Solitude, the well-named ski resort

Yesterday, I explored Solitude Mountain Resort from A to Z and tried to understand why, when compared to neighboring Alta, there was hardly any skiers on the mountain.

A little like Jackson Hole, the ski hill is elongated and getting from one side to the other requires a bit of work and spatial strategies.

The terrain, if varied, doesn’t flow as perfectly as Alta’s seems to, and finally, the total area is just one-third of Alta, which says a lot too.

All the expert terrain and good powder is available at the cost of lengthy traverses, which aren’t always liked by most skiers that don’t want to spend all of their limited time reaching a “gnarly” spot.

This said, I loved skiing Corner Chute, Navarone and Queen Bess. One could also argue that some of the lifts are not place at the right location, but this is true of many resorts. Of course, there’s very little commercial lodging available on location and this weighs too in the place’s popularity.

I certainly works for Salt Lake City family looking for reasonable access at an affordable price and is likely to remain this way for a long, long time.

One solution would be for Alterra to sell the resort to its neighbor, Brighton, or vice-versa, but the synergies and economies of scale might still be quite disappointing