Snowbird, UT 3/10/2022 (with a little Alta)

[tseeb]

Lonnie and I started with Wilbere not much after 9. Snowbird reported 12” new, but most of that fell during previous very snowy and somewhat frustrating day when there was 15” new. I found some deep powder on every run. Lonnie and I caught rope drop into Middle Cirque which had been open on Wed, but was mostly filled in. I started in the 2nd chute from skiers right, skied some of the spine between it and 1st chute where I ended up. Lonnie and I next did three laps on Peruvian where we took highest traverse lookers left (Zen sign) each time. This was on 2nd lift ride. There is line of skiers just to left of center on High Baldy.

Twice we skied to the mid-Baldy traverse, then catching some untracked on the way, skied into Blackjack area finding a lot of lightly tracked. Once we cut over under the Tram and hit Mach Schnell higher than Tony Crocker thought was possible. Lonnie broke a pole in trees in Blackjack so he returned to car near Iron Blossom for a replacement about when I heard Mineral had opened. I took a lap on Wilbere where we start nearly all days from Iron Blosam. It’s also where Lonnie and I took a mid-morning lap (2 lift rides) after skiing some of Mach Schnell when Peruvian line was very long. By the time Lonnie returned and we rode Wilbere again, then skied some cutup powder in trees on way to Peruvian, line there had gone down. View of Mt. Superior from Wilbere chair run.

There were tracks on it. Next picture is rocky chute under Baldy chair.

There was still a short line to get into tunnel with employee managing spacing between riders. We went left out of the tunnel and had some steep untracked, then took a lap on Baldy chair with John Webb before exiting to Alta next time up. We skied tracked, but still deep and fun Backside. I lost a ski getting lightly tracked snow in some steep little trees. I was yelling for John to cut over and help me look when two guys about 200 yards downhill said they had it. It must have been good karma from helping lady find ski (that I did in about a minute) at bottom of Greeley on previous day, as I thought my ski was uphill.

We rode Collins and skied to Watson shelter where Lonnie bought three $3 Alta stickers to close flap he opened on his jacket when getting past snowboarder down on track he caught tree. I re-filled my water bottle, re-hydrated and ate a few salted nuts on chair in sun outside. I wanted to use Wildcat to return to Snowbird, but guys I was ‘leading’ wanted to return from the top of Sugarloaf which we did after skiing ropeline next to Extrovert. The line had gone down on Mineral King and we loaded it about 3:30. We could see skiers still going to and skiing Bookends which I decided I would try to get to early the next day. From top, we skied Road to Provo and Rasta Chutes and found a little untracked. We missed close of Little Cloud by a minute or two so I dropped my ‘followers’ and boogied down Black Forest to Gad 2. I skied some lines in and below STH that were hairier than I should have alone and at 4 PM so I skied edge of Bassackward to past Wilbere and to our bridge back to Iron Blosam. I quit at 4:15 with 27.6K vertical, almost twice what I had on previous day.

Line for Mineral and most of the line for Baldy at 1:24. And link to video of Mineral rope-drop posted on Facebook by admin.

[POV VIDEO] Insane Scenes When Rope Dropped on Mineral Basin at Snowbird, UT - SnowBrains

Following the storm that dumped over two FEET of snow in 48-hours, Snowbird patrol dropped the rope on Mineral Basin yesterday...

snowbrains.com

 

[jasoncapecod]

my life in ny is aggressive and hectic..
skiing used to be the opposite
i guess not anymore....hence why i don't go anymore..thank goodness for the mountain bike

 

[Tony Crocker]

There was another foot in the past 24 hours, though only an inch of that overnight. Nonetheless it was still a big powder day as much new terrain would be opening. It was partly sunny but remained cold, 10-15F near the base and 5-10F higher up. You know there’s lots of pow when Liz and I mostly floated turns between Wilbere Ridge and Big Emma.

Up top of Little Cloud there was little evidence Mineral Basin or Road to Provo would open soon, so we took a lap on yesterday’s leftovers near the lift. Liz missed the return to Little Cloud and skied down to Gadzoom where she met Stephan. They moved over to Peruvian where they picked up Michelle. They ran a few Peruvian laps, finding overlooked powder on lower runs like Adager and Phone 3 Shot.

About 1PM Liz, Stephan and Michelle arrived at the top of Peruvian, saw the metal door to the tunnel partly open, so they waited 5 minutes and scored pristine untracked on the Baldy side of Mineral Basin while the feeding frenzy in that video was happening on the other side. After one lap on Powder Paradise they arrived on top of the Mineral lift and saw that Road to Provo had opened. So they skied at least a 2-foot deep run in Little Cloud Bowl around 3PM. Exhausted, they skied down to Wilbere and took a lap there to finish their day.

Meanwhile at 10:15 or so I rode Little Cloud a second time and rain into Tseeb and Lonnie at the top. Given my level of exhaustion Wednesday afternoon, I sent them on their way as I didn’t want to hold them up. I traversed over to Regulator and noticed that the Upper Cirque gates had opened. I made my way carefully skier’s left and put the third track down Shot 10 in perhaps the deepest powder of my week. Looking back up there:

Recalling Adam’s report from Wednesday I headed for Green Forest. I was probably the first one there Thursday but it had been skied enough Wednesday that speed could not be controlled by powder depth alone.

I rode Peruvian once, seeing Liz and Stephan from the chair, but needed a mellower run. I started out the low Baldy traverse, but cut back on wide open intermediate untracked to Chip’s. I returned to Gadzoom and Little Cloud, this time taking the mid-Cirque traverse. I figured correctly that Restaurant Roll would be very lightly tracked and that I could drop onto mid-Gad for a break. However I was lured skier’s right by more powder and ended up on top of Big Emma, so I had to ride Gadzoom and took my mid-Gad break at the ill timed hour of 12:30. Ill timed, because I was still in there at 1PM when I got a text from Liz that Mineral was open.

The quickest way there was via Peruvian and the tunnel and to no surprise the snow was hammered when I got there, with Mineral’s line still huge. So I waited a more reasonable 10 minutes for Baldy and crossed the border into Alta. The rest of the afternoon was similar to Sunday afternoon: Backside, Ballroom traverse to lower Armpit and return to Snowbird via former admin’s route that had maybe 5 tracks or so this time.

I called it a day at 2:45 with 19,400 vertical, which is more than I thought I would get after Monday’s mishap and Wednesday’s exhaustion. It also helped that the Alta traverses to Backside and Ballroom were on the opposite leg of the ones Wednesday (high T and Supreme Bowl) and thus did not further aggravate my right hip flexor.

In 2015 I documented my abysmal track record for new snow during Iron Blosam week: 48% of normal over 104 days. By 2017 I had hit a low point of 45% over 112 days. 2017 was the last year I’ve been skunked during IB week, and the record is now 68% in 146 days, thanks to 27 inches in 2018, 48 in 2019 and 41 this year.

 

[EMSC]

Line for Mineral and most of the line for Baldy at 1:24. And link to video of Mineral rope-drop posted on Facebook by admin.

Snowbird=the new Vail???

Did the powder in Mineral Basin even last the first 20 minutes?

Utah ski areas were practically desperate to attract more new skiers back at the 2002 Games. Now they are just like Colorado. Reasonably crowded on weekdays and packed on weekends...

 

[Tony Crocker]

I hit one of those Mineral Basin rope drops in 2014 I think. The slopes under that rope have sunny exposure so you don't want to ski them after they have been tracked. But Mineral Basin is a big place. I had good powder runs in the Bookends and Patrol Gully the next day.

Utah is not what it used to be in terms of crowds, but still has more snow, better terrain and shorter daytrip drive distances from SLC vs. Denver up I-70.

Denver, Salt Lake and particularly Seattle have had significant growth in skier population over the past couple of decades with minimal growth in nearby ski terrain. Tseeb says Tahoe has some of these issues, mainly traffic access.

Thankfully this appears not to be an issue in SoCal to Mammoth. I have noted recently that the average skier visits at Mammoth from 2016-2019 are the same as in 1978, and below the peaks in 1982, 1986, 2005 and 2006.