On Wednesday, we woke up to a powder day, and grabbed the shuttle to aptly named Powder Mountain (click on the picture above for a slideshow). This is little known ski area in the northern Wasatch, but its very large (7000 acres) and has superb snow conditions. It gets the typical, light dry Utah type of snow (5% moisture content) that is so fun to ski in. However the mountain is accessed by an old road, which can be tricky to drive, so we were happy to have a shuttle (which we were the only ones on).
Upon arrival, we booted up in the small, primitive lodge and went outside. It's a mountain with an unusual layout -- the base is near the top -- and a mountain host offered to guide us around for the morning for free. Normally I think they are $175. Because this mountain has so much backcountry and off trail skiing, either bus or caterpillar served, one needs a service like this if you are new to the area. Visibility was terrible, and our plan was to stick to lift served inbounds terrain anyways, but the guide was very helpful.
We have skied all over North America and Europe, and I'm not sure we've experienced better snow anywhere. We were scratching our heads, trying to think of better times. But the 9" of fresh snow was fantastic, and light to float through. None of us have powder skiing skills, so we ended up falling a lot, but when the snow is that soft, you just laugh and get up. The hardest part is making sure you don't lose a ski/pole etc, as finding them in the snow, and visibility would be hard.
Our little group was some of the very few people out in a storm, midweek. There were probably less than a 100 people on the entire hill, so we had the whole place to ourselves, which can be a little spooky if you get lost, confused, hurt etc. We had a great time, and came home exhausted, but exhilarated. This is a special place, that is just starting to be developed, but its very much worth the trip from Salt Lake City if one is staying there and sampling all the bigger, better known areas. There are even some beds at the base area, and on the access road, which is not true for Snowbasin -- a bigger and better known area.
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