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Truckstop Slackcountry Ski Tour

admin — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 17:31:15 +0000

Well, the crowds arrived for Dead Presidents’ Week, which made it a perfect time to go for a little slackcountry tour. Slackcountry is like backcountry touring, only the goal is to expend as little energy as possible to get to the goods. This video goes out to Chad and Ed, who must have been driving by this shot on the highway one day, and decided it would be a good place to ski. I had to add some Megadeth to spice it up a little. Shot with a GoPro Hero HD, and edited in less than 20 minutes using iMovie.

Backcountry Sledding. Say What???

Snow Chicken — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 05:55:54 +0000

So early last week the wife and I headed out for some “new school” sledding, or what I commonly refer to as backcountry sledding. So what the heck are these sleds? You’ve maybe heard of them referred to as Swiss Bobs. I think we’ve had our arsenal of sleds for about three years now, and I have to be honest, my wife uses them way more than I do – I’d consider her a veteran Bobber. She and her girlfriends typically go a couple times a month.

A Sled is Really all you Need.

Finding optimal locations for Bobbing is the first challenge, the best spots are gully type trails with a good steady decline to them – these things haul a#@ when pointed downhill, so you don’t want it too steep. The other key element would be that you choose a trial that gets good winter use, and single track is always better than wide open. One of the best locations in the Park City area is the Iron Canyon/Mountain Trail. It fits all the above criteria and can be ridden from the top, what I would believe to be at least a 1.5 mile decent. A killer 1.5 miles I might add. If you’ve not tried it, you must.

Ripping the Swiss Bob!

So last week when we headed out we decided to try a new area, one which a Basin resident had recommended and said was on par or better than Iron Canyon – our target, Summit Park! Jump off the Summit Park Exit and turn right back up the hill, looking for Parkview Drive. Take Parkview for a mile or two back into the heart of Summit Park, you’ll come to what I believe is Matterhorn Dr. – you’ll see the Trailhead in front of you. Take off here, hike as high as you like, you’ll see in the image posted here that we took it all the way to the top (killer views up there).

The Top...

The Bobbing, or backcountry sledding on this day was epic. Soft snow top to bottom, which was a fairly new condition for us to Bob in; we typically go after a high and dry period (Translated = NO NEW POW TO SKI). The run itself was great, a lot different than Iron Canyon – a little more open in places, and a lot more structure to the run (jumps, drops and such).
Swiss Bobs are hard to find, we’ve purchased on ebay and at yard sales. You can check this link Swiss Bob Sleds @ REI to purchase a new sled, but as you will notice, they are often out of stock – Maybe that is a sign. So grab a helmet (optional, I like to take mine – the wife opts to go without), your best outerwear (you get wet, very wet) – and go hit it. Oh yeah. To stop the thing, you simply put your feet down and pull up on the handles – this is good to know.

UT Faceshots Rule - Even on a Sled

Summer in Park City Is Finally Here

admin — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 06:20:32 +0000

Finally, a legit summer weekend. Everything is green in Park City from the crazy number of rainy days in June. While sitting poolside at Silver Mountain on a lazy Sunday afternoon, I remarked to a friend that it doesn’t get any better than this, as our kids splashed about in the pool. Not a cloud in the sky.

And for the Skid$ Deal of the week, check out Molly Bloom’s Pub at Kimball Junction. We sat outside at one of their many patio tables and enjoyed some suprisingly good food, suprising because it was my first time there and expectations were tempered. I had a delicious Bratwurst with a side of garlic mashed potatoes. I bet my neighbor’s 3-year old $1.00 that she wouldn’t eat a whole clove of roasted garlic, which she did, and liked it. While this was all transpiring, I also noticed a table-top advertisement for $1.00 domestic drafts, a regular thing on weekdays at Molly Bloom’s. So in a way, I’m out one PBR.

Parkcityskids is a New Media Institution

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:45:19 +0000

So I am attending a conference in San Francisco, the Inbound Marketing Summit. There are great speakers here, mostly riffing on the changes that are happening in the media world. Right now I am listening to Chris Brogan talk about the power that bloggers hold in the new media world where everyone can be a publisher. Many predictions from many speakers that daily newspapers won’t even be around in five years. People are struggle with accepting that our news and information will come from blogs, such as this one, because there is this issue of journalistic quality and trust. Even printed media institutions are now printing things that point to their eventual demise. Here’s a bit of irony for you: Barry Diller was quoted in today’s printed USAToday (hey, I didn’t buy it, it was left outside my hotel room door. Oh wait. I did buy it. Marriott built it into my rate, and I didn’t notice the opt-out tiny print on my keycard packet until I was checking out) as saying if you have ink on your hands, meaning you are in the print advertising business, you are finished. Here’s a link to the article and more with Barry Diller. So, what does this have to do with Park City? I think the point is, it comes back to two A’s: authority and authenticity. I think authority can be faked, and authenticity cannot. Newsmedia journalists get the authority just for showing up. That doesn’t make them authentic. What do you think?

Park City Mountain Resort Extends Season

admin — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 07:08:07 +0000

Just got a sweet Tweet from the PCMR Tweeps (@pcski) that the town’s mountain will extend their season by a week. New closing day effective today is Sunday, April 19th, according to the PCMR blog. This is good news for Skids who have season passes, another week to milk out extra value from hard earned dollars in the form of bonus vertical feet skied on the season. And we all know how hard it has been to earn dollars in this town this year. With property management companies that employee hundreds maybe thousands going titties-up, it’s good news to hear that the curtain will not close this weekend. This is a call out to all Skids to show up, ski some runs, drink some beers, buy some burgers on the mountain, and be happy that we get an extra week to slide around in the mountain’s bounty. Thanks, PCMR! In a time of uncertainty, I am certain I will squeeze in a few unexpected extra days.

Backcountry Interconnect Tour

admin — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 04:12:56 +0000

Who would believe the amount of snow we have had here in April in Utah? Unbelievable. On Sunday, April 5th, a group of Skids and non-Skids, hard telling who was who, went on an all-day powder seeking adventure into the Utah backcountry. We didn’t have to look very hard, there was fresh snow everywhere. The problem would be avoiding south and southwest facing aspects. As the sun warmed all the fresh snow from a week’s worth of winter storms, these faces were forecasted to be trouble, with the Utah Avalanche Center forecast calling for Moderate to Considerable danger levels. Armed with Ski Utah Gold Passes (valid at all 13 Utah ski resorts), equipped with all the safety equipment including beacons, probes, and shovels, we departed Park City via the Town Lift. Staying safe and choosing north and northeast facing routes, we used lift power and leg power to get us from PCMR to Solitude to Alta to Snowbird, back to Alta, to Brighton, and back to PCMR. At the end of a long day, we squeezed out some last few long lazy turns to end up back at The Bridge for a few cold ones, after everyone was off the mountain except for a few groomers laying down the next day’s corduroy. If you ever want to experience a tour like this, check out Ski Utah’s Interconnect Tour.

Utah's Wasatch Backcountry

Tight lines near Wolverine Cirque

Dropping into Brighton Resort.

Missing Park City Bigtime

admin — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 01:49:00 +0000

I’m out here is Keystone, Colorado attending the MTS conference. Our posse skied Keystone Resort today, producing a very different vibe from what we are used to back home in Utah. We ate lunch in a local coffee shop/sandwich shop/full bar. Killer selection of single-malt whiskeys. This provided me with a sense of mountain culture shock, since you wouldn’t see a bar like that in Utah. The skiing at Keystone was pretty good, and once you got up into the upper reaches of the resort, you felt like you were really in the mountains. I’d say the base depth here is about half of what we currently have in Park City. The resorts here along the I-70 corridor rise up from the freeway like roadside attractions. I had an argument about this with a Utah native. On the one hand, it’s kind of lame when you see a sign for a resort town that says “Vail: next 3 exits.” Exits and onramps don’t really drive home the mountain town feeling. Slopeside lodging here means you are at the base, but you are a stone’s throw from the freeway. Good thing or bad thing? It certainly is impressive when driving by to see lifts and runs right there, whereas in Utah, at least the Cottonwood resorts are tucked away, up long and windy canyons. No eye candy. Meanwhile, back home in PC, it’s dumping lions and wolves, and all of my Skids correspondents are killing me with reports of 9″ here, 10″ there. We’ll ski Breck tomorrow and maybe Copper on Friday, then we’ll be Utah bound.

The Groundhog is Pissed

admin — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 05:47:33 +0000

Sunset over Wasatch Mountains

Spring.
This photo is what it looked like just last weekend in Park City, sun going down over the mountains looking west towards Kimball Junction from Old Ranch Road. Saturday was a great day for road biking, but funky and wet spring conditions at the resorts. The backcountry was non-existent. The groundhog was out, stretching his legs. Then Sunday came and we got a whopper of a winter storm. First it started warm and wet, then the temperatures dropped, and we had a week of winter weather. The crescendo was Wednesday night into Thursday, dumping over 2 feet of fresh on our three resorts. Maybe LCC and BCC racked up more inches than we did over on the Park City side of the Wasatch, but who cares. The skiing this week has been epic.

Waist deep powder at Deer Valley

Winter.
Thursday amounted to a great day to play hookey and get out on the mountain, with lots of pent-up demand from Skids who were not satisfied with hanging the skis and switching to spring mode. Reports from Skids correspondents at PCMR were boasting of waist deep powder replentishing itself run after run in Jupiter Bowl. Other Skids called or Tweeted from DV, where the wind made the deep snow heavy in places like Wasatch, Sultan, and Mayflower, but heavenly in the tree shots, and incredibly deep and luscious at Lady Morgan and Empire. I am sure there are some hurtin’ puppies tonight from a day spent rallying hard. The groundhog is pissed. There are more winter storms lined up, and it looks like this won’t be the last of winter in Park City.

Hate is not born, it’s learned.

admin — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:36:51 +0000

So the Skids gang wants to do a little Hatfield & McCoy experiment. Ever hear some hippy chick at Starbucks say “free the heel, free the mind?” Ever hear some uptight racer dude say “free the heel, get left behind?” We want to collect as many of these sayings, on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line and create a top-whatever list of the best ones. You can either comment to this post, or send them in via Twitter to @parkcityskids. Let the games begin.

Skids On Groomers

admin — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 04:02:10 +0000

This is what happens when a bunch of skids get together at a high class establishment. Once they know the camera is rolling, they start behaving badly.