We checked out of Iron Blosam Saturday and spent an hour or so around Temple Square in SLC.
The Salt Lake Temple is undergoing major renovation and seismic retrofitting, which began in 2019 and is estimated to be complete in 2026. The temple will need to be reconsecrated, and complete tours will be available for about 6 months before that, like the one I took in Draper in 2009.
We had a late lunch at the Red Iguana (still a worthy dining destination) and then drove to Logan for the night. From there it’s still a 40 minute drive to Beaver Mt., which is close to the pass between Logan and Bear Lake. Elevation range is 7,200-8,800 feet and exposure is about 2/3 east and 1/3 north. Liz’ window ticket was $70 while I used my Indy Pass.
It was past 10:30 when we started skiing. The upper half of vertical still had winter snow if north facing. Perhaps half the mountain was in spring transition mode on this first big warmup day with afternoon temps in the 40’s. Some lower and direct east facing had already melt/frozen.
Terrain was quite expansive, and with modest skier density nearly all groomers were in good shape all day, similar to Powder Mt. the next day. On our second run we spotted ski patrol training.
After two groomers we ventured into Beaver’s Powder, which starts with these Aspen glades.
It opens up in the mid section.
The evergreen forest lower down was melt/frozen so we bailed to Teddy’s Frolic.
We moved over to Marge’s Triple, where parts of most groomers were in prime corn mode midday. Here’s the Rodeo Grounds terrain park.
After 5 runs on Marge’s we went in for a break and bowl of soup. The locker room downstairs boasts perhaps the most varied collection of stickers from one ski area that I have ever seen.
And of course the risqué ones:
I heard recently about Beaver Mt. from all people Powderchaser Steve. Steve’s objective is to score first chair long vertical fresh tracks, with favored areas being Snowbird, Crystal, Palisades and Jackson. He consulted me recently about his plans for chasing the April 8 total solar eclipse in Texas. He mentioned recently scoring Beaver’s continuous full vertical in Beaver’s sidecountry with an easy traverse back to the base (note that Steve is a snowboarder!). By topography that had to be the southern boundary, view that way from top of Harry’s Dream chair:
Under current conditions no way were we going out there but we decided to follow skier packed lines inside the boundary.
Even in bounds this is excellent terrain for fresh snow in mostly spaced trees. We never saw signs for the Canyon View or Robinson’s Rim runs, but I don’t think they are well defined. About 2/3 of the way down the open lines went into the shade so we bailed left to avoid likely crunch.
5429
We found a sunny spot for the final pitch.
We skied a couple more runs in softened bumps. Liz got her easterner’s mogul fix here on Upper Teddy’s.
Lee’s was similar.
On my last chair ride I spotted a first: a snowboarder with his kid on a leash, also on a snowboard.
I finished at 4PM with 20,800 vertical.
Overall I would rate Beaver Mt. very similar to Pebble Creek which we skied on the same Sunday after Iron Blosam week a year ago. But today was more thorough exploration because I was coming down with COVID a year ago and only skied a half day. Pebble is slightly steeper but Beaver much more expansive. Pebble has sidecountry on both sides while Beaver’s is practical only on one side.
Beaver is more remote than Pebble Creek. Utah State University is in Logan, but Beaver is a serious schlep from anywhere else. While in Temple Square we learned than the Salt Lake temple is only the fourth oldest in Utah. One of the older ones is in Logan.
Fences/gates were locked and the parking lot was empty, sort of surprising 5PM on Sunday.
We then drove to Eden, checked into our Wolf Creek condo room, changed clothes and drive to the Shooting Star Saloon in Huntsville for dinner. We arrived at 7:15PM, over 3 hours after leaving Beaver Mt.
