Park City
Monday 10 February 2003

Weather

Conditions

Story of the Day

The weather threatened to be very slightly warmer than the previous day, with the high at around the freezing mark.

• Sue was ready to go and take another lesson
• Despite strong advice to the contrary, John and Claire were planning not to take a snowboardling lesson
• Chris and I were ready to continue with our challenge to ski the whole resort

Frost on the bench at the top of First Time

After our first run up First Time we planned to go up the mountain on Pay Day but it wasn't running at 9am, so we skied down to Eagle for a few runs in the King Con area.

Our first run from King Con was down the groomed Liberty run. It didn't look as if it would be possible to groom the run again, there was only just enough snow and grass showing through. For the only time in the whole week, Combustion was pleasant with a good groomed surface.

From the lift Monitor looked to be in the worst condition and with a serious risk of closure. It was not groomed and particularly towards the bottom there were plenty of rocks showing

Broadway - almost deserted (from King Con ridge)	Broadway - almost deserted	Liberty - ungroomed with bare patches
Grass showing through Liberty	Grass showing through Liberty

With Motherlode lift closed on weekdays, we needed to plan carefully to make sure that we completed all the runs down the Northside of Prospector ridge. With the only way back down Thaynes Canyon and King Con lift, each run required a circuit of several lifts.

Our first circuit was to get to Fool's Gold, (which used to be called Ford Country, but I guess they stopped paying for sponsorship!). From the top of Silverlode a quick cruise along the ridge led to the entry to Fool's Gold. The run was mogulled and had a number of thin spots with rocks showing; the snow that was there was in good condition, soft and forgiving.

The run down Thayne's Canyon gradually detriorated during the week. On Monday it was deserted and still in reasonable condition. Down towards the bottom of King Con lift, there were some interesting undulations demanding flexibility in the knees.

Lost Prospector - lost skiers

Chris on Fool's Gold

After the morning break, we headed into McKonkey's Bowl. We needed a cruising warm-up run, so headed left down Tycoon. This run had not been groomed overnight and was nowhere near as pleasant as the previous day, cut-up in places.

Tycoon run along the ridge from McKonkey's

The top of McKonkey's

With some trepidation, we decided to try the double-black face of McKonkey's Bowl. So at the top of the lift, we turned left and then looked for a suitable route into the bowl.

The top of the bowl is steep, but the snow was in great condition. This was a much more pleasant run, and in many ways an easier run than the 'blue' run down Sunrise on the previous day.

We headed back to the top McKonkey's to take the blue option that we did not take on Sunday. To avoid the rocks and moguls, we turned left off the lift and dropped from the ridge into the top edge of McKonkey's Bowl and cut across under the lift to a point part part way down Sunrise. Apart from one large rock, which I saw and avoided and Chris did not, this was another delightful run.

On Sunday, Red Fox was in pretty awful condition, so we were not too sure about the other runs from the top of Pioneer, but with no promise of fresh snow, we needed to try to complete the runs before they deteriorated further. There was grass showing through Sampson, but overall it was in much better condition than we expected.

Comstock was in a very similar condition to Sampson. I though Chris and I agreed to take the trail through the trees to the top of the short face underneath the bottom of Pioneer lift. Whne I got part way along, I waited for a while, then realised that Chris had not followed and met him at the bottom of the lift.

Mid Mountain Retaurant from Mid Mountain Cut-Off

Trail through the trees to the top of Pioneer face

It was approaching lunch time, so we decided to head back down towards the base taking in Shaft. This truned out to be the most unpleasant run of the week, because of poor snow conditions. We got a hint of trouble to come in the traverse across from Crescent, where it was difficult to find a path between the bushes and I fell.

Once on Shaft it was clear that there wasm't enough snow. There were bushes pushing through all over the place and no clear line to ski. At one point I fell and found that my ski was trapped in a bush, clear of the snow. We made it carefully to the bottom, but the slope came into the catergory "got down that but didn't enjoy it".

Ski trapped in a bush on Shaft

We started the afternoon with the second run down to the bottom of Town lift.

From the top of Bonanza we 'knocked off' the moguls of Double Jack. There were one or two bare patches, but by far the biggest challenge was tired legs. We both agreed at the bottom that we would cruise for the rest of the afternoon.

The bottom of Silverlode

By the end of the afternoon, we had recorded more than 30,000 feet of vertical, so we were entitled to feel tired. For the run down to the bottom, we took the easy Home Run all the way.

Runs

Last updated: 31/03/2003