Park City Mountain Resort 1/8

Was on my way to the office this morning, but somewhere in the 8 mile drive I gave up on that idea and ended up at Park City Mountain Resort instead. Strange how that happens. :)

Ran into my dad while I was in the lodge, so spent the morning skiing with him. Dad taught me to ski 30 years ago in upstate New York. The skiing in Utah is so much better that I came out here for college and my folks followed when they retired. It's nice to have everyone so close. Dad works as a safety patrol at PCMR. But today was a day off, so we got to get in a nice morning of skiing.

I usually just head over to McConkey's, but decided to try something different. We enjoyed a couple of nice runs off Thaynes -- Keystone was nicely groomed, Hoist was nice and soft, and Double Jack had some great powder at the top and some friendly bumps further down. Then we moved on to Motherlode and I got my first run through the new glades -- Motherlode Meadows. They really did a nice job this summer opening that up and the snow was great. Up King Con and down First Temptation for a run. Then down High Card before calling it a day -- looked like another storm was blowing in. They say we could see another 8 to 18 inches of snow overnight. If you can go tomorrow, enjoy it! I really *do* have to make it to the office. :(

'til later,
- Jeff

Deer Valley 1/6

OK. I don't like to throw out the word "epic" too often -- it should be reserved for days with waist deep powder, but today was "near epic". :) Definitely the best day I've had so far this season. A big storm blew in and left us with tons of new snow. Knee deep powder and more coming all day. Awesome.


(Pete in Percy Bowl.)

I met up with friends on the hill and had a great day. We only made it as far as Sultan, but the snow there was so great, there was no reason to go anywhere else. In the morning, we did runs down Tycoon, Evergreen, Pompeii and Percy Bowl. Awesome tracks through the trees. Hard not to have a good time.


(Kevin's turn.)

After an early lunch -- my legs were worn out by 11 -- back for more of the same. The winds had picked up and it was snowing hard, but Sultan seemed a bit more sheltered. More of the same runs from the morning plus a couple of excellent lines through Percy Bowl. Everyone was having a great time.

If you go, take powder cords. It would suck to spend an afternoon digging around for a lost ski.

'til later,
- Jeff

P.S. If you haven't noticed (maybe you were in a foreign country or something over the holidays...) Utah has gotten tons of snow in the past few weeks and more is one the way. The skiing is great, so get out here!

Snowbasin 1/3

First ski day of the new year! Decided to try something different (I usually stay close to home and just ski one of the Park City area resorts) and went up to Snowbasin. It's a little further, but it's a pretty easy 60 minute drive.


(Base area.)

It was nice to see the sun, but the wind was not so welcome. High winds kept Strawberry from opening at all. The tram was also closed. Which meant there was a line all day for the Needles gondola. So, I mostly stuck to the chairs and explored as much of the mountain as I could. They were hard at work on the park under Porcupine. And I rode Wildcat for the first time ever. Nice snow in there. And I even tried Becker and some trail off to the south that I'd never even noticed before (Willow Springs).


(BBC.)

So, though the wind was a bit annoying, the day was still fun. Can't wait to get back up to Snowbasin on a powder day. Sounds like a big storm is headed in for the weekend, so keep your fingers crossed.

'til later,
- Jeff