Salt Lake City: March 2024: Day 3: Snowbird

Salt Lake City

March 2024: Day 3: Snowbird + kbbq

Just barely grabbed parking along the highway right by the entrance - just 3 minutes after opening (!).

Long lines for ticket counter (why??).

Top of Wilbere lift with the 10:30am tour.

Wilbere or Wilmer?

Clouds rolling in over Gad Valley makes for a cool photo.

Peruvian Express and Peruvian Tunnel.

Inside Peruvian Tunnel.

Exit of Peruvian Tunnel.

Going up Mineral Basin.

Looking down over the backside from Mineral Basin.

From the top of the ridge, looking towards the front of Snowbird.

Long traverse if you want to go find the best snow.

Selfie time.

Skiers and clouds.

Coming down Who Dunit towards the eastern end of the resort, looking west towards The Cliff Lodge.

Waiting for the tram to the top.

Lunch at the top had great views, okay food, horrible waits for tables.

Gave up and ate by the window, couldn't even get a table.

View from the top, tram at left.

The aerial tram.

Offloading a hundred people.

So many skis.

Looking at the entrance to Alta.

Baldy lift on the backside.

Back at the base.

Utah Olympic Park Bobsled experience.

Loading the sled.

My sled, driven by RJ, did a 46.50. Probably be faster if I had been able to hold still better.

Incoming!

Fastest time of this group, 45.86 (might have been fastest of the day?)!

Apparently tourist track record is a 45.3. Not today...

Dragging tourists to a halt.

The actual podium.

Luge (left) and skeleton (right).

Chris' dream is to do skeleton.

Sitting on the luge.

Yes, this is the actual training facility.

KOU - Korean BBQ of Utah.

Menu at KOU.

Ban chan. Radish, kim chi, cucumber. Salad.

Salad.

Beef belly, pork belly, beef tongue.

About half the restaurant. Other half 90 degrees to the right.

#44 "KOU Pork" was same thin sliced pork belly as #23 but with a sweet chili sauce?

Marinated galbi was super skimpy. 3 bones and 1 piece of meat.

#41 Korean BBQ pork ribs came precooked, same KOU marinade.

Japchae was meh.

David the magician.

Apparently the only fork-bending magician in Michigan.

Fork is bent.

His audience is very entertained.

With a sunny and clear day expected today, scrapped the plan to go to Solitude or Brighton and opted to do a second day at Snowbird (visiting the former two will have to wait for another time!). Being a nicer day and a Friday, leaving 30 minutes earlier was more than offset by more traffic... ended up snagging one of the last spots on the highway right befor entrance 3 just three minutes after opening (ouch).

Since Chris enjoys doing mountain tours, did the 10:30am guided tour again, and was quite glad we did. Better visibility meant we got to see almost everywhere, including the top, through the Peruvian Tunnel, and over to the back side, which is massive compared to Mammoth Mountain's backside; maybe twice the size, although oddly the same amount of lifts. The magic carpet through the Peruvian Tunnel was a fun, almost museum-like experience, even if the magic carpet did cause issues for a few skiers ahead on the carpet (good thing my poles are aluminum and not carbon fiber, so they could be bent back...). And some of the runs down the backside also felt very similar to Mammoth's backside, with both harder options as well as long wide runs for those more into cruising. Just don't look for any bathrooms or restaurants in Mineral Basin (the formal name).

After a nearly 3 mile long run down from the top of Snowbird's Hidden Peak to the base of the front side, hopped on the aerial tram back to the top. Did not realize (til I got on it) that it was an actual aerial tram and not a gondola, with a 100 passenger capacity per tram, so 200 passengers in-flight (100 heading up, 100 heading down) at any one time. The wait wasn't too horrible (at least not from what I expected given how bad parking was this morning...), and the cafeteria at the top was perfectly serviceable, if you ignored the fact that there was basically nowhere to sit and eat your food. Still can't beat the view at 10,992 feet (3,350 meters), with both the front, the back, and the aerial tram all easily seen.

Did a few runs doing sweeping turns down the back side, peeked over (but not into) Alta, enjoyed some solid snow, then some minor navigational mishaps on the front side before getting back to the car. Great snow all around but legs were done, so with reluctance, it was time to leave. The facilities at Creekside and Snowbird Center are a bit dated but do the job, and they had a nice baby-sized lift (Chickadee) that goes from Snowbird Center up to the parking area entry four where we parked.

The drive to Utah Olympic Park was not bad for a Friday afternoon, felt like it was barely 45 minutes, and arrived early enough to tour their museum to both skiing/ski fashion as well as to the 2002 Winter Olympics. Both are compact enough to not feel overwhelming, yet large enough that you might want to allocate a bit more time (25 minutes or so?) that we had before bobsledding. Bobsledding itself was efficient, with various safety briefings and instructions done in less than 30 minutes, and the whole experience, including shuttle bus ride up to the tourist start of the bobsled track, your ride with one of two professional bobsled drivers, and back to the visitor center/museum in barely over an hour.

Hard to say it's worth the price ($225 as of Winter 2023-2024) but it's definitely a unique experience, going down an ice-lined track at up to 65mph and up to 3G's... well worth it for thrill seekers. They tell you how to stay balanced and centered and whatnot, but bumping and sliding down in reality is quite different than theory. Ended up with two other random guys and the driver (RJ) doing a 46.50 second time down, which was solid but could have been better had I been better at bracing myself centered. Fast time of the session was a 45.8 (!) which was within a half second of the tourist start record, so apparently the ice was fast today. Pretty cool.

Found all you can eat Korean BBQ for dinner at KOU (Korean BBQ of Utah). Turned out to be a bit mediocre, with no beef brisket at all on the menu, and their typical "KOU" marinate was an unexpected sweet chili sauce. Some pre-cooked pork ribs as well as the japchae were also kind of meh, but at least the plain thin beef belly and plain thin pork belly were decent. Marinated galbi was best described as somewhat skimpy and inconsistent. They also lost our position on the waitlist but at least recovered that efficiently enough.

Finally, caught up with Albert, Keith, and friends for a magic show put on by their friend David. Had not seen this group of friends in a long time so was good to catch up, and turns out David was using us to practice for an upcoming show. He was pretty good with sleight of hand, including fork bending and playing card finding. Fun way to end the trip!