After an energetic Iron Blosam we were taking it easy as we drove north. With some slack time I visited my grandparent’s graves at Mt. Olivet Cemetery in SLC.
They lived in Salt Lake from 1934-1944 and probably bought the gravesites when my mother’s sister died in a car accident in 1939. My grandmother died in January 1988 and to my consternation my mother wanted no part of snow and thus waited until the first of May to schedule the burial and memorial service. But LCC had the last laugh. On Alta closing day May 1 it snowed 20 inches and even a few inches down in Salt Lake. I skied Alta May 1, Snowbird May 3 and the memorial was May 2.
We drove 3 hours north to Lava Hot Springs. The archway has a water slide (not open in winter) into a pool out of the pic to the right.
There are 5 pools, supposedly of varied temperatures like the ones in Puelo, Chile that we visited in Dec. 2021.
Here we are enjoying the largest pool:
We moved next to this one.
Sign above that pool:
There’s no way the pool was that hot as I could barely get above my knees at the 45C pool in Chile but I was able to immerse in this one. The water was slightly hotter near the grates to the left of Liz in the second pic above.
I liked this pool where I could hang from the bar and float with both neck and back in hot water.
One other pool had Jacuzzi jets. Saturday is obviously the peak day at Lava Hot Springs, and a local guy said crowds were about average for Saturday. This is still heavily LDS eastern Idaho, so no surprise with this warning above the changing room
No Borat swimsuits here!
I started feeling ill Saturday, had chills and fever that night. I bought 6 COVID tests at a Pocatello pharmacy Sunday morning and tested negative. So we only skied a half day at Pebble Creek Sunday, though it’s primarily west facing, which would mean best conditions in the afternoon anyway.
Conditions were not full-on spring but in gradual transition. It was about 30F in the parking lot. Overall conditions varied more by altitude than exposure. There are three groomed runs south of the Skyline lift. Max Out is the closest to the lift.
The three upper groomers converge into one very wide mid mountain section here.
Then the runs split out again. Runs like Sun Bowl and The Drop were firm, but not as slick as they would be if the snow subsurface were manmade.
The best groomer was Stacy’s, north of the lift and with close to direct north exposure.
The snow was still good where Stacy’s turns left into the gully below. Then a catwalk goes farther left and emerges into Easy Street not far above the bottom of the Skyline lift.
If you traverse farther out to Upper Green, it is not groomed but still overall was winter snow.
We got a chuckle out of this sticker on a lift tower.
I e-mailed it to our former admin.
We did not see anyone skiing the Skyline chair liftline before about 2PM.
That was overly conservative IMHO because it was mostly winter snow, especially on skier’s left. About halfway down Al’s Cut drops off to skier’s right, due north facing with excellent snow.
Liz spraying snow on Al’s Drop farther down:
I skied The Rock twice. It’s a very short but moderately steep run with soft chalky windbuff.
Second time for that Liz skied along its edge by the trees.
In the top half of the above pic you can see some of Pebble Creek’s expansive sidecountry. The part you’re looking at is south facing and if you go beyond you are probably committed to at least the bottom of the Aspen beginner lift. The ravine at the bottom of Stacy’s is quite deep and it’s unclear how to get past it. There’s slackcountry to the south also. While exposure is sunny the return to the ski area looks more straightforward. There could be great corn snow but unfortunately Pebble Creek’s closing day is this Sunday March 26.
Topography reminded me of Arizona Snowbowl with similar vertical and exposure and the gully along the northern boundary. But I find Pebble Creek the superior area:
1) Arizona Snowbowl is narrower, with mellow blues on its south ridgeline and in that gully. The steep runs drop between the two and are shorter than advanced runs at Pebble Creek.
2) No question Skyline is a steeper lift than Agassiz. It’s a slow chair but we skied 8 runs and 15,200 vertical in 3 hours.
3) Regional context: Snowbowl is the only “real” ski area in Arizona so it can be mobbed on weekends and powder days, probably analogous to the SoCal areas. Pebble Creek is about as far under the radar as you can get, bounded by SLC to the south and Jackson/Targhee to the north.
So no surprise our former admin scored a bell to bell powder day on President’s weekend.
That video is very well done, and it tipped us off to visit Lava Hot Springs the day before. Just below Pebble Creek's parking lot is this ski sculpture.
As for my health, I managed OK as it was a sunny day, though started to cool off after 3pm. I continued to chill and left all of my ski clothes on for the 2 hour drive to Driggs and through dinner at Teton Thai. I still have a decent appetite and can taste food normally. But anyone who knows my sensitivity to overheating should note that my leaving ski clothes on indoors for 4.5 hours after skiing is a huge red flag. We drove throiugh Tetonia on the way to Driggs and checked out the view from Adam and Alexa's property there.
Sunday night sleeping was more chills and fever. I did not ski today while Liz and Lonnie skied Grand Targhee. I felt better when I got up but did not leave the hotel room until Liz picked me up at 3:30 to drive to West Yellowstone.
At 10AM I took another COVID test and it was positive. So I will miss at least one more ski day.
They lived in Salt Lake from 1934-1944 and probably bought the gravesites when my mother’s sister died in a car accident in 1939. My grandmother died in January 1988 and to my consternation my mother wanted no part of snow and thus waited until the first of May to schedule the burial and memorial service. But LCC had the last laugh. On Alta closing day May 1 it snowed 20 inches and even a few inches down in Salt Lake. I skied Alta May 1, Snowbird May 3 and the memorial was May 2.
We drove 3 hours north to Lava Hot Springs. The archway has a water slide (not open in winter) into a pool out of the pic to the right.
There are 5 pools, supposedly of varied temperatures like the ones in Puelo, Chile that we visited in Dec. 2021.
Here we are enjoying the largest pool:
We moved next to this one.
Sign above that pool:
There’s no way the pool was that hot as I could barely get above my knees at the 45C pool in Chile but I was able to immerse in this one. The water was slightly hotter near the grates to the left of Liz in the second pic above.
I liked this pool where I could hang from the bar and float with both neck and back in hot water.
One other pool had Jacuzzi jets. Saturday is obviously the peak day at Lava Hot Springs, and a local guy said crowds were about average for Saturday. This is still heavily LDS eastern Idaho, so no surprise with this warning above the changing room
No Borat swimsuits here!
I started feeling ill Saturday, had chills and fever that night. I bought 6 COVID tests at a Pocatello pharmacy Sunday morning and tested negative. So we only skied a half day at Pebble Creek Sunday, though it’s primarily west facing, which would mean best conditions in the afternoon anyway.
Conditions were not full-on spring but in gradual transition. It was about 30F in the parking lot. Overall conditions varied more by altitude than exposure. There are three groomed runs south of the Skyline lift. Max Out is the closest to the lift.
The three upper groomers converge into one very wide mid mountain section here.
Then the runs split out again. Runs like Sun Bowl and The Drop were firm, but not as slick as they would be if the snow subsurface were manmade.
The best groomer was Stacy’s, north of the lift and with close to direct north exposure.
The snow was still good where Stacy’s turns left into the gully below. Then a catwalk goes farther left and emerges into Easy Street not far above the bottom of the Skyline lift.
If you traverse farther out to Upper Green, it is not groomed but still overall was winter snow.
We got a chuckle out of this sticker on a lift tower.
I e-mailed it to our former admin.
We did not see anyone skiing the Skyline chair liftline before about 2PM.
That was overly conservative IMHO because it was mostly winter snow, especially on skier’s left. About halfway down Al’s Cut drops off to skier’s right, due north facing with excellent snow.
Liz spraying snow on Al’s Drop farther down:
I skied The Rock twice. It’s a very short but moderately steep run with soft chalky windbuff.
Second time for that Liz skied along its edge by the trees.
In the top half of the above pic you can see some of Pebble Creek’s expansive sidecountry. The part you’re looking at is south facing and if you go beyond you are probably committed to at least the bottom of the Aspen beginner lift. The ravine at the bottom of Stacy’s is quite deep and it’s unclear how to get past it. There’s slackcountry to the south also. While exposure is sunny the return to the ski area looks more straightforward. There could be great corn snow but unfortunately Pebble Creek’s closing day is this Sunday March 26.
Topography reminded me of Arizona Snowbowl with similar vertical and exposure and the gully along the northern boundary. But I find Pebble Creek the superior area:
1) Arizona Snowbowl is narrower, with mellow blues on its south ridgeline and in that gully. The steep runs drop between the two and are shorter than advanced runs at Pebble Creek.
2) No question Skyline is a steeper lift than Agassiz. It’s a slow chair but we skied 8 runs and 15,200 vertical in 3 hours.
3) Regional context: Snowbowl is the only “real” ski area in Arizona so it can be mobbed on weekends and powder days, probably analogous to the SoCal areas. Pebble Creek is about as far under the radar as you can get, bounded by SLC to the south and Jackson/Targhee to the north.
So no surprise our former admin scored a bell to bell powder day on President’s weekend.
That video is very well done, and it tipped us off to visit Lava Hot Springs the day before. Just below Pebble Creek's parking lot is this ski sculpture.
As for my health, I managed OK as it was a sunny day, though started to cool off after 3pm. I continued to chill and left all of my ski clothes on for the 2 hour drive to Driggs and through dinner at Teton Thai. I still have a decent appetite and can taste food normally. But anyone who knows my sensitivity to overheating should note that my leaving ski clothes on indoors for 4.5 hours after skiing is a huge red flag. We drove throiugh Tetonia on the way to Driggs and checked out the view from Adam and Alexa's property there.
Sunday night sleeping was more chills and fever. I did not ski today while Liz and Lonnie skied Grand Targhee. I felt better when I got up but did not leave the hotel room until Liz picked me up at 3:30 to drive to West Yellowstone.
At 10AM I took another COVID test and it was positive. So I will miss at least one more ski day.
