newbie out west: any suggestions?

M

Maury Markowitz

New member
I know this will release a flurry of people saying "this place is best" (my apologies in advance), but I think I might be able to narrow it down a bit...

I normally ski the east, being from Toronto, but it looks like pretty much all of Canada is wiped out this year, so it looks like I'll be heading west. There's so much to choose from its driving me crazy!

I'm a blue-black skiier, strong but with little style. Choppy conditions or most "eastern snows" I can handle, but bowls, bumps and super-steeps I just don't have enough experience on. I'm also lazy: I want to ski off the lift and down the trail - traverses to get fresh snow doesn't interest me at all. I prefer steep cruisers, groomed or skier packed.

Given my abilities, can anyone narrow me down? I'm currently thinking of either Jackson's Hole or one of the many Salt Lake areas. Snow seems good from what I've read here, and terrain seems right for what I'm looking for.
 
California, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming would all be good choices. Some regions are getting it better than others. For instance, Southern Colorado areas (Telluride, Crested Butte, Wolf Creek) have far better conditions than the Northern (Vail, Copper, Winterpark, etc) areas.
 
First of all, Maury, welcome to Liftlines. Forgive me if I moved your topic to the Western forum, for I think that it will generate more response here.

Maury Markowitz":1tmxopjb said:
I'm a blue-black skiier, strong but with little style. Choppy conditions or most "eastern snows" I can handle, but bowls, bumps and super-steeps I just don't have enough experience on. I'm also lazy: I want to ski off the lift and down the trail - traverses to get fresh snow doesn't interest me at all. I prefer steep cruisers, groomed or skier packed.

Given my abilities, can anyone narrow me down? I'm currently thinking of either Jackson's Hole or one of the many Salt Lake areas. Snow seems good from what I've read here, and terrain seems right for what I'm looking for.
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While I'm a bit biased, I'll cast my vote for here in the Salt Lake area. For one thing, we're having a bang-up season. I trust that you've seen some of my recent conditions postings here on Liftlines.

Places like Alta aren't all about traversing to fresh lines -- that's just my preference. Just have a look at the trail map, there's truly something for everyone. Novices can even enjoy the mid-mountain terrain here. Snowbird admittedly caters to the more advanced skier, as much of the terrain is quite steep. Solitude will give you a mix of everything in a low-key atmosphere, and Brighton is by and large groomers cut within the forest.

Perhaps best of all, our area caters to every price range. Want luxe slopeside? Go for the Rustler at Alta, or the Cliff Lodge at Snowbird. Traveling on a budget? Find cheap digs down here in the Salt Lake Valley +/- 10 miles from the goods. And the volume through Salt Lake International virtually assures that you can find reasonable airfare to get here.

If you'd like an overview of some of Utah's resorts, I'll unabashedly recommend my feature piece published this fall here.

Jackson is having an OK season -- OK, but not great. As you'll note from other postings here, Jackson sometimes suffers from low elevation and an easterly exposure. Much of Jackson's terrain is rather steep as well.

Should you wind up skiing Utah during your vacation, let me know and we'll try to hook up for a run or two.
 
First time out here it does make sense to go to a region with a variety of areas to get an idea what you like best. The 3 largest clusters are Colorado's I-70 corridor, Tahoe and the SLC area. The latter two are having strong seasons, the first slightly below average.

I would also vote Utah first. We recently analyzed the North Tahoe areas here: http://www.firsttracksonline.com/boards ... .php?t=615 .

I am personally not a fan of most of the I-70 group, Vail and A-Basin excepted, but there is a massive amount of intermediate terrain, which accounts for much of its popularity.
 
I would give SLC a try because as stated above there are a lot of areas close. Plus the snow is legendary, just don't mingle too closely with the locals! If ya know what i mean. LOL. Just Kidding.
 
First off, thanks to everyone who replied. I was leaning towards SLC due to the easier all-around travel - getting in and out is a lot easier than at Jackson's. All the comments I received talked about variety of both pricing and terrain, and that's the clincher.

Admin":1qx4mkh6 said:
First of all, Maury, welcome to Liftlines. Forgive me if I moved your topic to the Western forum, for I think that it will generate more response here.
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Actually I didn't post here in the first place because I thought this was for snow reports. Either way works!

Admin":1qx4mkh6 said:
Places like Alta aren't all about traversing to fresh lines -- that's just my preference.
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Ahhh, you figured me out. I saw all your posts on the traverses and thought "geez, that's too much work".

So I think I'll head out and get something intermediate for the first few days to get my legs back. It's actually raining here in TO right now, there's no snow and even though we had a few good dumps I haven't made it up to a hill yet :-( If they're still working maybe I'll head out for some steeps on the last couple of days.

What are the lines like on weekends? I'm going to be in Buffalo next monday, so I can likely save a nice bundle by flying in and out of there and then bussing back. I'd like to get in five real days of skiing though, which means skiing saturday and flying out sunday. Are the lines going to be packed? Like I said, I'm a newbie to the west...

One last question... if I go cheap and stay in the city, what's the shuttle-bus situation like?

Maury
 
Alta and Snowbird have the most weekend lines, but can be managed if you know your way around. I would recommend Brighton or Solitude for the first day, especially if it's on a weekend. Great snow, low crowds, plenty of intermediate terrain, Solitude has more variety if you have to choose one.

It makes sense to save $ by sleeping cheap in SLC. It does not make sense IMHO to depend on the public transit and not rent a car. You'll want to visit at least one of the Park City areas and hang out there after skiing as it's a great resort town. Given your preference for "steep cruisers, groomed or skier packed," you'll probably love Deer Valley (and don't miss lunch!). Snowbasin is worth a look too, as it has longer fall line cruisers than DV, though not as impeccably maintained.

Alta and Snowbird are the favored areas of us fanatics. From your perspective I would analyze them as follows: Each lift at Alta has one or two nicely groomed runs, generally at a mainstream intermediate pitch. But most of Alta is ungroomed and you need to poke around and explore to appreciate the area. Snowbird has more groomed runs but it is a relentlessly steep mountain, very limiting unless you're at least a strong intermediate.
 
With the exception of Snowbird's tram, I haven't faced a weekend liftline more than 10 minutes here this season. As for the mass transit situation, you could use the UTA system on the cheap (http://www.rideuta.com), but Tony makes a valid point. Check out the SLC car rental prices - there just about as cheap here as I've seen anywhere, and the rental taxes are reasonable, unlike, say, NM where the rental tax was half again the cost of my rental.
 
While this may not be directly helpful to you, I am having a similar time trying to make a descision about where to go late March-early April.

When are you planning your trip for?

That may make a big difference in where you decide to head.
 
SLC is still a good choice if your focus is on the 4 Cottonwood Canyon areas. Snowbasin and the Park City group get very slushy by then if it hasn't snowed recently.

Late March/early April is the prime season at Mammoth. Highly recommended because:
1) It and Vail have the best single mountain variety of terrain for aspiring intermediate to advanced skiers.
2) Mammoth is having a big year, with the current base of 12-14 feet.
 
Tony Crocker":3q3f7mxt said:
Alta and Snowbird have the most weekend lines, but can be managed if you know your way around. I would recommend Brighton or Solitude for the first day, especially if it's on a weekend. Great snow, low crowds, plenty of intermediate terrain, Solitude has more variety if you have to choose one.
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Well it's a done deal. The Canadian version of travelocity, expedia, had round trip flights for a shocking $295 everything in, in CAD. That's about $250 or less US, and about 1/2 of what it was going to cost me to get into Calgary for some time at Sunshine. Geez, monopoly air-carriers... great idea.

So I'm heading out on Sunday the 27th -- get in late so I only have 5 days of skiing (coming out saturday added $200), but I think I'll be beat up enough after that. Hotels were well priced too, so I'll play that one by ear.

I didn't realize how close the slopes were to the city; you're lucky there's so many because if that was Toronto you'd have 6.5 million people packing onto the one usable hill -- the only thing that makes it even remotely skiable is the 1.5-2 hour drive to get there, which weeds out a lot of people.

It makes sense to save $ by sleeping cheap in SLC.
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Yeah, $65 a night in town, $350 in Park City!

As to the car issue, can anyone recommend a web site where I might be able to car pool? Not so much to save money, I'll spend more on beer, but 1) to have someone to talk to, 2) so I don't have to drive at the end of the day. There's gotta be someone in SLC that drives out every day for work that wouldn't mind a few bucks for gas.

Maury
 
Not a clue on the car pool source, but is a 20-minute drive really that bad? ;-)

Drop me a note a few days before you get here, and we'll take a few runs together Sunday afternoon if you want to.
 
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