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I'll have fingers crossed that they'll manage to open some bonus trails on Wed and will go ahead of schedule with 22 trails as well, as I'm locked in for Wed and Fri next week, ugh.

I wonder, what is the seventh lucky trail that they're promising to open by Wed...

"People in the east will show up to ski even if it’s 55 degrees out, there’s a million people clogging up the 4 trails open, the snow is absolute dog shit, and it’s so foggy that you can’t see the tips of your skis." Sounds like epic weekend. I should've come!

It was meh today. Best weather of the week, I thought conditions would be better, but it started loose and sugary, only 30 mins later Midway blew up, and around 11am it all started to turn into mash. Not much snowmaking progress, they completely gave up on Burma. Something was going on at the bottom of Lazy, but Lazy itself is still covered with grass, so perhaps they were just making an escape route from Main into the Valley. Upper Main is same as week ago, in short, that Almanac doesn't deserve the paper it's printed on.

It was gorgeous today. Sunny at first, grippy and fast snow, yet no ice. And so few people that the trails stayed nice up until noon. It was like 10 times better than the opening day, and the only gripe that I have is that this time there was nobody to greet me at the doors and say "Welcome back".

Nice to see ya all.

Work is overrated. Come ski the first day of the season, cookies or not!

There'll be cookies at the bottom of Main St if tomorrow is anything like last year. Are you coming? It's once-in-a-year opportunity to actually get on snow first, as opposed to only on chair.

Yeah, I was there once: https://www.paskiandride.com/forums/topic/19428-ski-arlberg Flew to Zurich, stayed in Warth at Airbnb about 20 mins away from the lifts. Haus Huber was like $800 for 7 nights, 2BR apartment. Warth was really quiet, but also on the outskirts, so I think while we initially planned to ski all the way to St. Anton, we realized that it was a little too far and it would really be just get-there-and-start-going-back-right-away kind of a day. We did ski their White Ring route and crossed through Lech a number of times. Liked the atmosphere there, but it was certainly not as quiet as Warth. Aside from skiing, spent half a day at St. Gallen on the way there, did a day trip to Neuschwanstein in the middle of the week and out of nowhere hit a festival in Bezau while going back to the airport. Do people think it's safe to book skiing trips abroad already? Dolomites didn't open even for one day last winter.

I have a feeling that this Moderna may be worse than the actual stuff. I have NEVER felt this bad in my life, can't believe it's only a vaccine. And it all started so well. No side effects from the first shot except for the sore shoulder. Peachy 8 hours after the second shot, well maybe the shoulder felt a little worse, but then... Temperature started to rise, first felt almost pleasantly warm, just in time for bed, but it soon changed to chills, oh what a wonderful feeling it is when you feel both hot and cold. Had to find an extra blanket, but by the middle of the night I got so hot that all blankets had to go, and I swear I was almost glowing red. Add to this nausea and awful, excruciating headache so that I couldn't even move my head w/o feeling a myriad of little explosions inside. And the heart racing all night long. Took some Tylenol in the morning, the headache got a little better, so I was able to fall asleep for a couple of hours, but it's back now. This is nuts, I seriously can't remember feeling so miserable ever.

Wow, 2am!

How's packing going on? Did you already find someone to water flowers and feed the fish? Found $20 to tip shuttle driver? Checked in and paid for luggage?

Show me where I said so.

United.

Yup. As a reminder, got denied of my hard earned priority boarding yesterday, and was cattled in row by row to 100% capacity.

Now that I'm back, I'd like to close this thread... First, thanks to all who've been there earlier this year and posted their TRs. It should be pretty obvious that I was often following their tracks, and it saved me a lot of time on research. The choice of SLC hotels, easy hikes to kill time, advice on good trails and lifts, that was all extremely helpful. We've skied 3 days total (there was a fourth day planned at Snowbasin, but then we had to rebook the flights and cut the trip short). The choice of mountains was primarily driven by their elevation (this is a late trip, so the higher the better) and price (we have no season passes and paying $200 per day at DV is absurd). The original plan was to split the stay between condos at Solitude and Crystal Inn in downtown. Hearing how a PITA it can be to drive up the canyon after a fresh snowfall, regardless of the vehicle, just based on the number of people that suddenly get hit by the overpowering desire to ski no matter what, it seemed logical to avoid daily trips from SLC to Brighton/Solitude and just stay on the mountain. Well, there were no snowfalls while we were there, no driving issues, no crowds (yay for the beautiful sunny weather), and yet I feel that staying at condo was so much worth it and better than what we then saw at SLC, even despite the 3x price tag. It's not only obviously convenient to just walk out the building and get on the snow, then go back for a lunch and then for a stroll at the end of the day, it's just a different feeling and mood when you don't have to park in the crowd, boot in the crowd, then pack the car and snake back to SLC at end of the day in a long line of departing vehicles. Instead you live at where you ski and that makes you feel at home rather than being a regular day tripper. I do have to say that these condos are freaking expensive and same kind of experience can be had for half the price with breakfasts and dinners included in Italy, but whatever. The whole ski industry here is expensive. IDK whether the weather was out of the ordinary this week or it's always more or less the same in late March, but conditions were top notch. Blue skies, warm sun, snow is everywhere and while the trees and everything outside the trails were not inviting due to frozen crust, the groomers were immaculate and end of the season thin crowds made them so much fun to ski - fast like a bullet, straight to the lift, in a never ending loop. I'd say you start to get bored of Solitude by the end of the second day because it's not too big, and there are only so many ways to ski it top to bottom, but then you kind of miss it the day after. I've already talked about our impression of Brighton, it's certainly a much larger, diverse and entertaining mountain, but I feel that it has to be skied in the precise order of covering the center as early as possible while kids haven't arrived yet, then explore the Western side, then have a lunch on the terrace at the bottom of Milly Express and spend the remaining time at the Milly side until it closes at 4pm. This should help avoiding long lines, pizzas and reckless teens. Agree or disagree, but if I'm ever back there, that's going to be my plan. I don't know what to think of SLC downtown. We didn't particularly plan our time there, and on two days (Sunday early afternoon and Wednesday night) we found the downtown to be devoid of life, with hardly any people, empty trams, just rare cars traveling on the rectangular grid of 3-4 lane one way streets. Yeah, there are cafes, bars and eateries, but sometimes you are not even allowed to stay in the cafe after ordering and get ejected right back into the empty streets, so overall it was quite a disappointment. It seems like a very boring place, and the views of the city from the Ensign peak would be just as boring were it not for the surrounding mountains and Farmington Bay. On the other hand, in the morning of the last day we caught quite the opposite mood on Main street and really wanted to spend a couple of hours just walking around, too bad we were pressed by the departing flight. So there, it was a very enjoyable skiing trip, I wouldn't mind repeating it just the same and at about the same time, i.e. end of March next year, but I figure I'll wait with this decision until I hear more about Salty's next year adventures on his newly bought Epic pass and then, who knows, I will shamelessly copycat it again.

@saltyant, you need another hobby for the summer time. And since you are a fan of Florida, why not get some instructions and go dive wrecks in the Keys? I’ll be your buddy 👌🏻

And what’s that strange blob that we’ve spotted from the air in the way down?

Oh well, so the it looks less of a rerun, here are some downtown pics.

Nah, this place feels like Milly Express today.

Just got there. One hour till boarding 🤣

Btw, the guy on the stone was a slacker. He could’ve hiked higher.

Had some time to kill before the 1pm flight... Hiked to Ensign and beyond. Salty, did you end up going here?

That’s how breakfast is served these days 😂

Some views, which I think, are unique to Brighton. Like the $555 fine.