Fortunately there’s a direct flight from the Central Coast (San Luis Obispo) to Denver. After four consecutive NCAA titles the skiing Utes will be slight underdogs this go around. U coaches, staff, “champions club” members, family, and friends will be meeting for dinner Thursday night, a tight knit gathering of about 30 people. I’ve never previously been to Steamboat, I’m only going there to support the Utes, plus my IKON pass affords me 5 days of skiing, checking out the geography it’s definitely not Alta-Snowbird, or even Solitude, more akin to Park City, except at least Park City offers the Jupiter Bowl terrain.
Although it doesn’t seem to matter to many people anymore, U fans should be proud the ski team is comprised of true student athletes,
I’m thinking that next year I may buy an Alta season pass and ski there exclusively, even if only for a dozen days and barely break even on the cost of the pass, because life is short, and there is no place like it on Earth.
Alta has a “gold card” season pass for $99 early season that gives you half off whatever the day ticket rate is when you go and 2 days reserved parking at a time. 10 days comes out to just under $1000, which is a great deal, IMO.
Narfute, thanks for the heads up. I’ve got a few months to mull over the options.
My 1974/75 Alta season pass cost $135, 1975/76 $150. I let it go for the 76/77 season, because I had to finish school somewhere along the line. The 76/77 winter remains the least snow in Alta history, throughout the Christmas holiday it had barely enough snow to operate, it was the only ski area in the West open, I mean the only ski area, I don’t think even Snowbird was operating. One morning during the holidays I looked down Little Cottonwood Canyon from the top of the Wildcat lift and saw dozens of tour buses redirected from various parts of the country heading up to Alta. I’m guessing that Alta was “discovered” by more new skiers that winter than at any time in its history, noticeably different henceforth.
I’m pretty sure my Snowbird 74/75 pass was $125 and then Snowbird went to 20 days for $100 and I bought that for 75/76. I bought one of those, but the snow was terrible and I ended up going on Study Abroad to Israel through BYU from Jan. 5 or so until June 15. I was able to talk them into letting me roll it over to 76/77, but I was never able to use it because Snowbird didn’t open before I left on my LDS mission to Spain on Jan. 5 or 6 1977.
I now live in Park City and although I miss skiing Snowbird/Alta, being able to walk to the Cabriolet and then ski to my townhome with an Epic pass at $650 is too easy. We had about 20" over the past 48 hours and the skiing today was awesome.
