in on Wednesday morning since my flight was not scheduled to depart until almost 3PM. At one time I had considered using this morning ski at Solitude, but I now doubted that I could get back to my hotel on public transit after even two hours of skiing. Instead of taking a chance, I spent the morning seeing tourist sites in Downtown. As it turned out I might have been able to ski after all. The fog stubbornly refused to burn off and flights were delayed including mine. My delay of an hour was minor compared to some weary travelers and I returned to Baltimore by 10PM local time. I finally got back home at 3AM. As I said at the outset of this tale, I intended to write a story for the new skier who wonders whether to travel far from home in search of new hills and perfect snow. To that skier, I would say “Time’s a wasting – get going.”

Ski Utah on a Budget

Kirby Stiening

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