recap of 3 week visit to Utah Feb/Mar 2021

JimK

I've skied 14 out of the last 19 days at Snowbird, UT. The snowpack is not great this year in UT, but there were two good storms that helped conditions during my visit. I'm returning east for a couple of weeks and then heading back out there for April and perhaps part of May.
Here is a photographic recap.
First day on alpine skis this winter 19Feb2021

My son leading me down a route in the Upper Cirque area

A pretty day in Mineral Basin, 23Feb

A mini-powder day in the Tiger Tail glades, 24Feb

Looking up at The Cirque, 26Feb. Great Scott is the run under the sun to right of treeline.

Best pow day of my visit, I took this photo of my son 28Feb

He took this one of me

A friend on a pretty day in Little Cloud bowl

Nice drifted snow in the High Bookends section of Mineral Basin

A friend with pretty view of Mt. Timpanogos

Moi entering Great Scott, took a little act of faith to follow traverse around that exposed point in the right background. A local had shown me this safe entrance earlier in the day.

Moi taking a photo of the good snow/skiing in Great Scott

Lunching at my car on bypass road

Last day before going back east for a few weeks, 9Mar21

ciscokid

Wish my geezerhood status was as good as yours

Great pics Jim!

rickbolger

wow, great photos, interesting report (as usual) :) ! thanks for sharing with us

lotsoskiing

(drool) :p

JimK

As an age 65+ I was fortunate to rather easily score a first dose of moderna vaccine while out here at a grocery store pharmacy on Feb 27. They seem to have a plentiful supply out here and it gives me a good excuse to come back out to Utah for second dose in late March.

lotsoskiing

JimK;c-47516 wroteAs an age 65+ I was fortunate to rather easily score a first dose of moderna vaccine while out here at a grocery store pharmacy on Feb 27. They seem to have a plentiful supply out here and it gives me a good excuse to come back out to Utah for second dose in late March.

Medical tourism...it's a thing! Just got my first shot here in VT. Easy peasy. Was surprised by the thoughts that went through my head as that little amount of chemicals went into my arm...where we'd be if it had existed a year ago, and where we'd be if none of the scientists who developed it had the brains they have.

Deep thoughts and thread hijack, I know...

JimK

I skied with an MD (guy in yellow jacket in some of my photos) while out here for 3 or 4 days and felt extremely thankful for his (and all health care workers) dedication to his profession. He basically had to live in a separate part of the house from his wife for a year because of his job and her compromised immune system.

I think they should stop the world for an hour and do some sort of global tribute to the health care profession including the folks that developed the various vaccines. Getting this pandemic behind us is a BIG deal.

slatham

Be very interested to learn of the reality of traffic up LCC and lines? I've heard such horror stories that other than mid-week during some off time of year I have the major areas around SLC off my list.

JimK

The only real crunch is on powder days, otherwise parking is pretty easy if you arrive early, or plan ahead, or don't mind walking a bit, or are willing to ride mostly empty buses. But the parking situation in LCC this year is somewhat intimidating due to special covid rules, esp for vacationers because Snowird required reservations, Alta did not. Therefore, if going to Alta you had to worry that their lots would be full by 830 or 9 am and you had to be early on pow days or prime weekends or else get turned around. At Snowbird you had to make an advance reservation to get convenient parking and many weekends were snapped up weeks/months in advance. Weekdays not so, but they'd get snapped up too if storm was in forecast. If in a period of snow drought you could get reservations night before or morining of even on weekends.

However, Snowbird also allowed parking on the access road without reservations most days if you didn't mind walking further to slopes. These complexities would make many vacationers think twice about coming to LCC if they weren't real savvy about the parking thing. Of course, you could argue that's exactly what the ski areas wanted, less casual visitors and more savvy and hopefully safe/well-behaving visitors?? I didn't visit BCC areas this trip.
The traffic up and down LCC is generally fine unless there is approx 8-12" or more new overnight snow, which this winter is only once every couple of weeks. If there is a good snow dump they might close LCC for a couple of hours (6-8am) for plowing and avi mitigation. In mid-Feb 2021 they closed it for 2.5 days due to big storm cycle and high avi risk. It was no joke, about 5 or 6 slides crossed the access road at that time and I saw them trailering out a dead UDOT snow plow from overwork.

Heading out momentarily to make the 2000 mile drive east.

jaytrem

Very nice! Always enjoy the trip reports. Gotta post my Southern one, but very busy with work and of course trying to plan the next trip.

Have a safe drive!

slatham

Thanks for insight. Seems doable if maybe a hassle. And of course next year will be different based on Covid situation and how Ikon sales go.

ski_it

As always stellar report and pics. + 1 to the drool & geezer comments