Snowbasin, UT, Report: Early Season Powder Hunting

Report from Sunday, December 10, 2023

The boys were back in town. Naturally, we decided to go north and head to Snowbasin. 

It was a relief to show up around 9 a.m. with no trouble finding parking, a nice spot near the front, and strolling up to the gondola with a short line…

Sundays are lovely at Snowbasin. 

We hopped on the Needles Gondola and went up; it was mostly cloudy, with rays of sunshine poking through the high-flying, gray clouds. Temperatures were friendly, around 30ºF or so. 

The crew and I were moving slowly after two hard-charging days of powder skiing, so we started by skiing a groomer to Middle Bowl Express. 

We lapped groomers on Middle Bowl for a while, each run our bodies warming, loosening a little more. 

It took a while. 

On a whim we decided to ski back down to Needles at the base area, blasting through a gate leading to Becker Face which was filled with creamy, rich powder. 

The hunt was on after that. 

Back at the top of Needles, we started exploring our options. 

‘119’ held more soft snow, and we hit that a couple times, our craving for soft snow intensifying with each delectable turn. 

Then we found it. 

After a delicious lunch at the base area, we decided to take Needles up and try and make it over to where we had a saw bunch of fresh tracks to the skier’s left of the liftline. 

There was a sharp turn at the end of the rope line on Needles Run just after you got past the first set of ‘ski at your own risk’ signs and it looked promising. 

We followed it, traversing out past the current ski area boundary, and it led us straight to the powder. 

It was the best pow we had skied all day. 

We essentially followed the Porcupine lifeline down and then cut skier’s left into open fields of powder that were hanging around, just asking to be skied. 

Afterward, we went through another ski area boundary gate a little lower off Needles Run, hiked to the left for a while, and then had another untouched shot all to ourselves. 

The snow was smooth, spongey, creamy, and delicious. 

Everyone was stoked after that first lap. 

We repeated this process until 3:59 p.m. when we hopped on the last gondola for the day. 

Then we did exactly the same thing again; traversing out to the soft, powdery fields and having a damn good time while we did it. 

The last lap of the day was the best one. 

Isn’t it always? 

Snow Report

Weather 

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