Widgetized Section

Go to Admin » Appearance » Widgets » and move Gabfire Widget: Social into that MastheadOverlay zone

To Bozeman and back via Utah: tips on skiing, sushi, Sundance and more

By
April 1, 2019, 10:28 am
There are some big rocks at Bridger Bowl (David O. Williams photo).

Based on my Facebook feed, a lot of Vail Valley residents are done with ski season, hitting beaches around the globe during last week’s Eagle County School spring break. Not the Williams family. We went full-on diehard during what’s been an above-average ski season – skiing from Utah to Montana and back on an epic Yellowstone-inspired ski road trip.

Granted, we came back a week later to some major melting in EagleVail (apparently it got quite warm while we were gone), but everywhere we went on our way to Bozeman and back, we had a little bit of new snow under our skis. And ski season is far from done in the Vail Valley. Vail closes Easter Sunday, April 21, and Beaver Creek shuts down on Sunday, April 14.

And there’s new snow in the forecast for this week and on into next week!

“On Sunday, the southern mountains received 4-9 inches of snow through the day,” Opensnow.com meteorologist Joel Gratz wrote Monday. “Today, Monday should be dry, then we’ll see a few inches of snow on Tuesday and Wednesday, another few inches on Saturday and Sunday, and then a colder and stronger storm could arrive sometime between April 10-15.”

Vail currently has a 75-inch settled base after receiving 313 inches of snowfall so far this season. Beaver Creek is right at 300 inches for the season, with a 70-inch settled base. That’s a big improvement over last season, when it took nearly three feet of snow in early April to get both resorts over the 200-inch mark for the season.

Conditions were good in Utah, too, where we checked out Sundance on a surprise powder day on Sunday, March 24. The next day we skinny skied at the base of spectacular Mount Timpanogos. Then it was up through Yellowstone National Park, past Big Sky to Bozeman, Mont., where we stayed at the Element Bozeman – a LEAD-certified Westin property right on Main Street.

If you haven’t been to Bozeman – home to Montana State University (and our oldest son Nick) – you have to check it out. Lots of good restaurants and bars right on Main Street, and just a quick 15-minute drive up to Bridger Bowl, where we hit their nordic center and some nearby dog-friendly trails on Tuesday, March 26.

Monty scopes out the nordic track with Bridger in background (DOW photo).

Big Sky, where we skied on Wednesday, March 27, was spectacular if a bit muddy in the parking lots. A light dusting the night before created what our youngest son Rennick dubbed “butter on bricks” snow conditions, and the tram was closed due to skied-off, icy conditions on the steeps up high. The fault, one lifty told us, of too many Ikon passes being sold this season.

No such problem at Bridger Bowl the next day, where four inches of new snow and very few people added up to some great conditions in the wide-open bowls and glades. Schlasman’s lift up to the Ridge (mandatory avy gear) was closed due to a lack of visibility during the storm, but it was still a highly worthy ski day.

Then it was back on the road Friday, March 29, and a spin through Yellowstone National Park in the winter (so few people compared to summer … it was bliss), the cheesy snowmobile town of West Yellowstone and then all the way back to Park City, Utah, where we skied yet another surprise powder day at the Canyons on Saturday, March 30, before heading home to EagleVail.

Some dining highlights if you try to duplicate this trip. First, we did lunch at Bin 707 Foodbar in downtown Grand Junction on the way out and have to highly recommend its fresh, organic cuisine (I know, in GJ, right?). Then the Sunday brunch at the Foundry Grill at Sundance is worth the trip even if you’re not skiing – and just a few miles up the canyon from Orem.

In Bozeman, I’m going to recommend the food at both the Squire House (the restaurant and bar in the Element) and my namesake Dave’s Sushi. Be sure to check out the scene at the very large and very cool Montana Ale Works. Finally, if for some random reason you’re passing through West Yellowstone, I have to recommend the Slippery Otter Pub (sorry, no website).

Now to knock the mud off all my ski gear and get ready for the next storm to roll through the Vail Valley. Cheers.

The following two tabs change content below.
My Twitter profile

David O. Williams

Managing Editor at RealVail
David O. Williams is the editor and co-founder of RealVail.com and has had his awarding-winning work (see About Us) published in more than 75 newspapers and magazines around the world, including 5280 Magazine, American Way Magazine (American Airlines), the Anchorage Daily News (Alaska), the Anchorage Daily Press (Alaska), Aspen Daily News, Aspen Journalism, the Aspen Times, Beaver Creek Magazine, the Boulder Daily Camera, the Casper Star Tribune (Wyoming), the Chicago Tribune, Colorado Central Magazine, the Colorado Independent (formerly Colorado Confidential), Colorado Newsline, Colorado Politics (formerly the Colorado Statesman), Colorado Public News, the Colorado Springs Gazette, the Colorado Springs Independent, the Colorado Statesman (now Colorado Politics), the Colorado Times Recorder, the Cortez Journal, the Craig Daily Press, the Curry Coastal Pilot (Oregon), the Daily Trail (Vail), the Del Norte Triplicate (California), the Denver Daily News, the Denver Gazette, the Denver Post, the Durango Herald, the Eagle Valley Enterprise, the Eastside Journal (Bellevue, Washington), ESPN.com, Explore Big Sky (Mont.), the Fort Morgan Times (Colorado), the Glenwood Springs Post-Independent, the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, the Greeley Tribune, the Huffington Post, the King County Journal (Seattle, Washington), the Kingman Daily Miner (Arizona), KUNC.org (northern Colorado), LA Weekly, the Las Vegas Sun, the Leadville Herald-Democrat, the London Daily Mirror, the Moab Times Independent (Utah), the Montgomery Journal (Maryland), the Montrose Daily Press, The New York Times, the Parent’s Handbook, Peaks Magazine (now Epic Life), People Magazine, Powder Magazine, the Pueblo Chieftain, PT Magazine, the Rio Blanco Herald Times (Colorado), Rocky Mountain Golf Magazine, the Rocky Mountain News, RouteFifty.com (formerly Government Executive State and Local), the Salt Lake Tribune, SKI Magazine, Ski Area Management, SKIING Magazine, the Sky-Hi News, the Steamboat Pilot & Today, the Sterling Journal Advocate (Colorado), the Summit Daily News, United Hemispheres (United Airlines), Vail/Beaver Creek Magazine, Vail en Español, Vail Health Magazine, Vail Valley Magazine, the Vail Daily, the Vail Trail, Westword (Denver), Writers on the Range and the Wyoming Tribune Eagle. Williams is also the founder, publisher and editor of RealVail.com and RockyMountainPost.com.