SNOWBIRD: Local Knowledge

Resort Name: Snowbird
Web address: www.snowbird.com
Distance from nearest major airport in miles: 29 from SLC International
Rideable Acres: 2,500
Lifts: 12+ Aerial Tram
Parks: 3 (adv/int/beg)
Pipes: 1

Best Après Hangout: Tram Club or Wildflower
Cheapest Lodging: Iron Blossom (or a couch in SLC)
Cheapest Food: Gritts Grocery and Deli
Cheapest Drink: Gritts Grocery and Deli
Best Meat Market: Plaza Deck when the sun is shining
Locals’ Bar: Canyon Inn

Snowbird has “snow” right in the name, so you’d hope they aren’t just claiming, precip-wise. Utah’s license plates also brag of The Greatest Snow on Earth and, thanks in part to the famous lake effect, the Bird gets 500 inches of the stuff annually, dry and deep. Mountain owner, Dick Bass— who was also the first adventurer to climb the Big Seven continental highs—clearly picked a smart place to build a ski resort.

Ryan Shugart*, park designer and cat operator at Snowbird, spends a good chunk of his time digging out features after big dumps, but he doesn’t mind. “Shug,” 25, grew up at the Bird (with his dad on ski patrol and his mom running the employee credit union) and he reckons the park at Snowbird will start to get noticed more in the near future. People still imagine deep steeps first when they think of the Bird.

Shug, formerly a sponsored shredder, says he and the park crew like to get “creative and funky—know what I’m sayin’?” As a result, within the three park areas, you’ll find the usual suspects—tabletops, ride on rails, boxes—and you’ll also find some heavier, more creative features. There’s a 42-foot rainbow C rail that not too many people try. There’s also a 40-foot S rail, a 36-foot down/flat/down kinker and a rainbow box perched way up on a pyramid for tranny from all sides. Instead of facing more tabletops than a Sizzler’s busboy on a Friday night, Snowbird’s crew give you gaps, spines and channels to mix things up a bit.

The natural terrain at the Bird is more famous than the park for good reason. Add to those forty feet of annual fluff some natural features like the skatepark gully on Chips, the cliff-over-cat-track gap in Mineral and the moto gaps on Chips and Mineral, and you can see that Shug has some serious competition from Mother Nature.

Snowbird is equally famous for is its 125 person aerial tram. The tram starts at 8,100 feet and goes all the way up to 11,000. With trams come “tram cram,” “tramateurs,” burrito farts, and 124 people trying to figure out who dealt it. Shugart says he has seen fistfights, sucker punches and “plenty of friction” on the Bird’s most notorious people mover. Think of the friction as free entertainment. And don’t trip on your way out: 124 people stomping on your kidneys wearing rear-entry ski boots will make that last Utah beer hangover feel like a joke.

Riders, you might share a tram ride with Marc Frank Montoya, the Lienes brothers, Travis Robison, Forrest Shearer, Shane Charlebois, Chris Coulter, and random drop-ins by all sorts of big names from Utah and beyond.

The Bird will continue to get hammered with snow every year because Utah has friends in very high places. A superpipe should be a lock for next season as well as a wall ride in the expert park and more showcase features that’ll draw a crowd. “I want some real big stuff for people to watch in busy areas,” says Shug. “Stuff they’ll remember and talk about later.” Amen to that.

*NB Shugart’s company is called Shugbuilt Snowpark Construction