What pass to Buy in the SLC

BrownBomber

BrownBomber

Member
So I'm a Freshman this year at Westminster, and totally new to the Utah skiing game. My Parents have agreed to pay for a pass of my choice, and i plan on throwing down on a second, obviously cheaper one. Unfortunetly, i have no clue where to go. Ive heard so much good stuff about every resort, im frankly, overwhelmed.

To get so good help, i guess ill describe what kinda skier i am. Im a huge fan of powder (who isnt?) and really want to get into backcountry this year, just cant afford the gear right now. I recently purchased a pair of 2011 Volkl Chopstix, and am looking at some HG's. I also spend alot of time in the park, though i wouldnt consider myself above average by any means. Im looking to get better at it though, so a good park at at least one of the Mt's is a must. I also like dropping cliffs on powder days, so a few scattered (not huge) cliffs would be a plus for sure.

I've been talking to alot of people about their preference of Mountains, with totally mixed reply's. What im hearing though, is that The Bird/Alta is the place for Powder and Backcountry, but get hectic on those days when it dumps. They are also a bit spendy, and have no park game. Park City is a bit on the

cheaper side, and has the best parks, but no pow. and Brighton and Caynons offer a bit of everything.

If Newschoolers could help me out, maybe confirm or deny my current since of the mt's, and just give me some imput as to where you think i should end up, that would be tight.
 
Definitely get a PC pass, then consider brighton/alta/snowbird as your second pass, you'll have a great time at any of the three.
 
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Based on what you described, Brighton sounds perfect for you. Good park scene, good pow, low crowds, mini-cliffs, and gives you awesome access to some great sidecountry/backcountry areas in Big Cottonwood. Canyons probably 2nd best pick.

Have your rents buy you the Canyons pass, then you can probably get a Brighton pass for relatively cheap.
 
this

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No pass 4 U or fats asses Eheaths

the powpow is swank on B right ON

it means fun

I bets there ismore useful info in the UT regionals

but who goes or asks questions there

they dont give out +k E cookies in regionals
 
If it's a debate between Canyons and Brighton then Brighton's the no brainer choice in this one. Way better terrain and way closer
 
Couple things:1. Wanting to get into the backcountry shouldn't have much bearing on your pass decision, unless you are wanting to do a lot of lift serviced out bounds stuff (some folks call that slackcountry). If that is the case, the bird isn't the best place for it, the gates aren't open much. If you want a lot of slackcountry options, Brighton is a very good choice, the gates are almost always open, lots of terrain: hidden canyon, Clayton's, Wolverine Cirque, Seagull, etc....
2. Saying that Park City Resorts (PCMR, Canyons, DV) don't get powder is a little ignorant. They get a ton of snow compared to most places in the US, they just don't absolutely dumped on like the Cottonwoods. Most of the skiers at PC and Canyons are park rats, or gaper tourists.. thus when it does snow you really aren't fighting a ton of people for the snow. The Canyons also has some nice backcountry gates...
3. Like others have said go to PCMR or Canyons if you are a park junkie or just wanna hang out with that U crowd (you still will have some great powder days). Really hard to beat Alta/Bird for Big Mountain stuff.
4. If you hate crowds, don't feel like dealing with little cottonwood closing, then solitude is a good option. I kind of think of it as a poor mans snowbird (not financially, but terrain wise). Good lines there, and some sick terrain if you are willing to hike a little bit (Fantasy, Headwall, Honeycomb, etc..) Their backcountry gates are also pretty good and open a good bit.
5. Brighton is your hybrid resort, OK park. I like the jibs a lot (you better be comfortable with urban type entry), the jump line is OK... Good powder, and untouched lines all the time if you are willing to hike (ex. Pioneer Peak). The shots just aren't that long there.... Backcountry gates are awesome. Milly gate gets you so close to so much awesome terrain. The hidden canyon gate feels like cheating. All the snowboarders give it a pretty chill vibe also...
If you care, I skied Brighton last year (loved the backcountry access, and being able to ski the park at night!), but I'm going back to the bird this year just because I miss the bigger lines and that is where most of my crew skis...
 
^^^^ strong post

all i can add is for the past 2 seasons solipatrol hasnt been opening hwy2heav or fantsey gates nearly as much as the past. budget, snow stability, man power and a change of head snowsafe change all factor into that and silllytude sell their season pass by dotw.

oh and Ive passed a few thousand cars sitting in the lemming line in my 14 y of employment in some other canyon.

So factor in ~24 hours of your pass will be spent sitting in your car or driving up early to sit in the gmd or turdplaza

and ask how should I not have to buy a pass yet ski a lot

the answers are out there.
 
Ok, just re-read you question. If you are buying two passes I think the decision is easy: get a PC pass and a snowbird (or alta) pass. With two passes no reason to mess with the hybrid resorts. Get the best park one and the beat big mountain one...
 
I agree with this for the most part. My only gripe with Alta/snowbird is how crowded they get. I skied brighton on a really deep saturday and there was virtually no crowd. Then the next week I skied Alta on a wednesday and it was very skied by 1030. There is no arguing that Alta/Bird have way longer runs but I enjoy Brighton enough that I would rather ski there without the crowds of LCC. I am getting PC and Brighton passes.
 
Surprised to see all the hate on PC, from what i hear that place is the best for park. It kinda seems like thats all they offer tho... That true?
 
No PC is the only place where you can shove overpriced hotdogs called cobradogs into your fat pudgy face while hotlappin the shitty park w/ Eheath while he bitches because there only letting orangenamed real pros in the good park today.

a few hot cougars and yeah that about covers park shitty

next question?

 
fwiw the nazi sticker is not mine or sfbs views

most likely the lev project or other butthut gay tray riders. that one is on a soli rescue sled atop e bowl of silly fork.

the pc still sucks is also old school and harkens back to park west days and when oneplankers wernt allowed at pc. but holds true imo

OP more info on my resort is the bestest in ut regionals. U read?
 
for powder and cliffs snowbird is definitely the place for you but a very small park. if you want everything good then go to the canyons.
 
I had brighton/canyons last year and I was quite disappointed with canyons, where I was STOKED (and still am) on Brighton. It seemed like even if I went on the best snow days to canyons, I was still wishing I was at brighton. Canyons would get 6" (good but not great) and Brighton would be getting 10+. The slackcountry at brighton is 10x better than canyons in my opinion. If you want to get to untouched stuff at canyons you have to hike for like an hour, wheras at brighton they are like 10 minute hikes. Although Canyons doesnt have huge lines on the good pow lifts (99/90) they have very long lines on the lifts that you have to take to get over to the good pow lifts. The lift setup is TERRIBLE and it is a pain to get down the mountain at the end of the day. My main problem with canyons is that their pow lifts service areas that seem very skinny, which result in them getting tracked out easily, its not like brighton where its a wide open bowl with tons of area. For example, off of 99/90 (arguably the best pow chair) there are two inbounds runs coming off of it, and they are thin. There are also 2 sidecountry options, which are a little bit larger but still there is the one bowl to the left that is small and gets tracked out super fast, and the one on the right that only has a few good paths down, that also gets tracked out pretty fast. The canyons park is better than brightons, but the speed and flow of the park isnt nearly as good and therefore I almost favor brightons park (heard they are changing canyons park next year so that is a +). So if you are thinking between those two thats my opinion on them.
 
The man hit it right on the money. To add insult to injury, Canyons is my least favorite resort in the Wasatch. And that's with or without the 'The'.
 
I love the living/social scene in Park City, but I'm almost debating buying my pass somewhere outside PC. I had a 'Bird pass last season and anything less than that is gonna seem like a huge disappointment this year. It's such a tease that Brighton is a 10 minute drive from PC in the summer with Guardsman open, but in the winter takes soooooo f'in long to go all the way around.
 
When i was there i thought solitude was to small, p.c. or canyons were both fresh, canyons huge and good all round. but not the snow that they get in cottonwood canyons. snow bird for big mountain stuff. pretty much what everyone is saying but personally i don't think solitude. its to small for my liking and thought it was lacking in variety. canyon's was dope all round. and snowbird or Alta. for pow, natural terrain.

my 2 cents
 
Haha, no, it isn't at all compared to LCC sidecountry. Brighton sidecountry is full of short shots and mellow pow, it gets better if you're willing to really work for it, but if that's the case you might as well be coming into BCC from Alta.

OP, you'll have fun everywhere. Brighton has a lot of mini golf and less crowds, Alta and Snowbird have WAY bigger terrain, but you are playing the pow day race the crowds game (which I don't have a problem with, I would way rather be up LCC).

People saying Canyons doesn't get snow are dumb, skied there the last two years and had 3 of the top 5 deepest days of my life there. Last season Alta and snowbird were deeper (couldn't afford an LCC pass that season, so disappoint) but the year before Canyons was actually getting more snow some days than LCC.
 
Alta and Brighton or Alta and Park city. Lived in Utah my whole life and Alta is defiantly the best pow
 
haha the rock gardens are anything but "short shots and mellow pow", I agree that there are bigger lines in LCC but a 20 min hike up milly can give you some gnarly shit that is anything but short and mellow
 
if your getting two passes then get one to snowbird for sure. amazing snow, really steep mountain that has gnarly stuff scattered all over the place. if your bored at snowbird your just not challenging yourself enough. it can get tracked out fast but you can be faster. the crazier parts tend to stay pretty untouched too so if you're looking to get better at shredding powder snowbird is the place. then get another one at either pc or brighton or the canyons for park days.
 
Yea, there's a couple lines up milly that you can get into that are fun, but that's not much considering hikes you can take out of Alta.

The rock gardens are the definition of short shots.... a long traverse, a couple turns, drop a cliff, a couple more low angle turns, then some tree skiing to another traverse out. Sure, you can drop some big cliffs, but that just means less turns on the top and bottom. There's nothing that's long and steep.

Brighton is good fun, but everything there is really short and kinda steep, or a low vert cliff zone, or mellow. The face of milly is good for a couple runs, but again still pretty short and not that steep.
 
agreed there 100%. I took what you were saying as "everything is mellow", which isnt the case, but it is shorter runs for sure and it isnt as steep as alta/bird. hidden can be pretty intense, and always has good snow, and pioneer has some of the most fun tree skiing (and some EXTREMELY gnarly lines, you can't argue that one). I love the bird and alta, they are amazing, alta was notched off because of the whole not allowing snowboarders thing (all my roommates board) and the bird just seems a little bit overcrowded for my liking, and thats why Ive stuck with brighton. Plus what kind of a mountain doesn't let people dress up for one day out of the year (gaper day), that just pissed me off and seemed like they were making the mountain way too uptight. I loved going to gaper day at brighton to see all the lifties partying as hard as everyone else was and some of the upper management living it up too, just the vibe I like in a ski resort.. but no matter what resort you choose, youre gonna be happy, theyre all sick
 
For sure, I agree. Not all of Brighton is mellow, it's just not my sort of resort.

Wait, they don't allow you to dress up at snowbird?

I didn't even know you lived in Utah.
 
haha yeahhh from ohio but going to the U. but yeah my buddy works up there and said the upper management was giving instructions to some of the lifties/booth workers to not let people get on the mountain if they were dressed up
 
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