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Utah and Colorado Skiing

Supreme and Wildcat (overlooked low speed lift at the base) for my favorite Alta terrain. Do the Baldy hike at either/both resorts. It's easy and worth it if the snow is good. Be the first ones on Road to Provo to the traverse off Little Cloud at Snowbird on a powder day. Little Cloud laps in general are great if the visibility is good. Same with Mineral Basin, though it can get crowded. Incredible scenery back there on bluebird days. The stuff off the Cirque and High Traverse is great, though a bit hard to access. Locals will tell you that Snowbird has the steepest average pitch of any resort in the country, so keep that in mind for the intermediate skiers. I've always found Alta to have better intermediate options (as has my wife).

If you're willing to wait and into sushi, Takashi in SLC is the best experience I've had anywhere. Cool post office bar next door while you wait. Do the omakase, tell them how much you want to spend (the bartender recommended $80, which is way less than I expected).

White Horse is pretty cool for food/drinks. Lake Effect is a really cool bar. Red iguana for elite, authentic cheap Mexican. YB will know more.
 
Nomad East if you want pizza, Kyoto for sushi & Japanese, Urban Hill or Arlo if you want something a little classier. Other places recommended include Oquirrh, Eva’s, Current, Finca (which is across the street from a great wine & cocktail bar).
 
I’ve been told Chile Tepin is better than Red Iguana.
 
tigerswood said:
Supreme and Wildcat (overlooked low speed lift at the base) for my favorite Alta terrain. Do the Baldy hike at either/both resorts. It's easy and worth it if the snow is good. Be the first ones on Road to Provo to the traverse off Little Cloud at Snowbird on a powder day. Little Cloud laps in general are great if the visibility is good. Same with Mineral Basin, though it can get crowded. Incredible scenery back there on bluebird days. The stuff off the Cirque and High Traverse is great, though a bit hard to access. Locals will tell you that Snowbird has the steepest average pitch of any resort in the country, so keep that in mind for the intermediate skiers. I've always found Alta to have better intermediate options (as has my wife).I

If you're willing to wait and into sushi, Takashi in SLC is the best experience I've had anywhere. Cool post office bar next door while you wait. Do the omakase, tell them how much you want to spend (the bartender recommended $80, which is way less than I expected).

White Horse is pretty cool for food/drinks. Lake Effect is a really cool bar. Red iguana for elite, authentic cheap Mexican. YB will know more.
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I just wasn't that impressed by the Red/Blue Iguana. prolly the only one, but still.
 
For Alta, my favorite area is Catherine's Area, pretty mellow but still challenging and fun. Remember to get your speed as fast as possible getting off Supreme lift so you can cut your uphill bootpack time down. The restaurant at the angle station on Collins is legit, but budget 90 minutes and get reservations! The bar at the Peruvian is my favorite on the hill.

East Castle and Castle Apron are a ton of fun if you want to hike some (and Devil's Castle if you want to hike a lot). It can be a Saturday and feel like you're the only one on the mountain. The Greeley Area is where I feel like I might fall and die, so be careful! I'm not gonna lie, the Wildcat lift (no safety bar and barely any side bar) is not my cup of tea either.

Sadly I'm not making it to Alta this year, when they've already surpassed snow totals for all of last year and many other years. But at least I've got Steamboat in a couple of weeks!

We also hired a guide who gave us an awesome backcountry tour with skins (my first time). DM me if you want his info.
 
Big guys trip to vail in a few weeks, haven't been in a while.

Mainly looking for dinner reservation recs?

Also any strong dos/don'ts for the whole place
 
tigerswood said:
While I'm on the thread, I'm tacking on 3 days of skiing next weekend at Winter Park after a work trip to Denver. Have never been and would appreciate tips on challenging terrain/snow quality and apres/dining spots. Staying in a cabin ~ 5 minutes from the slopes and will have a rental car. Kind of wish we were taking the train, but it doesn't run back to Denver on Monday when we fly out.
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How'd you like your trip?

Things got a little backed up Saturday on the WP side with race closures and a lift being down. I for one enjoyed the conditions greatly and had a fun time. Looking forward to going back in a month.
 
i "have" to go help my son move in at Copper when he starts his job out there in a few weeks. poor me.
 
leftcoastdeac said:
How'd you like your trip?

Things got a little backed up Saturday on the WP side with race closures and a lift being down. I for one enjoyed the conditions greatly and had a fun time. Looking forward to going back in a month.
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Guess the "next weekend" wasn't clear, as I had a buddy also confused on a text chain.

I fly out to Denver on Thursday for work, and then headed up to WP on Friday with my sister. We'll ski Fri-Sun, and possibly half day Mon if we get any fresh snow (maybe Sun). The house we're staying in is a work colleague's in Fraser, so will be a bit of a drive to the slopes, but I'm not one to pass up free lodging, particularly in a pretty sick cabin. If we're driving, and mostly black/double skiiers - should we park at the Mary Jane base?

Looks like a nice little snow thump on Wed/Thurs and windy conditions which should fill in things well (hopefully no flight issues into Denver).
 
tigerswood said:
Guess the "next weekend" wasn't clear, as I had a buddy also confused on a text chain.

I fly out to Denver on Thursday for work, and then headed up to WP on Friday with my sister. We'll ski Fri-Sun, and possibly half day Mon if we get any fresh snow (maybe Sun). The house we're staying in is a work colleague's in Fraser, so will be a bit of a drive to the slopes, but I'm not one to pass up free lodging, particularly in a pretty sick cabin. If we're driving, and mostly black/double skiiers - should we park at the Mary Jane base?

Looks like a nice little snow thump on Wed/Thurs and windy conditions which should fill in things well (hopefully no flight issues into Denver).
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Coming from Fraser you'll be driving past the main resort lots to get to the Jane lot and it is usually the first lot to fill up since everyone coming from Denver gets to that lot before the main resort. Friday and Sunday you probably won't have any trouble, but if you go to Jane lot on Saturday you'll want to go early. Also, you can park at WP and ski Mary Jane pretty easily; either by using the bus to shuttle between the base areas or by skiing from the WP side to MJ.

Given that you are an advanced skier, you may want to do some research on how to access the Vazquez Cirque territory. I think you have to queue up at the top of Pano Express for a ski patrol escort to that part of the mountain, but by all accounts it's a pretty rad experience (I've never done it - I'm not capable of skiing that kind of terrain).

ETA: I believe the WP app has some parking information in it - not sure how useful it is or if it's just lot maps.
 
Winter Park was great. I've been lucky to ski a ton of resorts, and have never had better tree skiing. 4 fresh inches Wed/Thurs and cold temps kept things really nice and soft Friday and early Saturday.

We ran into 2 ~30 min lift lines on Saturday, but were able to escape and then never had any more issues. The Eagle Wind lift and territory was awesome, great snow/trees, and zero crowds.

Sunday, we did the hike/snowcat sled to the Cirque Territory and somehow still found some calf-knee deep powder. Unbelievable scenery back there too.

Hernandos was awesome for pizza and a great bar/pub atmosphere, and we had a very nice/fancy meal at Devil's Thumb Ranch. Would love to stay there some day.
 
YoungBuck95 said:
Need @Shooshmoo to chime in. It was a pretty good weekend to be out here
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Missed this and completely forgot to post about the trip. Had a great time -- so cool to have all of those resorts so close to SLC. Could not have asked for better weather.

We unexpectedly did the $16 after 3 pm Alta deal on Thursday and it was an excellent decision. No one on the mountain. And it was not crowded at all on Friday. Most stress free getting on a hill in my life. I'm one of the weaker skiiers in the group and preferred Alta to Snowbird -- not allowing snowboarders at Alta definitely weighed in to that along with it not being nearly as busy as Snowbird on Sat. Alta was awesome for someone at my level.

Snowbird seems tailored for strong skiiers. At the beginning of the day we dropped into the big bowl from the path to paradise and that was about as advanced as I was going to get. Made it down and a buddy of mine got down about 40 minutes later after a pretty big wipeout. He was ok but spooked for the rest of the day. Everything mid mountain up that wasn't black seemed like it was just meant to be a hill from which to drop into a black, and it was hard to figure out which runs were which. We were fine doing blues from mid mountain down for the second half of the day. Stronger skiiers I was with absolutely loved snowbird.

Overall, great trip and thanks for the recs.
 
Nice, glad you enjoyed. We’ve avoided the bird for the reason of me being a new skier & folks at work have definitely said to avoid unless very comfortable skiing.

Where all y’all eat?
 
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