Park City
Wednesday 12 February 2003

Weather

Conditions

Story of the Day

The weather was improving, but the snow conditions were not. We enjoyed sunshine all day. Chris and I continued on our challenge of skiing all of the marked runs in the week.

Our first target for the day was to get to 1/2 Load, a run that used to connect the top of Crescent lift with Claimjumper run. The lift is no more, but the run is still on the map.

The only way to get to 1/2 Load is to ski down Home Run and UP King Con Access. Early morning is a good time to do this, when the runs are deserted. Later in the day, when more people are about, skiing fast down Home Run to get up the momentum to get at least part way up King Con Access is rewarded by withdrawal of lift pass. Even so, we had to walk about 100 metres up-hill, and all to get to a relatively short connecting run, shown as green on the map, but no longer maintained as a run.

I can't remember why we put in a run down to the bottom of King Con. There may have been a plan, changed because of a need to visit the loo. With Motherlode lift closed, skiing Glory Hole meant a trip down Thaynes Canyon to the bottom on King Con lift.

After a mid-morning break, we set out to systematically hit the runs between Silverlode chair and Claimjumper run, and with around thirty minutes to our agreed meeting time for lunch, we had time for two runs off Payday, covering two blacks that we had not yet done this visit.

After lunch, we took two runs from Payday and then met up with Sue again for some runs from First Time.

With Ski Team closed on weekdays, skiing the runs just above the Resort Center needed planning. Leaving Willy's Run until Saturday, our target was Erika's Gold and we knew that there was a sign towards it from the top of King Con lift. From below it was not immediately apparent where the top of the run was and it wasn't really visible from above. There was a very steep and rocky slope that because Erika's Gold lower down, but that didn't look like the way. There was also a signpost towards Willy's Run that required a traverse through bushes.

We decided to take the traverse. This was not particularly easy .. there were no natural turning points and the track itself was too steep to control speed without turns. So, we ended up side-slipping slowly between the bushes. We got down but would not do it again.

Erika's Gold started at the foot of the traverse. Particularly near the top, there was not really enough snow and bushes were waiting to catch skis. The lower down we got, the better the conditions seemed to be.

Our legs were getting tired. So we finished the day with four easy runs from Bonanza before heading back down to the resort center. On the way down, we did ski Waterfall for the only time during the week, and then did one run each from Three Kings and First Time looking for Sue.

Runs

Last updated: 29/01/04