Solitude, Alta, Brighton and Snowbird

I'm thinking of going to one of these but am not familiar with them. My
family tends to like harder blues and easier single blacks. Grooming is
generally considered a good thing among the family members. Double diamond
runs are irrelevant. Back country/off piste skiing is irrelevant. Night
life is irrelevant. A decent ski school for the 8 year old is necessary.
(He skis OK for an 8 year old.) Proximity to the airport is important but I
assume they're all pretty close (let me know if that's not correct).

I'm going in the spring and would like to have as winterish conditions as
possible. If one or the other is better on that score, that would be good
to know as well.

Can anyone give me suggestions/a run down on the differences?

Thanks.

DZN wrote:
I'm thinking of going to one of these but am not familiar with them. My
family tends to like harder blues and easier single blacks.

1. Solitude
2. Brighton

Not much easy stuff at Alta/Snowbird.

-- Mike Treseler

DZN wrote:
I'm thinking of going to one of these but am not familiar with them. My
family tends to like harder blues and easier single blacks. Grooming is
generally considered a good thing among the family members. Double diamond
runs are irrelevant. Back country/off piste skiing is irrelevant. Night
life is irrelevant. A decent ski school for the 8 year old is necessary.
(He skis OK for an 8 year old.) Proximity to the airport is important but I
assume they're all pretty close (let me know if that's not correct).

I'm going in the spring and would like to have as winterish conditions as
possible. If one or the other is better on that score, that would be good
to know as well.

Can anyone give me suggestions/a run down on the differences?

Thanks.





Solitude is a very family orientated place. Some really nice wide black
(gray) runs and it's about the closest to the airport. You could stay in
motel in Sandy and it's a short drive up the canyon. Most of the
boarders go on up to Brighton. I really like the electronic card passes.
Just put it in a pocket and the reader picks it up and lets you through
the gate.

DZN wrote:
My family tends to like harder blues and easier single blacks. Grooming
is generally considered a good thing among the family
members. Double diamond runs are irrelevant. Back country/off piste
skiing is irrelevant. Night life is irrelevant. A decent ski school
for the 8 year old is necessary. (He skis OK for an 8 year old.)

If all you can ski is groomed runs, I'd say that a decent ski school is a
necessity for all of you.

--
ant

DZN wrote:
I'm thinking of going to one of these but am not familiar with them. My
family tends to like harder blues and easier single blacks. Grooming is
generally considered a good thing among the family members. Double diamond
runs are irrelevant. Back country/off piste skiing is irrelevant. Night
life is irrelevant. A decent ski school for the 8 year old is necessary.
(He skis OK for an 8 year old.) Proximity to the airport is important but I
assume they're all pretty close (let me know if that's not correct).

I'm going in the spring and would like to have as winterish conditions as
possible. If one or the other is better on that score, that would be good
to know as well.

They're all about the same distance from the airport, and all about the
same elevation, so the travel time and "wintery-ness" is about the same.
Snowbird has the lowest base elevation, so you're more likely to find
slush at the bottom, but it also has the most vertical drop so there's
still plenty of winter at the top of the hill.

Solitude: This would be my top recomend for someone who likes tough
blues. The blues at Solitude are steeper than at most other resorts,
and they groom them pretty agressively. The groomed blacks aren't that
much harder than the blues, so this would seem to fit your desire for
tougher blues/easier blacks. Solitude is never crowded, so the groomed
runs stay groomed.

Brighton: SLC's family ski resort. Abundant easy cruisers, anything
rated blue is pretty tame. Blacks are mostly ungroomed. Probably not for
you, unless you want to take a break and have an easy day. Note: Don't
go there on a saturday, it's the only hill in SLC where kids ski free,
so the Mormons descend on it in a horde-like manner on Saturdays and
these folks have a lot of kids. Sundays and weekdays are fine.

Alta: Ungroomed, off-piste, steep and deep is what Alta's known for.
That said, there's a fair amount of groomed cruisers, certainly enough
to hold one's interest for a day or two. The greens at Alta are very
easy, the blues are not too tough, maybe too easy for you, the few
groomed blacks are rather steep, maybe tougher than you're looking for.
The majority of the hill never sees a groomer ever, lots of area, many
different lines down the hill. I like skiing Alta a lot, even though I
stay on the groomed most of the time. BTW, no snowboards at Alta.

Snowbird: Steep, gnarly, tough hill. Perhaps more grooming than at
Alta. I don't like it as much as the others. You might.

My advice is would be to spend a couple of days at the Cottonwood
Canyons resorts and hit a couple different ones. See what you like.

//Walt

Mike Treseler wrote:
DZN wrote:

I'm thinking of going to one of these but am not familiar with them.
My family tends to like harder blues and easier single blacks.


1. Solitude
2. Brighton

Not much easy stuff at Alta/Snowbird.

There's plenty of easy stuff at Alta. The green runs under the Cecret
and Albion chairs are as easy as you'll find anywhere outside of the
midwest. And the blues are mostly easy cruisers. But perhaps this
would be too easy for the OP.

BTW, DZN, where else do you ski? i.e. What's your baseline for "harder
blues"?

//Walt

ant wrote:
DZN wrote:
My family tends to like harder blues and easier single blacks. Grooming
is generally considered a good thing among the family
members. Double diamond runs are irrelevant. Back country/off piste
skiing is irrelevant. Night life is irrelevant. A decent ski school
for the 8 year old is necessary. (He skis OK for an 8 year old.)

If all you can ski is groomed runs, I'd say that a decent ski school is a
necessity for all of you.


I don't think he said it's all they *could* ski, but it's what they
*want* to ski. Skiing is about enjoying yourself on the mountain.
Whatever you enjoy about skiing, whether it's the groomers, trees, back
country, or gag the park, just go out and do it and have a great time.

--
To reply by email remove "_nospam"

Could have been put more delicately, having a bad day Ant?
Besides, not all of us could handle ungroomed or off-piste skiing, but
still manage to have a good time on groomers, and don't aspire to
anything higher..

-2turn wrote:
Could have been put more delicately, having a bad day Ant?
Besides, not all of us could handle ungroomed or off-piste skiing, but
still manage to have a good time on groomers, and don't aspire to
anything higher..

Shrug. A lot of people seem to think that groomed runs are the definition of
the sport of skiing, and things that aren't groomed are somehow irrelevant.
Then they classify themselves as good skiiers, but stipulate that they can't
ski anything that's not groomed. I fail to understand why they then feel
that it's necessary to put the kids in lessons, but do not feel that they
have anything more to learn.

If they ski the average resort on a day when it's snowing, those groomed
runs will be a mess by the afternoon. That lift ticket cost a lot of money.
Do they blow off the afternoon, or struggle to ski the ungroomed snow? Or do
they head for the resort office to complain about the "unskiiable" snow?

--
ant

Ant said...
If they ski the average resort on a day when it's snowing, those groomed runs will be a mess by the afternoon. That lift ticket cost a lot of money.
Do they blow off the afternoon, or struggle to ski the ungroomed snow? Or do they head for the resort office to complain about the "unskiiable" snow?

Newbe skiers, and infrequent skiers normally can't handle skiing all
day, some of them don't get to the hill untill 10 or 11 am. and then
ski maybe until 3pm, with a stop for lunch. Hopefully they enjoyed
being out there, because they pay for us to be out there. You've skied
at Mt. Snow, think of some of those scraped crappy gray days when
there's no redeeming factors to being out there, how many of those days
do you wish you could go to the bar at 3pm....

A lot of people seem to think that groomed runs are the definition of the sport of skiing, and things that aren't groomed are somehow irrelevant. Then they classify themselves as good skiiers,

When I used to work in a ski shop, I had many renters put down type 3
and tell me they were expert skiers.After questioning, I find out all
they've skied was 3 weekends spread out over the last 10 years, and
never got out of the poconos. I think they don't realize what good
skiing is all about....
In fact, the better I get, the better skiers that I meet, the more I
realize how badly I ski.