Utah Ski Area Tiers

jamesdeluxe

jamesdeluxe

Administrator
Tony Crocker said:
third tier skiing in Utah
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Remind us of your Utah tiers and whether they're still based purely on terrain and conditions or if you're also factoring in horde repercussions (red snakes in either direction, parking, lift lines, powder frenzy, inability to get reasonable day tickets, etc.). Feel free to move this to the western forum.
 
For Snow: first tier LCC, second tier BCC
For Terrain Quality: first tier LCC, second tier Snowbasin.

As far as crowding is concerned the numbers back up the subjective impressions. Skier visits in Utah vs. the rest of the Rockies:
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.
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LCC, BCC and PC/DV are all subject to crowd crunches and traffic issues.

Former Admin must be at the base of LCC on weekends by 7:30 and must get off the hill by 3PM to avoid traffic commutes of two hours, which can be more if the weather is bad. He blames Snowbird for this because they won't institute parking reservation on weekends as Alta has. He says Alta has asked Snowbird to do this and they have refused. Alta and Snowbird do not get along well now, and there is no longer an Altabird season pass. You must buy separate Alta and Snowbird season passes now if you want both.

BCC is a crowd escape no more, though its road is not as weather vulnerable as LCC. Day parking at Solitude can be as much as $35.

The Ogden areas are more manageable though not as deserted as they used to be. Powder Mt. day tickets have abruptly shot up to over $200 this season. Powder Mt. is on the Indy Pass that will get you two days there.

I'd guess Sundance is still fairly quiet, though it has low altitude and less snowfall than other Wasatch areas.
 
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All of your comments on Utah changes are negative IMHO as to spending time and $$ there. Unless I could maybe do it on weekdays or something. We noticed just how bad it was last year at Alta for example. Pretty crowded and now little better than many Colorado resorts in lots of aspects.
 
I will stil take Utah over Colorado. The I-70 situation is arguably worse since anyplace a Denver skier wants to go is dependent upon it. And Denver has the same population growth in skier friendly demographics as SLC.

The real puzzlement IMHO is that for decades Utah was conspicuously less crowded than Colorado.
 
Park city has a lot of advantages for us at the moment.
Easy to get to
Relatively cheap condos to rent.
Crowding is manageable..never wait more than a few minutes on lines.
And it's sure better than any vt mountain.
If it sucked ...I wouldn't go there.
But once I'm here...I'll be hitting most of the resorts.
Buying almost every pass I need is cheaper than flying and staying here for 2 weeks.
 
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