If there was a point in our trip when the adventure truly got started, I’d have to classify that as the moment we started heading up Big Cottonwood Canyon outside of Salt Lake City, Utah at 11:30 at night. With the recent warm Colorado temperatures, we were ready to find winter again and with a last minute check of the forecast, Utah was supposed to get hit with a pretty good system. We were hoping to beat the thick of the storm but unfortunately; we were about 2 hours late.
We had never been up Big Cottonwood Canyon before but with Solitude only 12 miles from the mouth of the canyon we thought, “How bad could it be?” This wasn’t your typical snowstorm. The snow was coming down hard and it was coming down wet. The road was coated in 6 inches (and climbing by the minute) of extremely wet and slick slush/snow. We were about half way up the canyon when the truck decided it had had enough. We could no longer get any traction and the trailer was losing it’s line. Thankfully, we were right above a pull out and able to back into the pull out and park.
The rig sort of slid into a spot on the pull off and the truck was still situated over the white line of the road. We spent about an hour and half digging down to the asphalt in hopes that the truck could get enough traction to realign the rig more into the pull off. With a safe position, we decided to try and go to. We crawled into our chilly bed and after about 4 minutes of lying there, there was a heavy knock on the door. Hank let out a sore huff and Tyson got up and threw his jacket on.
The officer at our front door most importantly wanted to know why we were towing our trailer up the canyon and informed us that most people don’t do such a thing. It was a bit of a head scratcher at the moment that would later make sense to us. He was nice enough to not ticket us and informed us that the plows would be through around 4:30. At this point, it was 2:30am. We set our alarms and tried to doze off.
As we were lying in bed, we started thinking about how the officer was explaining to us that this was a Watershed Area, which is why we were breaking rules by “camping” in this area. The “Dogs Prohibited” signs at the base of the canyon started reappearing in my head and I wondered if maybe those meant for the whole area. A quick Google search proved that that is exactly what those signs meant. People online recounted their experience with violating the no dog rule and receiving a $650 fine. Well, that made it easy to sleep. We were fully looking forward to and prepared to camp up at Solitude/Brighton for 4-5 days.
After barely 2 hours of lousy sleep the alarm sounded. Tyson went out and started shoveling out a path for the rig to make it back onto the road. Sure enough, around 4:40 am the plows rallied through. They were able to clear most of the mess off of the road and Tyson felt confident. I was nervous. At least where we were, we knew that we were off the road in a decent spot. What if we got stuck 4 miles up the road and there was no pull-off?
Our camp spot for the night.
The road was ok and we took our time. After what seemed like forever, we pulled into the Solitude parking lot; it was about 6 am. There wasn’t a soul in sight except for the loader driver plowing the lot. He directed us to a corner where we would be able to park for the day. No overnight parking aloud. Hmm… our plan was rapidly falling apart.
We got another hour of sleep before gearing up for what was an amazing powder day. Solitude received 15 inches overnight and they were forecasting even more throughout the day and for the next couple of days. We definitely found winter.
The warm Colorado temperatures made us kind of soft so we bundled up for the 17-degree day and walked 5 minutes from the camper door to the lift. We couldn’t stop thinking about what a perfect camp spot we had. If only we could stay there.
Our spot in the Solitude parking lot.
We have friends that ski Solitude and we had always heard very good things from them about the mountain. We were extremely excited to explore the terrain that they had to offer. Within 2 lift rides with people who knew what was going on, we got the scoop for the resort.
It was really easy to figure out the flow of the resort and what opened and in what order—it just made a ton of sense! It is kind of hard to explain but basically, there is one lift (Powderhorn Lift) to lap until you see the gate on lookers left open for the Summit Express Lift. Once the Summit lift is open, there is a lot of fun terrain to find on that lift until Honeycomb opens. Honeycomb is simply amazing and while it is kind of a long lap (30 minutes to an hour depending on your pace and route) we continued to find fresh, amazing snow there all day and the proceeding days too! On the east side of Honeycomb, the terrain is mellow, rolling, and just plain fun.
East side of Honeycomb… face shots all day!
After a very solid powder day, we decided to head back to the camper and make a game plan. Game planning turned into napping and we passed out for about 2 hours. After waking up, we asked multiple people if we could camp in the parking lot and no one at Solitude or Brighton would allow it. We were bummed. We didn’t know where we were going to go but we knew we couldn’t stay there so we headed back down the canyon.
We drove to a Wal-Mart that was a few miles west of the canyon to rethink our plan of where we would stay. Finding a place to park overnight and sleep in the big city is a challenge! We knew we could stay in the Wal-Mart parking lot as a last resort but we would have to leave the camper there by itself for the day and drive the truck up to the resort. We were nervous to do that. We looked at the two RV parks in Salt Lake. It would’ve been doable but we would’ve had to drive an hour at least each way to get up the canyon to Solitude/Brighton.
Our friends who live about 10 minutes from the mouth of the canyon graciously offered up the street space in front of their house. We decided that was the best option. We would feel confident that the camper wouldn’t get stolen, get to take showers, and get to see our rad friends! It was so nice of them to offer up their space to us especially because it wasn’t their fault that we had planned poorly. In our defense, there are many resorts in Colorado that have no overnight parking signs but are fine with you camping there for a few days.
We continued to ski Solitude Thursday and Friday and on Friday, we had another driving adventure on Big Cottonwood Canyon. It’s amazing, for those of you that are unfamiliar with the area, the amount of terrain both resort skiing and backcountry that is so close to Salt Lake City. While it is really neat, a lot of people also think it is really neat so on Fridays and weekends, it gets to be a bit of a busy area.
We left our friend’s house at 8 am, hoping to get to Solitude around 9 am as they had had another 12 inches overnight. The traffic getting there was pretty insane! There is a stop light at the base of the canyon that was entirely gridlock. We made the mistake of needing to get diesel at the gas station that is on the corner of the intersection to head east to the mountain and after we fueled up, we were totally stuck. We couldn’t get out into traffic to head east, as there was a mile long line of people just sitting. I looked at the map and realized that we could head south around the block and although it would be a long block, it would align us with the canyon. We turned right to head south and after about 23 seconds of cruising along, we came to a dead stop.
No one was going anywhere. After a long 30 minutes, we finally got to our right turn to go back around the block. We got back onto the road that would eventually take us east through the stoplight and it was again, total gridlock. After sitting in that line for 20 minutes, Tyson lost all patience and decided we would park in the adjacent neighborhood and walk. Maybe we would get on a bus or maybe we would hitch hike but we weren’t driving/sitting in traffic anymore.
We parked, got dressed, and walked towards the canyon intersection. We tried to get on a bus but they were jammed packed and we knew that it would be a long drive up the canyon and we didn’t want to be on a bus for it. We walked back across the road and put our thumbs out. The first person to role his window down was heading to Solitude and agreed to take us. It was a way more comfortable ride than the bus, Tyson got to sit and stare out the window, and our driver was a very nice guy and great company.
We finally got to the resort at 12 pm. Yes, that is four hours after we left. We couldn’t believe it and had never experienced anything like it! The snow was still great on Honeycomb and we even got to traverse out on the west side and ski what felt like four feet of snow as the area had been closed the preceding days.
While Solitude is an amazingly fun resort with both mellow and challenging terrain, we would definitely advise steering clear of the area on weekends or Fridays after a big storm system. We had so much fun skiing there but we just couldn’t believe the haul to get there on Friday! Once again, we were inspired by the weekend warriors who work hard to get outside and enjoy skiing even if it means dealing with crazy traffic jams and lift lines (I will note that there were not lift lines at Solitude on Friday nor any of the other days we were there).
On Saturday there wasn’t any fresh snow so we thought we would take a mellow day and just check out the terrain park at Brighton. Brighton and Solitude share Big Cottonwood Canyon and you can actually access both resorts whether you are starting at Brighton or Solitude. A lot of people buy the Brighton/Solitude pass rather than just one or the other.
We thought we were smart by leaving a little later in the morning rather than hitting the morning rush through the canyon. The drive went really well and was super smooth until we got past Solitude. All of a sudden, the traffic came to a dead stop. We went about 1 mile in 30 minutes and once we got to the top of the line, the parking attendants of Brighton were turning people away. We couldn’t believe it! Our options were to drive back down the canyon and get on a bus back up to the resort. That process would’ve easily taken 2 hours and it was already after 11. The other option was to park below the fire station and hike in. It would’ve been at least a mile and a half to get to the ticket window. We decided it wasn’t really worth it and figured the lift lines would’ve been outrageous.
We were ready to be out of the city so we headed back to the camper, packed up, and headed north to Evanston, Wyoming. Overall, skiing the Wasatch Front was an interesting experience. We had 2 amazing powder days at Solitude and 2 days of interesting traffic days. I would recommend a pow day at Solitude to anyone but I would definitely advise skipping holidays and weekends there. We also are not really city people at all and so that definitely played into us wanting to leave the area. For a lot of people, it is really cool that these amazing ski areas are only 15 miles from a metropolis.
Heading down to the Summit Lift you ski through huge ancient looking trees.
Check out our Vlog from our time in Utah, it recounts us sleeping on the side of the road and shows you some face shot footage from Solitude!
With the MAX Pass, you receive 5 days of skiing at all 39 participating resorts! They even have options like add-on passes, which is what we did for our Rocky Mountain Super Pass Plus. For more information, visit the MAX Pass website.
