After last week's new snow I decided to try Snow Basin for Saturday skiing before the 3 days with friends at the Iron Blosam at Snowbird. I had skied Snow Basin once with the new lifts 3 years ago and been to the Olympic Men's Combined last year. There is now a new base facility and upper mountain restaurants at both Middle Bowl and John Paul.
The big powder days had been Wednesday and Thursday, and with the east exposure the untracked was already cement in most areas. I did a traverse onto Allen Peak where there was about 10 turns worth of manageable new snow, but if you hit anyone's tracks it was set up and would throw you off balance.
Groomed runs were nearly all packed powder, and Snow Basin is one of the great cruiser mountains with all 3 peaks offering runs of 2,300+ vertical. The Wildflower (women's) Downhill has a steep section in the middle which really makes you appreciate the sick speeds the racers attain. The Grizzly (men's) Downhill was ungroomed, and was almost unrecognizable compared with last year. For public skiing it's a skier-packed and mogul run.
The Strawberry side had more spring conditions, with ungroomed trrain decent up top and pretty ugly below if you weren't in a skier-packed line. The north-facing DeMoisy Chute has excellent snow for steep skiing back into the main area from Strawberry.
The big powder days had been Wednesday and Thursday, and with the east exposure the untracked was already cement in most areas. I did a traverse onto Allen Peak where there was about 10 turns worth of manageable new snow, but if you hit anyone's tracks it was set up and would throw you off balance.
Groomed runs were nearly all packed powder, and Snow Basin is one of the great cruiser mountains with all 3 peaks offering runs of 2,300+ vertical. The Wildflower (women's) Downhill has a steep section in the middle which really makes you appreciate the sick speeds the racers attain. The Grizzly (men's) Downhill was ungroomed, and was almost unrecognizable compared with last year. For public skiing it's a skier-packed and mogul run.
The Strawberry side had more spring conditions, with ungroomed trrain decent up top and pretty ugly below if you weren't in a skier-packed line. The north-facing DeMoisy Chute has excellent snow for steep skiing back into the main area from Strawberry.