Hey, we have a NO HIKE policy in our group! :-)
Seriously hardly any skiing under Strawberry -- hard and crunchy, too much sun. PROBABLY some good stuff to the far right (skier's right from top -- is that what you are referring to?) But the folks I was with seemd to prefer John Paul area (skiers left from grizzly). I skied there and under Porcupine (Porky's) lift which was a bit more my speed/level on either side (powderhound bowl to lift, skier's left, not sure what the other side is called). I did work off Grizzly in the trees a little, not sure of the "chutes" you are referring to but describe away for future reference. Grizzly itself I thought was one cool ass run in and of itself but lots of good stuff off the sides of that trail and nice moguls at the bottom! (and talk about steep!)
I *did* see some folks working the cornices at the top of the peaks above John Paul/Olympic tram -- now that was some cool stuff! I wish'd i could have fumbled my camera out fast enought to snap some pics. But way outside my ability I think!
From the tram it looked like skiers left again had access to the big bowl on that side and some hiking over to NoName Peak had lots of tracks but I never saw anyone go down it. Figured it kinda had direct light most of the day and was way too hard in the AM, maybe later in the day it softened up, I am not sure.
BUT basically there was just a lot of the mountain I did not ski and that's what kinda irks me, although I did have fun on the easier off trail stuff. Two of our party are actually quite good skiers and were more off in the crazy stuff but seriously, neither hike much to anything any more. I *think* if we actually had a local or someone with your knowledge with us that new where and how to get to some of that, they'd definitely be up for it. As it stands now, under the John Paul is where we spent most of our time and also Powder Hound bowl.
I had this idea really that we could start a little databse here of ski areas and where the 'good' stuff is, so when you go out, you could look up your destination and see if anyone had any suggestions for cool places to hit!
???
Oh sorry -- Powder Country, we were only there one day and we hit it right before lunch. Conditions were pretty spotty (hard/crunchy) and we didn't see the sign into the Powder Country until about 1130am. So we just headed off into it and hadn't the vaguest clue what we getting into. It took another hr maybe to work down the ridge and then we ran into some folks back in there that were locals that helped. We had a mix of abilities so that made it hard too (1 guy was not likin' it). I didn't know there were any names to it but were almost as far up towards the main area of powder mtn as you can go. We came down ultimately in a gully (one side had aspens and the other had big pine) and skied down to a 'stop' and waited for the bus (which took forever 'cause the guy didn't think anyone was skiing there that day). That was somewhat annoying but actually a bit of fun. After lunch, we decided to ski under paradise lift we hadn't gotten too. The snowcats were not running either and no one but me was up for taking the poma up again and hiking a little to see what was over in that direction. I wish'd we could have hit again as I *definitely* found some untracked powder in Powder Country in the big pine stands that don't get directly light and this was deep stuff and would be fun to sniff out. The locals were like "oh the snows horrible..." But one guy we were with on the bus said "oh you just need to know where to look, it's there..." So that was last week, I guess its probably is gone now. I did talk to another guy and he said Powder Mtn usually had fresh snow 3-days after everyone else... so ya know if you get out there and get a big dump, I'd say hit your favorite and then work your way over to Powder for more of it!
Anyway, it was all good really, I just need to figure out how to get my self back there!