So this week gave the gift of the first decent snowfall of the year, and being a proprietor of the Preseason Solitude Ticket Package, I found myself on the slopes yesterday. Solitude by the way isn’t the greatest snow of Utah. It is above decent, though, and all the punk kids go to Brighton and the snobs go to Canyons, Alta, and Deer Valley. Snowbird is always crowded and I think the tram is over-rated. Yesterday I only saw another human being about once every 10 minutes on average, and I stuck to the groomed areas for the most part, and that includes the area at the lift gates.

This happened a little off the groomed area. I hit granite where the snow got thin and the next thing I remember was face down about 20 feet away from my skis. The above picture is pretty much the first thing I saw, and I thought it was funny, like out of a cartoon or one of those yearly holiday movies that always have flying sleds and neighbors competing to have the best decorated house for some reason.

Anyway, I highly recommend the Solitude Ticket Package. They already stopped selling it (sales are only pre-season and stop Nov. 1) but you buy at least 11 passes for $33 each pass. You can get as many over 11 as you want. If you don’t use them all this year, you can redeem them next year by going to the ticket office before March 31st I think. They put all the passes on one card that you put in your left breast pocket and the sensors at all the lift gates automatically read them which is a much better system than most resorts around here.