March 20-22, 2006: UT-WY-MT (the way home)

After skiing Alta over the weekend, I needed to get back to Seattle. I made just three brief stops during my hasty return.<br><br>Monday morning found me saying good-bye to the friends whose extra bedroom I had been exploiting. I drove only so far as Ogden, however, where I stopped at the underutilized Snow Basin resort - home of the 2002 Olympic downhill. My informants told me Snow Basin is known to hold unskied powder days after the SLC resorts are tracked out. My single day there happily supported this rumor. Not only did I ski untracked knee-deep powder, I skied it largely by myself all day; there were only a handful of us skiing the Strawberry side of the mountain. It was almost weird. If you go, I recommend trying the upper hike-to bowls accessible from the Strawberry Gondola - good fun.<br><br>On the walk back to the parking lot, I decided to head to Jackson Hole rather than to what had been Plan A. I made town by ~9:30pm and to my unnamed, poached campsite shortly thereafter. Enter morning: After breakfast at the Bunnery, I was off to the mountain. As I approached, however, my resolve was weakened by views of plentiful mogul runs. I stopped the car in the load/unload zone only long enough to read the snow report. Uninspired, I headed over the pass to Grand Targhee to see whether it had anything else to offer.<br><br>True to experience, it was snowing hard at Targhee. Unfortunately, this light 3-5" topcoat rested upon a very frozen, very cut-up base. It was both challenging and tiring to ski. To make matters more difficult, the top of the mountain was a white room, limiting the enjoyment one could have with the best snow on the mountain. Given all this, I cut out before the lifts shut down. GT's going to need some more snow and perhaps some wind. This, at least, was my thought as I drove to Missoula.<br><br>Today I done skied Montana Snow Bowl. The same party that informed me of Snow Basin recommended Snow Bowl as a worthy stopover. It was fantastic. Although the sparse coverage at the bottom of the mountain revealed that spring has come to Montana, the upper sections of the mountain held good snow and interesting terrain. What I was even more struck with, however, was the true local feel of the place. It reminded me of skiing when I was a kid: two slow-moving, rusty double chairs, friendly lifties, unlocked gear all over the chalet, and talkative locals that want to hang around after the lifts shutdown. It was great. You should go.<br><br>

Thanks for the tour Skip.

Hooray for the shout out to Snowbowl! That's my home hill and its good to see that others enjoy it as much as I do. I'll be using your post to convince others to go back home and ski there with me. ;D