First Visit Report: Powder Mountain

This Sunday, we visited Powder Mountain, one of the hidden gems of the Utah ski scene. This is a rare destination resort not on Epic or Ikon, and it’s not as well known as its seven major competitors in the state. But being quite an adventure on paper, it was time to hit up Pow Mow for a journey down what claims to be the largest resort by skiable footprint in all of North America (the resort claims a total acreage of more than 8,400 acres). 

The Day

Powder limits it ticket sales, and the effects from this were immediately apparent. The resort had gotten a nice storm a couple days before this trip, but because there were so few people on the mountain, the powder was still almost untouched, even directly over lifts. This was especially notable given it was a weekend. Run after run yielded powder line after powder line. South and east facing snow was a little crusty, but north facing zones were super prime—and the powder just kept on coming. On a day when Alta and Snowbird had probably been completely skied off, Powder still had the goods. But then—disaster struck.

A storm started rolling in. And it wasn’t the type of storm you’d want at a ski resort—it was a lightning storm.

Just after getting to the bottom of the Village lift after some epic trees, the lift shut down for a lightning hold. There was no way to ski out from the bottom of the lift—this was a facet of Powder’s structure as an upside-down mountain, with all of its lodges and parking at the top. So about 50 of us ended up down there, and we had to be rescued.

For the first 15 to 20 minutes after the lift went on hold, we didn’t hear anything. But finally, ski patrol came down. They told us they were sending snowmobiles to give people rides—but one at a time. They were sending a snowcat too—the resort had a large fleet of these thanks to Powder’s cat skiing system—but the nearest one was 8 miles away, at the other side of the resort. So it was time to dig in and get ready for a long wait.

But even with the lightning hold, the storm was bringing new snow. So given we were going to be waiting awhile, a couple of us decided to do a quick little hike up and hit some of the fresh powder. It wasn’t easy, but it was better than waiting. We hiked up a couple of towers or so, and then traversed over and hit some tempting aspen trees. That snow was coming down fast and we got some really nice powder turns in there. Even after those earlier runs, the snow was easily the best we skied all day.

So finally a snowcat arrived to bring people up, and we got word that they were going to re-open most of the lifts—but just not the one that we were on. And instead of bringing us to the rest of the lift-serviced resort, the snowcat was going to bring us to a stop for a public bus that we’d need to take to get to the nearest lodge. The first cat came and went, leaving about 20 of us to wait for another 20-or-so minutes. A couple of snowmobiles also came down to take people up one at a time. It was inching closer to the end of the day, and were trying to hit the Paradise lift—an advanced-oriented lift home to powder-riddled steeps—before it closed at 3. Getting to that mountain zone before it closed would depend on if the snowcat would come back fast enough, whether the cat would fit everyone inside, and how fast the bus would come after we were dropped off. The clock was ticking.

The snowcat came back and we got on, but the cabin only had enough seating for 18. Since they didn’t want to do another trip, they decided to shove everyone in. So that meant a situation where it was standing room only—and some of us were holding onto each other for dear life. But we all made it up there.

So we got to the top and the snowcat dropped us off, and it was time to wait for the bus to get back to the resort. It was 2:51. Were we going to be able to make it down to Paradise? We didn’t know yet.

Luckily, the bus came pretty quickly. For drop off, there were two stops: Hidden Lake Lodge and Timberline Lodge, which were both home to the parking lots. Hidden Lake was the fastest way to get down to the Paradise terrain, and everything had to go perfectly at this point. By the time we got to the Hidden Lake Lodge and got our gear on, it was 2:57. We had THREE minutes. It was time to book it down Hidden Lake and catch the last gate down to Paradise. But suddenly—disaster struck again.

After the other lifts reopened while we were stranded at the Village lift, we got the letdown of an announcement that the lightning hold was back on for the entire resort—and Powder Mountain was now fully closed for the day. So Paradise was a no-go, meaning it would take another visit to fully assess this beast of a mountain.

So the last run wasn’t a crazy send down Paradise, but there was still a little bit of fresh powder on the green to get back to the parking at Timberline Lodge. It was a roller coaster of a day, and it was time to get out of there.

Additional Takeaways

Throughout the day, we found a couple of other key takeaways about the Powder Mountain experience. The lifts were definitely on the slower side, with Hidden Lake being the only detachable at the whole resort. The lack of crowds meant every chair was ski on, but for such a massive mountain, the speed of the rides definitely wore you down. That being said, Hidden Lake serviced most of the groomers and had enough to keep those who won’t want to deal with slow lifts happy.

The resort’s aspen trees really stood out. Each venture into the glades yielded soft, floaty powder within a widely-spaced, uniquely open tree footprint. But because the resort was so empty, it was possible to carve both in and out of the trees and get equal amounts of high-quality snow.

And finally, there were a number of condo developments around the resort, including several that were still being built. But unlike at some other Utah resorts, these were all pretty modest and seemed to go well with the resort atmosphere. Some of the trails crossed over roads, but once you got to lower-mountain areas, the upside-down resort felt much more removed from the outside world.

Final Thoughts

So that was day one at Powder Mountain—what a monumental territory to explore. It was a shame that we didn’t get to experience it to its full potential, but we will be back and we hope to hit more of those untouched lines next time. Believe us—even with the 3-day-old powder it was totally worth it.