Deer Valley
Tuesday 20 February 2001

We got to Deer Valley just before they started to serve breakfast, got a nice table in the corner for Sue to plug in her laptop and a great parking spot almost inside the lodge.

Chris in the powder on Wizard

The snow was pretty slow and with skis with four day old waxing getting down to the Wasatch lift needed a lot of poling.

The first run down Legal Tender was perhaps the best of the day as we vut fresh tracks through virgin snow. The second run down Wizard (pictures left) was almost as good.

We moved onto the steeper Reward and then Tycoon with lots of powder. I cut through the trees to Evergreen, with powder on top of old moguls.

The short Finis, had lots of powder on top of large moguls.

To get back to the base area, we took the ungroomed Emerald and then the easy Success route from the top of Bald Eagle Mountain.

Fresh powder under Sultan lift

Sue, Mike (and teddy) on Success

Looking towards Success (looping round on the right)

She started very well and got almost to the bottom before trouble set in. The last section is the steepest and with tired legs she decided she couldn't manage it.

After a lunch stop, Sue rebuilt her confidence with some comfortable runs from the Snowflake lift.

Peak 1 - Bald Eagle Mountain

The first peak was easy. Carpenter Express took us to the top of Bald Eagle Mountain. The sun was shining but there were ominous gray clouds around.

Bald Mountain from Bald Eagle Mountain

The top of Bald Eagle Mountain

Choice of runs from Bald Eagle

Little Baldy Peak

Looking down towards Snowflake from Carpenter Express

From Bald Eagle, we cruised down Roamer and Deer Hollow and up Deer Crest lift, a slow quad chair to the top of the newest area, Little Baldy Peak.

To move round to peak number 3, we needed to return to the base and go back via Carpenter and Bald Eagle Mountain again.

With powder getting packed down, we just about made it to Wasatch lift without poling, and once again chose the ungroomed meadow of Emerald as our route down. By this time clouds were building up ominously.

The top of Wasatch lift on Bald Mountain

The top of Northside lift on Flagstaff Mountain

We took our usual route to the top of Flagstaff Mountain, via the very slow Red Cloud and then Northside Express. As we stopped briefly at the rest room, the sun was fighting back.

Bandana took us down to the base of the Empire Express lift. We had time for two runs before the lift closed.

The first was almost down the centre of the bowl through the moguls of Domingo. The second was a cruise down Supreme, which was hardly in a groomed state with the fresh snow beginning to pile up into small moguls.

Bald Mountain in the distance seemed a long way.

The top of Empire Canyon


The view back to Bald Mountain from Empire Canyon

The top of the 2002 Olympic runs

We started with a run through Guardsman's Glade, with powder and nicely spaced trees and then took the track under the Quincy lift (some poling necessary) to get to the top of Square Deal, rather steeper with plenty of powder left and variable spaced trees.

For the final run down to Snow Park Lodge, we chose Know You Don't, the site of the Ladies Slalom event in the 2002 Olympics.