Utah home to little crowds, powder haven
Posted: 03/31/2009 12:30:00 AM MDT
Zach Siebert carves a big arc in Powder Mountain, skiing’s best-kept secret. The mountain is home to more than 7,000 acres of skiable terrain. (Neil Provo, photo courtesy of Powder Mountain )
EDEN, Utah — The turns tighten as the valley narrows and ski tracks slowly rise from the spring snow like fingerprints through decomposing powder along the roadside.
Around a sharp bend stands the most enthusiastic hitchhiker ever to flag down a ride, skis in one hand as an exaggerated knee-bend stretches into the street to reveal a red plastic boot beneath bright blue snow pants, his extended thumb wagging in the air.
Traffic is otherwise nonexistent on the winding stretch about 20 miles outside of Ogden. Less than a mile up the road is Powder Mountain’s mountaintop parking lot. It’s the peak of spring break, but even at 10:30 a.m. there is parking on the front row of the largest — and perhaps least-known — ski
Heli-skiing and snowcat skiing are draws to Powder Mountain. (Scott Willoughby, The Denver Post )
area in the nation.With chairlifts, snowcats and helicopters at the ready, there are more than 7,000 acres to explore in this tucked-away place, which is not on many people’s radar.
There’s no line at the ticket window, no parking attendant asking for money and virtually no one to ask if there were. Perhaps 20 skiers and snowboarders mill about a nearby chalet on this mid-March day.
By 10:30 a.m., I’m already behind the corn-snow cycle below 9,000 feet and late to meet my guide.
It’s another slow day at his office, so the hitchhiker, named Chuck, a bored ski instructor who probably shouldn’t be there but isn’t likely to get in much trouble, decided to do some snow reconnaissance.
“No worries,” Chuck says of my confessed tardiness as he casually stuffs his skis into the back of the truck. “You’re not late. We’re about as relaxed as you can be around here.”
No worries, indeed.
“You really do need somebody to help you find your way around here,” guide Phil Wagner explains during a slow ride on a three-seat lift into the heart of Powder Mountain.
There are only four chairlifts and a platter serving the entire area — 124 named runs — but the raw acreage is overwhelming, larger than Vail,
Lightning Ridge via snowcat offers 700 acres and a 2,100-foot vertical drop. (Scott Willoughby, The Denver Post)
Snowmass or Jackson Hole. As a result, Wagner and roughly a dozen other “mountain adventure pros” lead guests on daily tours through the maze of peaks to some of the mountain’s hidden snow stashes.Chairlifts are only part of the uphill transportation equation at Powder. For $56, adults can ride the lifts all day to nearly 3,000 acres, earning the resort Ski Magazine’s top ranking for value ahead of Loveland and Arapahoe Basin.
And an additional 1,200 acres of so-called “Powder Country” is served by a free roadside shuttle service. For an additional $12, a snowcat ride up 9,422-foot Lightning Ridge increases terrain by some 700 acres. Another 2,500 acres are offered through the $300-per-person Snowcat Powder Safari, and more than 2,000 more are available through Diamond Peaks Heli-Ski Adventures, which offers one-off rides of about 2,500 vertical feet within the ski area for $125, or all-day adventures for considerably more. An entire bowl is dedicated to snow-kiting.
It’s quite a fleet, given that 2,500 skiers on President’s Day is Powder’s definition of “crowded.” More often the mountain’s ski patrol can consider going to a man-to-man defense.
“We were shocked when we saw the Ski Magazine rankings,” marketing manager Carolyn Daniels said. “We called them up to ask how they heard about us. We didn’t even know we were on the radar.”
Humble beginnings
Despite its size, Pow Mow, as it’s known locally, doesn’t advertise on a national scale. Instead,
the area first opened on 11,000 acres of private land by former owner Alvin Cobabe in February 1972 relies on a word-of-mouth buzz through the core skiing community and repeat business from those who stumble onto the place while skiing the more lavish Snowbasin ski area nearby or are simply looking for an escape from the crowds.”We like the sort of quieter, out-of-the-way places,” says Claire Drysdale of Golden, British Columbia, who recently spent a week with husband, Rob, and two of their children at the nearby Snowberry Inn. “We saw the little ’ski’ icon in the atlas and decided to see what it was all about. And we’re happy that we did.”
Even since its sale to Western American Holdings three years ago, Powder Mountain hasn’t changed much beyond the addition of its first high-speed quad the same year. And while the area doesn’t offer skier numbers, Daniels says it has seen double-digit growth for the past three years and this winter will qualify as the second best ever, just behind 2008.
“The chatter is getting louder,” Daniels says.
“Shhhhhh,” Wagner chimes in. “Don’t tell anybody.”
Future in the balance
With one of the largest annual ski reviews of any publication of its type, Backcountry Magazine can conduct its test almost anywhere. But for the past two years, the Vermont-based magazine has chosen Powder Mountain.
“It’s just all about the snow,” editor Adam Howard says. “We come here to try to replicate backcountry conditions and ideally it would be great to do our test in the pure backcountry, but we need to get a lot of reps on skis. We’ve got at least 200 pairs of skis and we’ve got 45 testers, probably 80 pairs of boots and of course all the bindings. So we’ve got to get laps, but the conditions that you get here, even days after the storm, are really close to backcountry conditions.”
For the moment, Powder Mountain manages to retain its local charm, supported by the nearby city of Ogden, population 80,000 and growing. But development is already in the works, currently mired in zoning conflicts between Western American Holdings and the two counties splitting the ski area. The few mountainside homes have already hit the $1 million mark.
It’s a catch-22 or sorts, whether to retain the rustic charisma that separates this powder paradise from the pack or to polish the image in an effort to broaden its appeal to the masses.
“I think Powder is still trying to decide if they want to become like any other resort and throw in a lot of lifts and housing and golf courses, or do they want to embrace the place for what it is right now, as kind of an adventure paradise?” says Howard, a graduate of Western State who has witnessed similar conflict in his former home hill of Mount Crested Butte. “It will be interesting to see what this place is 10 years from now, but I think the new owners would do well to embrace the locals, because local traffic is what made this place.”
