Powder vs Spring skiing

[Sbooker]

After getting that prime spring snow last week I now get the attraction to renowned spring locations.

 

[jasoncapecod]

I know this isn’t the thread for this. Also I know I will get a lot of flak and heat too.
In MY opinion a perfect spring day beats a powder day.
You don’t have to deal with massive crowds, being first on line etc. there is no such thing as a corn frenzy. Just a bunch of sun tanned chill people

 

[Tony Crocker]

In MY opinion a perfect spring day beats a powder day.
You don’t have to deal with massive crowds, being first on line etc. there is no such thing as a corn frenzy. Just a bunch of sun tanned chill people

This is far from an unreasonable position. Quality spring days can be predicted, and with proper timing you usually get what you expect.

The best powder days I rate higher than the best spring days, but many things can go wrong:
1) The new snow might be heavy, wind affected, etc. And if there's not enough of it you may be skiing more on the sometimes variable subsurface, especially on steeper terrain.
2) Some lifts may have delayed opening and some terrain may not open at all pending control work.
3) The obvious critique: crowds and competition. Heavily tracked snow and chowder can be very demanding skiing. And this problem is exacerbated by 1) and 2).

So it's a defensible position that many powder days are less satisfying than an average spring day. Before I get any of that flak and heat, I'll mention that my benchmarks for spring skiing are unusually high, being based mainly at Mammoth and Mt. Bachelor. The current trip to Mammoth is illustrative. The wind has kept the upper ungroomed steeps firm so far and almost no one is skiing them. But 85% of terrain is open and a lot of it has prime corn with minimal crowds midweek.

 

[jimk]

This is far from an unreasonable position. Quality spring days can be predicted, and with proper timing you usually get what you expect.

The best powder days I rate higher than the best spring days, but many things can go wrong:
1) The new snow might be heavy, wind affected, etc. And if there's not enough of it you may be skiing more on the sometimes variable subsurface, especially on steeper terrain.
2) Some lifts may have delayed opening and some terrain may not open at all pending control work.
3) The obvious critique: crowds and competition. Heavily tracked snow and chowder can be very demanding skiing. And this problem is exacerbated by 1) and 2).

So it's a defensible position that many powder days are less satisfying than an average spring day. Before I get any of that flak and heat, I'll mention that my benchmarks for spring skiing are unusually high, being based mainly at Mammoth and Mt. Bachelor. The current trip to Mammoth is illustrative. The wind has kept the upper ungroomed steeps firm so far and almost no one is skiing them. But 85% of terrain is open and a lot of it has prime corn with minimal crowds midweek.

I know this isn’t the thread for this. Also I know I will get a lot of flak and heat too.
In MY opinion a perfect spring day beats a powder day.
You don’t have to deal with massive crowds, being first on line etc. there is no such thing as a corn frenzy. Just a bunch of sun tanned chill people

 

[jimk]

I kind of botched above post, meant to lead with Jason's comment, then Tony C's.

Which do you like better: powder or spring skiing? Or is there another condition you like?

I love spring skiing too. This April has been outstanding in UT. I like a good powder day better, but a fine spring day may be number 2 for me.
One downer about a good spring ski day is that the snow may only stay good 2-3 hours, so your prime ski time can be much less than a mid winter day.

A lot of folks come to Snowbird in late season hoping for a rare powder day. I tell them to appreciate good spring conditions for reasons cited by Jason, friendly weather and low crowds. Prices can be lower too. In Utah a surprise spring pow day can bring out the hordes, although not as much as a big forecasted dump in mid winter.

[A spring anecdote:
May 6, 2022. This is a view of the Mineral Basin lift line leading up to the Summit Restaurant at Snowbird. Doesn't look like much, but... For about two incredible hours this morning I had some of the best spring snow conditions of my life! I thought it was some form of magical corn snow, but a person I rode the chair with (a former Snowbird groomer driver) said, "no." It was too fresh, hadn't gone through enough freeze/thaw cycles to be corn. This part of the mtn had not been open/skied for five days and in the intervening time a couple of little 2" snows had taken place. What I skied this morning was basically soft supportable snow, about 2" of super carve-able velvet over a smooth supportable surface underneath. The entire wide expanse of Mineral Basin from edge to edge had this velvety smooth surface. It was like the whole place had been groomed and covered with a couple inches of spring snow. It was about the easiest all the offpiste in the basin will ever ski! I made 7 or 8 runs underneath and around the liftline in this photo and since it was a non-powder Friday in May there weren't many people on the mtn. Mindless, carefree swoops through gullies, flying over shoulders, I felt like a human sports car. It was sooo good I was hyperventilating on some of the runs. After about 1045 AM it turned mostly to mush, but those two hours are a heck of a memory to carry me through until next ski season!]

 

[ChrisC]

One downer about a good spring ski day is that the snow may only stay good 2-3 hours...

Spring skiing's sweet spot window is shorter - it helps to have a mountain with 360-degree / multiple exposures.

A lot of folks come to Snowbird in late season hoping for a rare powder day.

My April powder days in Utah typically deteriorate rapidly if sunny. Need cloud cover at that point.

the snow may only stay good 2-3 hours, so your prime ski time can be much less than a mid winter day.

....well when you think about it, you only get about 2-3 hours on a powder day in the Wasatch too—some chowder/pockets after lunch.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Spring skiing's sweet spot window is shorter - it helps to have a mountain with 360-degree / multiple exposures.

Mt. Bachelor has the classic 360 exposure. Mammoth's optimal spring skiing can last all day via a combination of altitude and exposure. Even when it's really warm the chair 23 runs on the Wipe Out side are generally best after 1PM.

Mammoth's best spring days have clear skies for an overnight freeze plus steady but not excessive breeze to extend the melting process. How good can the skiing be then?
35,750 vertical by 2:30PM, May 18, 2013.
36,100 vertical by 2PM, June 8, 2019.

Does Snowbird get days like that? Possibly but much less likely. One reason is that it often keeps snowing in April/May, so you get a morning of powder followed by 3-4 days of mashed potatoes before the next storm, rarely settling out into corn. The other issue is that in late spring the Wasatch seems to be hotter than the Sierra, meaning fewer overnight freezes and swifter collapse of the snowpack. During Utah's record 2022-23 season Snowbird barely got Little Cloud open for a final weekend June 17-18 while Mammoth had the gondola, 6 chairs and ~1,500 acres open for the July 4 holiday and did not close until Aug. 6.

 

[Sbooker]

Mt. Bachelor has the classic 360 exposure. Mammoth's optimal spring skiing can last all day via a combination of altitude and exposure. Even when it's really warm the chair 23 runs on the Wipe Out side are generally best after 1PM.

Mammoth's best spring days have clear skies for an overnight freeze plus steady but not excessive breeze to extend the melting process. How good can the skiing be then?
35,750 vertical by 2:30PM, May 18, 2013.
36,100 vertical by 2PM, June 8, 2019.

Does Snowbird get days like that? Possibly but much less likely. One reason is that it often keeps snowing in April/May, so you get a morning of powder followed by 3-4 days of mashed potatoes before the next storm, rarely settling out into corn. The other issue is that in late spring the Wasatch seems to be hotter than the Sierra, meaning fewer overnight freezes and swifter collapse of the snowpack. During Utah's record 2022-23 season Snowbird barely got Little Cloud open for a final weekend June 17-18 while Mammoth had the gondola, 6 chairs and ~1,500 acres open for the July 4 holiday and did not close until Aug. 6.

I don't have extensive spring skiing experience anywhere but certainly not in North America. From memory I have seen a lot more wet slides in Europe than I remember seeing in Whistler, Banff areas (maybe because it stays too cool even in April), Alta, Snowbird or Mammoth. Do I have that correct or do I have it wrong?

You've shown that the Sierra stays cooler than Utah. Fine. But why would that be? I would have thought coastal would be warmer than toward the centre of the continent.

 

[ChrisC]

I would have thought coastal would be warmer than toward the centre of the continent.

The cold Pacific currents that run from the North to the South keep water temps pretty cool/cold year round - rarely gets above 60f in SF. Even LA is not that warm.

(Meanwhile you can hit 70f+ in the shallows of Cape Cod Bay or Nantucket Sound in New England. Similar Oregon latitudes are almost 15-20 f colder in summer).

This keeps the Pacific Maritimes regions cooler than the interior/Continental regions in the summer - when glacier melt is the worse.

You can see this on glacier maps. Lower Elevation Washington State has more glaciers in the Lower 48 - especially compared to CO and Utah.

Was interesting to see Wyoming on the list so high.

 

[Tony Crocker]

I would have thought coastal would be warmer more moderate than toward the centre of the continent.

FIFY. Proximity to the ocean makes coastal climates, particularly west coasts in the temperate zones, warmer in winter and cooler in summer than locations farther inland.

There is more glacial ice on Mt. Rainier than the rest of the lower 48 states combined. Mt. Rainier exemplifies the primary criteria of glacier formation: maximum water content snowfall (an average year at Mt. Rainier Paradise has SWE about like last year's record at Mammoth, see below) and cool summers.

As I mentioned last summer, Alta's 903 inches snowfall contained 70 inches of water while Mammoth's 715 inches snowfall contained 87 inches of water. So Mammoth's snowpack would have likely lasted longer than Alta's even if the summer temperatures were the same.

From memory I have seen a lot more wet slides in Europe than I remember seeing in Whistler, Banff areas (maybe because it stays too cool even in April), Alta, Snowbird or Mammoth. Do I have that correct or do I have it wrong?

North American ski areas (and all of the ones sbooker cites) were mostly purpose built for skiing with sufficient altitude and particularly north exposure in mind. Skiing came to already existing mountain towns and summer tourist locations more often in the Alps. Exposures are all over the map so perhaps you are more likely to observe south facing slopes prone to wet slides in spring in Europe.

Average Exposures	North​	East​	West​	South​
101 Areas in North America	42%​	26%​	19%​	12%​
42 Areas in the Alps	32%​	21%​	27%​	19%​

East exposure is often more desirable than west due to being leeward vs. exposed to prevailing winds (Castle vs. Sunshine in Alberta). West exposures can also remain frozen granular in the spring until well past noon (Obergurgl, the High T at Alta).

Alps topography with so much above tree line is a likely contributing factor to the wet slides as well.

 

[Tony Crocker]

During one of our gondola rides at Mammoth, there was an LCC local who said Mammoth's spring skiing was better because "it doesn't freeze overnight as often at Snowbird."

So that data I looked up last season for a month in May/June was perhaps not coincidental. An average difference of 5.5 degrees F in overnight low temperatures makes a big difference in both snowmelt and spring ski surface conditions.

It did occur to me that last spring in CA may have been unusually cool as evidenced by SoCal's most extreme May gray/June gloom (39% sun over 25 days as measured by my solar panels) in well over a decade. So I downloaded the daily low temperatures for Snowbird and Virginia Lakes from 2002-2024.

Virginia Lakes - Snowbird low temps (F) by month:
Feb. 1.7
Mar. -1.3
Apr. -1.8
May -3.4
Jun.. -5.0
Snowbird is colder in February but Virginia Lakes becomes colder in March and the difference increases through the spring.

Percentage of days with low below freezing:

​	Snowbird​	Virginia Lakes​
Feb	96.4%​	94.2%​
Mar	84.9%​	90.6%​
Apr	68.3%​	75.3%​
May	33.9%​	44.8%​
Jun	5.5%​	11.4%​

I wondered if A-Basin has some of the same warm spring issues as Snowbird, using the nearby Grizzly Peak SNOTEL at 11,139 feet. The extra elevation means no, though the trend is the same: The overnight lows at A-Basin are 10.5 degrees colder than Virginia Lakes in February, declining to 2.5 degrees colder in May and 2.3 degrees in June.

57.8% of May overnight lows at Grizzly Peak are below freezing. The rule of thumb is that A-Basin has to close all of its steep terrain after 3 consecutive nights with no overnight freeze, which tends to be in the May 10-15 range most seasons. So this is not due to A-Basin having warm springs but mainly to its brittle Continental snowpack vs. coastal snowpacks like Mammoth or even Intermountain ones like Snowbird.

 

[jimk]

Gonna really test the premise of this thread this week.
Yesterday 4 May 2024 was an absolutely perfect spring ski day at Snowbird. Sunshine, 50 deg temps. Good surfaces that softened slowly and predictably across the various aspects of the mtn. Small crowds, walk-on tram rides. The kind of day that justifies me hanging around for Utah skiing into late spring.
Today and next couple of days there may be 1-2 feet of spring snow in the Wasatch. Probably not blower pow. It will be interesting to see how much I enjoy it compared to yesterday

 

[Skieric]

It may depend on how much the sun comes out.

 

[jamesdeluxe]

It may depend on how much the sun comes out.

I recall Fraser saying that during springtime it doesn't need to be clear for the sun to significantly affect the snow.

 

[Tony Crocker]

I recall Fraser saying that during springtime it doesn't need to be clear for the sun to significantly affect the snow.

True as evidenced by my solar panels still producing 20-30% even on 100% cloudy days. Nonetheless spring powder quality can remain good during storms and/or if the temperatures stay cold. Two of my top 5 lift served powder days were in April and another one was on the spring equinox.

 

[jimk]

OK, so I guess I like spring skiing and powder skiing about equally. They are both fun as heck!
6 May 2024 Snowbird, UT.

 

[Sbooker]

I didn’t want to start a new thread for one simple question and given I’m asking about Powder Mountain it’s semi related because of ‘powder’ in thread title.
I will be in SLC early in the new year and given I may not be back to that general area anytime soon I want to check out a couple of hills that I haven’t been to yet - Powder Mountain being one. The only real option I have is buying a day ticket? Does anyone know the cost?
I’ve also not been to Park City before but I can buy a Epic day ticket now for a relatively reasonable price of $110USD.
Anyone know the cost of a Sundance day ticket too?
Edit. Yikes. It appears a day ticket to PM is $157!

 

[jimk]

Yeah Pow Mow is getting kinda wacky. I'm not that crazy about the place either, although it's got some marvelous intermediate cruising terrain as I remember. Sundance is pretty cheap, wanna say under $100 for a weekday??

PS: back to spring skiing today 11 May 2024 at Snowbird, super fun day:

 

[jamesdeluxe]

The only real option I have is buying a day ticket? Does anyone know the cost?

You can google the day-ticket costs but I wouldn't advise it! As mentioned in the "why to ski in Europe" discussions, over the past five years it's become virtually impossible to ski economically in the U.S. (even at independent joints) without your itinerary being dictated by one of the mega-pass products: Epic, Ikon, Indy, MC, etc. No more "I'll make it up as I go along."

This is unfortunately today's new normal:

a relatively reasonable price of $110USD.

 

[Harvey]

Spring skiing's sweet spot window is shorter - it helps to have a mountain with 360-degree / multiple exposures.

Also an overlooked value of larger vert, and it doesn't have to be continuous. Start and the bottom and work your way up.

On some days, only bottom will soften.