Park City, UT 4/7 and 4/11/2017

tseeb

Well-known member
From Heavenly's Stagecoach base, I had a nearly 450 mile drive to West Wendover, NV via Genoa, Silver Springs and Fernley
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(all NV). Friday morning, I had another 120 miles to Salt Lake City, then about 30 miles more to Park City. It was windy and warm in the parking lot, but I was skiing for free using one of the 5 CO/UT days I get on my (Vail) Tahoe Local Pass. I started on First Timer at 8:45 and skied it a few times before moving to Pay Day which I skied once before moving to the top via Pay Day and Bonanza (Crescent was closed, probably due to wind).
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View attachment 9
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Some runs on mostly protected Thaynes, where liftee said I was first one to ride it, were too firm early. Groomers on windy Motherlode and windier Silverlode showed similar high quality surface I've experienced at Heavenly this season. I moved to McConkey for three laps, first too-firm Sun Dog lookers right, then I carefully skied looker left side of McConkey's Bowl. After braving the top of Georgeanna, where not only was wind polishing the surface, but it was giving a additional push to gravity that made staying on the run and keeping speed under control difficult, I took Tycoon which I later saw was one of the Groomer's picks of the day and it was excellent.
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I rode up Bonanza, required to get to the top and had some concern that it could close as wind seemed to pickup and chair slow to barely moving when we approached the top. I was wearing spring fleece gloves and a lightly insulated shell and the wind was strong enough to go through and chill me, even though temp was above freezing. I wanted to go back to car to get better gloves and add a layer, but was concerned that I could get stranded if Bonanza closed. Instead I skied a lap or two on Motherlode and Silverlode, then went into Miner's Camp lodge which, which is an upgraded copy of Northstar's Zephyr and Heavenly's Tamarack lodges.
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After warming up a little I skied a couple of laps on King Con before going to top where Mountain Host said he didn't think Bonanza would close. He directed me to Crescent run which I used to get to the bottom and skied well. I added another shell and better gloves and returned to the top.
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After a warmup on still very good Mikey's. I skied one of the Jack's to Thaynes then skied Blue Slip Bowl
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to McConkeys. I repeated Tycoon, then skied top of Sun Dog which had softened and was much better than earlier in day. After skiing Buckeye and under lift to base, I did McConkeys Bowl, this time staying left at the top and sharing it with a few others. Snow was very good on the steeper upper parts of McConkey but it was starting to get harder to cross flatter bottom half to get back to chair. I went up Bonanza, then skied Silver Skis View attachment 4which was still good. I skied past the Village and not seeing or hearing band that was supposed to start at 3, quit at 3:45 with almost 29K. (hopefully to be continued)
 

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On Tuesday 4/11, EpicMix shows my first lift at 9:06. The parking lot was a little fuller than Friday, but I was only a one space in from end of same row I parked in on Friday. I went up First Time, then Crescent and skied groomed, but firm King Con run to Gondola, but it does not load until 9:30 so I took a lap on Silverlode and skied double-blue Prospector which had enough traffic to break up the groom and skied well. I loaded the gondola at 9:35, got off at the top and skied Blaise's Way (named after Vail's former president) to long,slow Dreamcatcher lift. I'm not sure I get the point of a lot of the Canyons part of Park City. Unless you catch it on or shortly (very shortly in Spring) after a powder day when there is a good base, there is a lot of skiing easy groomers between multi-million $ mostly unoccupied or under construction houses. And there is a lot of great-looking terrain between the top of Pine Cone Ridge and Ninety-nine 90 Express where people had made some nice tracks and there were some avalanches, but no lift access. And many lifts towards the Park City side of Canyons are slow. At least there wasn't gravel showing on the runs as on two of my previous visit in dry Januaries.

After a lap on slow Dreamscape chair and because slow Daybreak chair was not running, I skied long run past $$$$$ houses to Tombstone Express, then went up Ninety-nine 90 Express. Snow had not been skied enough to pack it down and it was mostly overcast so sun did not soften it much so I skied what I knew from previous visits, Fright Gully which was mostly chopped up mank with some short sections on better snow. I rode slow Peak 5 lift and skied all of Crowning Glory to Tombstone Base where I went on up and down Timberline to Iron Mountain, which from the gondola looked like it did not have enough snow to run. I followed racer I rode lift with down Mercury which was in good shape, unlike some other intermediate and all advanced runs on Iron Mountain, which I had never gotten to before. I skied to and rode up gondola and got off at top where sign said "poling and skating required to return to Park City". I think they need to add "a lot of" or "an excessive amount of" to their sign. There was some decent corn in a couple of spots and I avoided a big down then up dip by traversing and hiking a little above it. But once around corner there is about a mile of mostly flat, with some short downhills and a couple of very short uphills to get back to Thaynes Canyon. I could have ducked rope and avoided some of it, but was concerned I would not able to cross creek to get to run if I did.

I skied Two Jacks to Thaynes which I went up, then poled over to Jupiter where I took four laps. First was West Ridge, then I skied Rhino, Scotts Bowl and Portuguese Gap. All were very good in places, but until on exit road from Scotts Bowl, required crossing some difficult snow. I finished my day at 2 PM with 25K skiing Crescent, then riding lift and skiing Silver Skis twice. Getting to McConkeys probably would have been better as snow lower on mountain was softer before 2 on Tuesday than it was after 3 on preceding Friday.
 
This reinfoirces my impression that Park City in late spring conditions is a PITA. Half price MCP day in LCC or ski shop ticket in BCC is better than free in Park City at this time of year IMHO.
 
Tony Crocker":2rcr37hc said:
This reinfoirces my impression that Park City in late spring conditions is a PITA. Half price MCP day in LCC or ski shop ticket in BCC is better than free in Park City at this time of year IMHO.

I could have done better on conditions if I did not take gondola to former Canyons part of Park City and skied McConkeys instead of Crescent towards the end of my day. Since I was planning on quitting at 2 pm to drive across as far as I could across NV, I did not want to pay for a ticket. But I don't see charge for my or my wife's third MCP day at Altabird so maybe I should have returned to Snowbird.

Some pictures from 4/11
 

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