Deer Valley
Wednesday 11 February 2004

Weather

Conditions

Story of the Day

As we prepared to leave the condo, the weather was looking distictly better than on previous days. Not only was the sun showing through, but there were patches of blue in the sky. We headed towards Deer Valley and the great breakfast served in Snow Park Lodge.

Sunrise near Powderwood

Our plan was to sign-up for the black diamond tour in the morning at 9:30am. The first step was to fit in a few warm-up runs. First of all, we cruised down Solid Muldoon, and then we tried the moguls on Luck Bill, often used as a test run before the start of the tour.

Snow covered trees at the top of Bald Eagle Mountain	Fresh snow on the trees on Bald Eagle Mountain
Snow covered trees at the top of Bald Eagle Mountain	Chris at the top of Solid Muldoon

We duly turned up for the tour to find that there were a group of rather younger (than me) people, who looked as if they were pretty good skiers. We didn't go for Lucky Bill, we skied down to Know You Don't, the slope used for the moguls competition in the 2002 olympics. Several of the other guys skied down with a perfect mogul rhythm and were put into one group. Chris did a very respectable run, but was started another group. I fell on the moguls and joined Chris. One other person, a little younger than me came to join us. We were told that we would hold up the group and recommended to take the slightly easier afternoon black diamond tour. We did have the last laugh, because we did our own thing and noticed throughout the morning that the rest of the group were more of less doing the same slopes, but with a lot of standing around.

The three of us, rejected from the tour set off back towards the top of Bald Eagle Mountain and on the ride up, we agreed to stick together for a while at least. Without any real plan, we skied down to the bottom go Wasatch Express and turned left at the top of Mount Baldy.

A little way along the ridge, we decided to go down Perseverance Bowl. Ungroomed and marked "Experts Only", it seemed the right thing to do. This proved to be well within our capabilities. There was a combination of fairly rough stuff, a little powder and some moguls. Nowhere was it particularly steep. This run brought us to the bottom of Sultan Lift and a ride back up to the top of Mount Baldy.

Moguls underneath Sultan lift	Under Sultan lift
Moguls under Sultan lift	Perseverence Bowl
Perseverence Bowl

This time we continued further along the ridge and cut-off right into the Double Black Mayflower Bowl. This was not much more challenging than the previous run, as long as we planned ahead and avoided the steepest areas, which also seemed to be rather devoid of snow. It was a lot longer and more tiring.

After a ride up Mayflower, we took Free Thinker, not very long, not groomed and with fresh snow on the surface. Chris had a rather spectacular fall, involving a small tree. With snow conditions, he did not come to any harm.

Chris after colliding with a small bush on Free Thinker	Chris' pole
Tracks both sides of the tree

Next run was down the steeper but groomed Stein's Way and the short ungroomed face, Finis down to the bottom of Sultan lift.

When we go to the top of the lift, our companion took his leave of us. Chris and I decided to try some glade skiing. Cutting across the slopes at the top of Bald Mountain, we took the ungroomed Emerald part way down and then cut into the trees of Sunset Glade. This was good skiing and not too challenging.

Chris in Sunset Glade	Chris in Sunset Glade
Mike emerging from Sunset Glade	Mike emerging from Sunset Glade

From the top of Flagstaff Mountain, we started with a cruise down Sidewinder. This is a nice run. If it is not crowded, it is possible to ski straight down the run, turning only when the run turns. There were a few people around, so we did need a few extra turns, but not many. Next we intended to find Ontario Bowl, but missed the run across to it and ended up heading back down towards Silver Lake cutting across into Sunset Glade about half way up.

Back at the top of Flagstaff Mountain we headed for the trees of Guardsman's Glade. These are a little closer together. The most challenging part of this run is the escape at the bottom, which is an up and down track. At one point Chris stopped and I crashed into him quite spectaularly.

Chris in Guardsman's Glade

Chris emerging from Guardsman's Glade

For our second run through Guardsman's Glade we kept left on the moguls rather than going through the trees,

By now we were getting tired and hungry so we headed down towards Silver Lake and then via Crown Point down to meet Sue for lunch.

Snow cover under Crown Point

The view from Crown Point

After lunch, we planned to go back to Silver Lake to join the afternoon tour as recommended. Sue decided to come with us to see what there was there, so we were able to show her how to get across Bald Eagle Mountain on Silver Lake lift. We joined the group and there was one other person with us.

From the top of Flagstaff Mountain, we did one run down the moguls of Lost Boulder as a test run. We all survived but none of use skied particularly fluently. Importantly, I think we were pretty much the same level.

Back at the top of Flagstaff Mountain we took the trail down towards the Empire Canyon area.Turning left at the top of the lift, we almost immediately dropped into the moguls on Conviction, the easier side of the bowl and then the short steep Buckeye on the tailings left by previous mining operations.

The next run was the highlight of the afternoon and took us into an area we would never have gone into on our own. Riding Empire chair, the Daly Chutes dominate the left side of the bowl. The look extremely steep, so I was a little nervous when our guide left the main trail and cut off across a narrow traverse leading to the top of the chutes. The top of the first chute was a cornice, with about a 6' vertical drop. Luckily, I was able to by-pass this by entering a little lower down. The bowl was steep (about 45°) but the snow was in great condition. We did a couple of turns on the face before traversing across two more chutes and then skiing down, returning to the main trail through the trees.

Next our guide took us through Guardsman's Glade and then showed us the right trail to take to get to into Ontario Bowl. This is not quite as steep as the chutes, but funnels into a narrow gap before a steep drop of about 12' to the trail below.

For our final run with the guide, we went back up to the top of Flagstaff Mountain and down the lightly gladed Square Deal

After thanking out guide, Chris and I went back up Bald Mountain for another run at Sunset Glade. We were obviously tired and made heavy weather of it, so decided to call it a day and return to the base for a well-earned warm drink. This must have been one of best day's skiing ever!

Viking lift and Stein's Lodge

Silver Link

Runs

Last updated: 29th September 2004