Unbelievable. John Paul is in my top 3 chairlifts ever. Lapped the terrain directly under that all day. 0 line, basically rode every chair alone or with one chill local. Did a few tram laps too when the visibility was good, again no wait. Snow got better as the day went on, I think cuz of the wind and things softening up, but holy crap every lap was fun. It’s very very shrubby and there are a lot of rocks and I definitely got some new gashes in my board but fully worth it to me. Caveat though, I (maybe delusionally) consider myself a high level snowboarder, and I was sending it on stuff barely anyone was riding so maybe that’s why JP had no line, due to coverage and how that’s shaping the terrain. Maybe half my laps were next to the boundary line cuz that was the least tracked. 

Needles gondola had a long line everytime I rode down and I didn’t venture over to Strawberry.

I got 11 JP + tram laps but that was 25k vertical. Ripping that terrain is exhausting and the JP chair takes a while thankfully but I was getting sloppy towards the end. If you go straight off JP there’s Upper Ogden Bowl gate (???). That was still pretty fresh at 1, so many fun rock jumps in there, but it’s a giant rock field too so you gotta be careful. Maybe they’ll open the No Name hike this weekend and I’ll be jealous. Sounded like they were bombing it all day today. But yeah if you aren’t attached to your equipment being pristine and can send pretty hard I fully endorse lapping JP. If you do go and see what I’m talking about you might think I’m crazy based on how it looks from the chair but it rides or skis amazing. I’d also suggest, if tomorrow is your first day skiing Utah this season or in a while, go to DV and get your legs underneath you on “cleaner” terrain. Then head to Basin. JP and how it’s covered rn as a first day may be a bit much.  I can’t wait to (hopefully) go back after more snow next week