Recap of Utah's Unprecedented Winter of 2023

[jimk]

I've spent the better part of the last five winters in Utah. The winter of 2023 in Utah was a standout and truly unprecedented in a number of ways. I wasn't there for the entire winter, but I caught a good chunk of it, remaining in the Salt Lake Valley for about 4.5 months. I started skiing in Utah on 21 Jan 2023 and my last ski day there was 29 May 2023. I logged a total of 62 ski days in Utah in 2023.

What a winter it was! As I start this thread on 2 June 2023, Snowbird has received a seasonal total of 838" of snow. Snowbird is planning to open for a few more weekends in late June and possibly for the 4th of July. Alta quit counting snow totals some time ago, but already had measured more than 900". These are all-time records. Most other ski areas in Utah also set all-time snow records. Utah literally had the greatest snow on Earth in 2023.

What follows is a little pictorial of my season with some comments to provide info and context with the photos.

25 Jan 2023 was one of the first of many powder days I experienced this winter. This is Hanging Bowl under the upper tram line at Snowbird UT. Already the snow cover was outstanding. In fact, this was the first time I'd ever skied this particular run. Normally the entrance is quite sketchy with mandatory air in one or more places.

This is my son in about a foot of fresh snow in Hanging Bowl:

An acquaintance that joined us for a run in Hanging Bowl:

6 Feb 2023 was another one foot powder day. This is a friend in the STH area off Gad 2 chair at Snowbird:

Same fellow, same day in the lower Baldy area of Peruvian Gulch at Snowbird. Fresh snow weighed heavily on tree branches.

19 Feb 2023, when I have weary legs I go to the Baldy Chair and ski low angle terrain in Snowbird's Mineral Basin. I rode it about five times late on this day. This is a photo I snapped of the nice view looking back over my shoulder on the ride up Baldy chair. Notice the nice 4-5" of new overnight snow still not fully tracked out at around 3PM.

Another photo from Mineral Basin, taken on the same day. Most of the cliffy areas are covered in snow by mid-Feb:

27 Feb 2023 was another one foot powder day in the Wasatch. These are friends in the Catherine's area of Alta, UT:

On this same day, 27 Feb, I spent three hours in the Gold Miner Daughter's lounge/bar waiting for the traffic to clear on the Little Cottonwood Canyon access road, 4 to 7 PM. It had dumped on and off all day and I was stuck there with about 20 friends. Fortunately I had a bottle of Irish Whiskey in my boot bag and it came in handy as I shared it with friends. We finally heard traffic was beginning to move around 7 PM so we got in our cars and headed down the mountain, but it took us until 9 PM to get to the bottom of the canyon. They were planning to close the road at 10 PM that night for avalanche mitigation work.

1 March 2023, I made a day-trip down to Sundance Mtn Resort near Provo, UT. It was one of the deepest and most fun days of my winter and the best thing about it was - no crowds, no lines, no traffic!
More friends:

This one is of me from about 3 PM, still tons of loose powder in Bishop Bowl:

The weather report said five to seven inches of new overnight snow on 1 March at Sundance, but it kept coming down during the day. And because the previous few days had also been stormy there was a cumulative effect that skied more like 15 inches of light, fluffy powder.
See here for more photos and details on my fun day at Sundance.

This post is to be continued...

 

[jimk]

I came across an article in the Salt Lake Tribune by Julie Jag, dated 1 June 2023. It had some really good stats about Utah snow and crowds for the winter of 2022-23. I'll list a few facts from the article here for posterity.

- Ski Utah estimates visitation to the state's resorts during 22-23 season will reach 7.1 million (Snowbird is likely to reopen for a few weekends later in June and July). This is a record and a 22% increase over last year's record! (Visitation is different from visitors. One person like myself going to ski 62 times in Utah boosts visitation, but only counts as one visitor.)
- Nationally, visitation jumped 6.6% in 22-23 for a record of 64.7 million visits.
- The big visitation numbers are attributed to big snowfall numbers, especially in the West and Rocky Mountain regions, which accounted for 40% of the visitation.
- More than half of Utah's 15 resorts claimed their longest season on record, including Brian Head, Solitude (192 days of lift served access), Deer Valley, Brighton, Snowbasin, Nordic Valley, and Woodward Park City.
- Alta saw a record 903" of snow, topping its previous record by more than 150". Alta received 229" of snow in March alone (244% above its average for March). In fact, Alta averaged 5.1" of snowfall each day during its ski season (halting lift operations on April 21).
- Sundance received 10 more feet of snow than it had ever seen.
- Brighton, Solitude, Snowbird, Snowbasin, Nordic Valley, Woodward Park City, Park City Mountain, and Deer Valley also set snowfall records. Most saw record snowpack as well.
- Ski Utah issued 44 powder alerts (at least 12" new snow in a 24 hour span). The average alerts of this type for a season is 19.

Personal photos and comments to be continued in next post...

 

[Tony Crocker]

(Visitation is different from visitors. One person like myself going to ski 62 times in Utah boosts visitation, but only counts as one visitor.)

Incorrect, each day of skiing is a skier visit.
From Ski Utah press release:

Skier visitation means that if you make skied ten days at Utah ski resorts, each one of them counts toward the overall total. Ski Utah is still trying to figure out the metrics for determining unique visitors.

Skier visits become easier to measure over time with online ticket sales and RFID scanning. "Unique visitors" and the related stat "How many people in the US are skiers?" are difficult to measure.

The 22% increase in Utah visits over the prior record is also evidence that locals are driving the big increases in the Rocky Mountain states. Local visitation is sensitive to snow conditions. Destination visitation is often booked far in advance and thus has much less sensitivity.

Is Utah skiing getting much more crowded vs. us old farts' impression of the past? Absolutely. Below are selected good Utah snowfall seasons before and all seasons after the pandemic. The second number is Rocky Mountain visits excluding Utah.
1996-97: 3.0 million, 15.9 million
2001-02: 3.0 million, 15.1 million
2004-05: 3.9 million, 15.7 million
2010-11: 4.2 million, 16.7 million
2016-17: 4.6 million, 17.1 million
2018-19: 5.1 million, 19.3 million
2020-21: 5.3 million, 17.3 million
2021-22: 5.8 million, 19.5 million
2022-23: 7.1 million, 20.8 million
About 45% of the increase in Rocky Mountain skier visits is coming from Utah.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Our former admin still lives in Utah from December through April but his skiing is confined to weekends. From 2005-06 through 2018-19 he averaged 70 ski days per season. When I told him Liz had 42 this year, he said that was about what he had, and that it was likely the lowest since he moved to Utah in 2005. The chronic LCC road issues severely impacted his season.

 

[ChrisC]

Great photos!

Most West Coast crowding complaints are about IKON and EPIC local pass holders. But it's the locals holding those passes that now can afford to ski more often. And this does just impact SLC, Denver, etc., but look at the growth in Bozeman, Jackson, Boise...heck, even Purgatory stayed open till May since the local population can support it.

Love Millenials and GenZers - especially those who just moved to the mountains - complaining about crowding. The reality - they are the problem.

Telluride has no crowds until a powder day. Then every local comes out of hiding. The only fun thing about Telluride on a powder day is the etiquette - just put your skis in line and go get coffee or breakfast. No one dares touch them. So I will go throw planks down at 7/7:30 and go back to the house and get ready.

 

[jimk]

Great photos!

Most West Coast crowding complaints are about IKON and EPIC local pass holders. But it's the locals holding those passes that now can afford to ski more often. And this does just impact SLC, Denver, etc., but look at the growth in Bozeman, Jackson, Boise...heck, even Purgatory stayed open till May since the local population can support it.

Love Millenials and GenZers - especially those who just moved to the mountains - complaining about crowding. The reality - they are the problem.

Telluride has no crowds until a powder day. Then every local comes out of hiding. The only fun thing about Telluride on a powder day is the etiquette - just put your skis in line and go get coffee or breakfast. No one dares touch them. So I will go throw planks down at 7/7:30 and go back to the house and get ready.

I skied Telluride for two weekdays in early April 2019. We arrived in town after darkness had set in, but the next morning when we awoke there was three inches of new snow and it continued to snow on and off during the day, totalling perhaps seven new inches. It skied twice that deep on some of the upper aspects of the mountain. I don't think the temperature ever broke 30 degrees. It was like a February storm day, but there were no people! The crowds in the morning were nada/zip/zero. It was possibly the quietest I'd ever seen a major ski area.

My son liked Telluride and he's hard to impress:

We did get some clear weather the second day to enjoy the fabulous scenery, APR 2019:

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Continuation of my discussion on the winter in Utah, 2023...

The storms never stopped this winter in Utah, this is a look down the Powderhorn lift line with a lot of loose powder on 5 March 2023 at Solitude. This photo was taken mid-day. You know there's a lot of snowfall when the public hasn't tracked it all out after several hours at the only Ikon-unlimited mountain in Utah on a busy Sunday!

My son and I had ridden the UTA public bus to Solitude that day, 5 March, and when it was closing time we opted out of the big lines waiting to catch a bus down canyon. Instead we grabbed a pizza at Stone House in the picturesque little Solitude village. The snowbanks around the sidewalks grew much higher as the month went on. At 7 PM all the buses had left and we bummed a ride down in the pickup truck of a Solitude employee.

9 March 2023 at Snowbird was a really fine day, only about 5" new snow, but that was on top of a lot of earlier snow that was still powdery, and the sun came out. Sunshine was rare in March, this is a friend in the bookends area of Mineral Basin:

Same scenic day/ same friend, I really like this photo I took:

Kinda fun, another buddy shared this screen grab of me taking above photo

14 March at Solitude, another fine day, two guys who knew Solitude well showed me around:

Including my first time descending Cathedral Cirque, this is the big cirque on the right about halfway up the Summit Chairlift at Solitude.

This is a section of Honeycomb Canyon at Solitude:

20 March, another storm day and I enjoyed some excellent tree skiing at Brighton with a couple of other friends.

22 March 2023 back at Solitude again. I mostly ski Snowbird when in Utah, but I used my base Ikon pass a lot this winter because of so many road closures up Little Cottonwood Canyon. I have one Utah friend who's a really strong telemarker and he'll be age 70 next year. The guy laps mogul runs for kicks. He's also strong snowboarder and 40 year resident of the Salt Lake Valley.

Another friend, same day, one foot powder days were happening multiple times per week in March.

Third friend 22 March again:

25 March, as you've heard traffic and parking were especially challenging this winter at the busy Utah resorts. I was able to manage it for the most part because I know the best times to arrive or depart. Some folks got really creative, this fellow used a big snowbank for a private parking spot on Snowbird's Bypass Road area:

I'm getting ready to drive across the country in a couple days, might not finish this post/thread discussing the rest of my winter in Utah until later in June when I complete the SLC to Wash DC drive.