DCSKI,

Just returned from SLC this afternoon. 6 ski days at 5 resorts, one knee injury, and one MIA digital camera later I file this report.

This was the first of what we have decided will be many trips to Wasatch ski areas. It was essentially a scouting event. The goal was to ski from every lift at as many resorts as possible. That way we could get a total view of what each area had to offer. We also attempted to sample a variety of terrain at each area such as glades, moguls, open bowls / powder (if any), areas that did involve hop turns but did not involve jumping off of cliffs. Close contact with pointy objects was generally avoided... We sampled: Alta, Snowbird, Solitude, Deer Valley, and the Canyons. Over all the greatest disappointments were the sections we saw from the lift but were unable to ski. Alta was the only resort we visited twice.

What I learned:

* I have been ignorant for years... This is what packed powder feels like.

* We picked the right week to visit SLC. Base depths increased 30" during our stay.

* I can sport a goggle tan line.

* The trail ratings at ski resorts really are not comparable to anything, even within the same resort. There are blues at the canyons that should be greens and Blues that could be blacks... The blue is just a catch all for some resorts. Alta is similar with their blacks. Snowbird with the double blacks... but they mean it.

* Skiing at 8-10 KFt the first day was not ideal. We should have started in park city. A 6500ft base would have been so much better the first day. Huff, Puff, Puff...

* Powdery bumps on a powder base lend themselves well to my <ahem> technique...

* Park City areas seem to have better glades than the cottonwood areas. I like aspens... Deciduous make me feel at home.

* The ski-road underpass: Winner! Worst Terrain Feature Ever!

* Potential New Favorite crash site: Through plate glass and onto a living room couch in $1000+ per night rental unit. I will await EMS and call for EVAC while swilling beer and popping Pringles.

* Large push piles of heavy crud result in lots of air time.

* Living Proof Award: ME! Low speed skier collisions such as 2-3 MPH can cause actual injury. Maybe it was fatigue of four days skiing nothing but bumps, powder, and chop, maybe it was the icy ramp, maybe it was my gratuitous use of the braking wedge... No, it was the random idiot next to me who skied under my right ski as I got off the lift. At least my bindings released. Moral of the story: There are idiots everywhere... in UT more of them ski the same lifts I do.

* A frozen bottle of Dasani and a bottle of ibuprofen are recommended accessories for the imprudent skier.

* Driving in UT is interesting:
a. I was more scared during in the snow in UT than I am here. Mostly because of the other drivers.
b. They close the roads when we would close schools.
c. They just don't know how to drive on a highway. Everyone clogs the right hand lane when there are 3 more perfectly good lanes just to the left. the four left lanes are all passing for those going 10, 20, 30 mph above the speed limit... and so forth.
d. You don't see many abandoned vehicles off the side of the highway, they are usually inhabited.

* Losing a $2--. Digital camera is nothing. Losing a weeks worth of pictures on your first ever trip to UT is worse than busting up your knee.

* And the winner is: Snowbird!
Favorite lift: Tie Mineral Basin Express (Snowbird) & Gad2 (Snowbird)
Runner up: Alta
Honorable Mention: Empire Canyon (Deer Valley)

Images to follow if Madeline can find her digicam.

Was day 1 at Snowbird because it makes that huff puff sounds familiar. Got stuck in a cliff section above the mineral basin lifts too tired to tackle the icy mogul chutes ended up having to walk out in baking sunshine. Thankfully had camelback of water and a two way to radio my buddy if it got too hairy. Fun mountain but want to try it on a powder day. Love me some glade skiing over in McConkey's Bowl.

Ah, McConkeys. Irish for "hey let's poach parts from this lift to get our other six pack running!" It's still closed. Should be open by next week. I never got to the glade on McConkeys, but I did make fourth tracks down a "double blue" off that lift and had an absolute blast.

You think Empire Canyon ranked up there with Snowbird's Mineral Basin? That's good to hear. I did enjoy the Daly Chutes- Challenger was probably the steepest thing I hit all week. It was certainly the steepest thing I've hit since Sugar Bowl and was probably not the best choice for my first double-diamond in two years. Oh well, I lived...

Hmmmm... my "s" key is sticking. Thitz iz a very bad key to have problemz with. Hard to cubctitute other letterz for that one...

Kennedy,

We hit minneral basin the morning after a 1Ft powder dump. When we got there arround 10 AM it was already nearly skied out. All I can say is wow.

Roger, Mineral basin and the empire canyon are not really comparable. I just like both of them alot. --Tim

Mineral basin is cool but according to Crush and some other locals we talked to it gets skied out in minutes. Still coming off the lift and looking at those drops gets your heart racing. The first time we hit it was in thr morning and while it was tracked up we got some nice soft stuff by taking the catwalk all the way around to skiers right. From there it was chop but it was fun chop.

The afternoon session we hit it because we had bought tix for the tram and figured we better use them. As a side note if I were to do it again I would forego the tram ticket. Anyway I knew I was pretty spent before I even got to the top, I'm guessing sun, altitude and fatigue kicked in, so I decided to take an easy way down, which was probably a mistake in itself as it was all catwalk about as wide as my board is long. When I got to a section where it opened up I got distracted by some soft powdery snow and got a little off track. Before I know it I realized it I was close to a bunch of cliffs with no other way down but through some chutes. I pretty much knew I was to fatigued to tackle them so I decided to hike out, which of course sucked the last bit of energy from me. Managed to find one chute wide enough to traverse down. Made it back to the lift then took the tram down. Legs were like jelly at that point. I refer to that as my "having your butt kicked day" Every trip has one.

Interested to hear Sheena's impressions.

Quote:

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I can sport a goggle tan line.

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You and Comprex may be twin brothers separated at birth.

I love the terrain at Snowbird, but the mountain gets skied out way too fast, even faster than Alta. The terrain at Mineral Basin is nice, but not my favorite at The Bird. Mineral Basin can get a lot of sun, so any new snow that is not immediately skied off can get real heavy, real fast. The high speed lifts are very nice, though. Little Cloud and Gad 2 service some most excellent terrain, plus there is some nice stuff under the Tram and the Gadzoom lift.

I'll take the tree skiing at the Cottonwoods over that of the Park City areas. Apologies in advance to Crush; I've skied some very fun tree runs with him at The Canyons. For me, the evergreen trees at The Canyons and Park City are a lot more fun than the aspen sections.

In general, I find that aspen glades can be deceptively tough to ski through; you see a lot of open space when looking down so the section may look pretty easy. However, the aspen trees are often close together (same root system) and it's easy to not see a tree until the last second because the trunks are so narrow, they don't have low hanging branches, and the color of the trunks do not constrast that much (comparatively) with the color of the snow.

All of these areas have so much terrain that I'm constantly learning about new hidden sections.