You would think that sunny skies and warm weather would lift the spirits but when you are a skier and the Utah snow report calls for 50+ temps, it could cause slight depression. I can safely report that WE NEED SNOW. A couple of days of spring skiing is fine but this is getting ridiculous. It’s early March and things are melting fast around here. Fortunately, we have so much snow that it should be weeks before we see dirt and rocks but the conditions underfoot have done a 180 from last week.

SPRING IS HERE

The only resorts still holding winter-like conditions are Alta and Snowbird – at the very tippy top, north-facing aspects. Friday’s jaunt to The Bird revealed some super fun windbuffed off the Tram as well as into Powder Paradise. The groomers off Little Cloud are bullet proof, softening in the late afternoon if there’s no cloud cover, however, the lower half of the mountain is skiing like softening taffy. Temps at the base of Mineral were 54 degrees AND CLIMBING!

We checked out Canyons Saturday and everything was mashed potatoes by 1 p.m. North facing trees like Deschutes were terrifying in the morning with their crispy, crud conditions while the wide-open, south-facing off-piste areas were full of fun slush bumps. Even 9990 was corning up by 11 a.m. The good news is that the crowds have died down. The bad news is that they will soon pick up as spring breakers head for the Wasatch.

When you’re ready for a break get thee to Earl’s for cheese fries!

Snowbasin skied the same as Canyons but, with more grooming and less snowmaking on that mountain, we were able to ski around without any leg-twisting conditions. There’s a definite difference between when manmade and natural snow soften. We had a ton of fun tearing down Strawberry and Philpot with their “corn-like” texture, and playing on the Grizzly downhill. The Mt Ogden Chutes were closed because of potential wet avi slides but you could still ride the soup can to the Peak. The groomer down Wildflower however was World-Cup firm with a yikes factor of 9.

THE FORECAST

If you are traveling to Utah you will love it right now- unless you are expecting that “Champagne powder”. Yeah, no, that ain’t happening. But the weather is gorgeous and you won’t hear any whines from little ones as they slip and slide in the sunshine. Just make sure you wax up as there is nothing new in the snow report for at least a week and it’s sticky out there.