Park City
Sunday 18 February 2001

Looking down from King Con Ridge

Chris on King Con Ridge/Looking towards Prospector

The start of the day was frustrating. We had booked skis in advance and we were on the doorstep of Breeze Ski rentals at 7:00am, the advertised opening time. It was almost half past when the shop opened and they had lost track of our reservation. 

Breakfast at Park City was good, but it was almost 9:30 when we actually got round to skiing. Sue stayed around the base area and took a few runs off First Time. Chris needed to get his legs used to skiing so we headed up Eagle to the King Con area.

Liberty and Shamus were nicely groomed. Climax had been groomed 1 day earlier. Eureka had been left for several days for moguls to form.

We managed four runs off King Con before the queues got out of hand. In general, Park City was not managing queues anywhere near as well as in previous years. Some of the scrums outside the roped areas were very French in style.

The start of the Olympic Giant Slalom course

Chris just below the top of Silverlode Lift

At this stage of the day, the weather was beautiful with strong sunlight. For the rest of the morning, we switched between Pioneer and McConkey's.

First of all, we took the nicely groomed Comstock and then the long Tycoon cruise along the ridge above McConkey's Bowl along the boundary with Deer Valley.

Last year, Sunshine was not groomed. With large moguls it was not suitable for intermediates. This year it was groomed, but steep with slick and bare patches, so still challenging.

Part way down, we dropped into the lower section of McConkey's Bowl with soft moguls just forming in the fresh snow, and then followed the line of the lift.

After one more run from Pioneer, the queues started to build up so we moved on.

Looking down Mid Mountain and up Tycoon

The cliff on 10th Mountain and run to Pioneer lift

Mid Mountain restaurant

McConkey's Lift and Chris on the moguls

Moguls under McConkey's Lift

At the top of Pioneer Lift

Plan A was a quick run down Keystone, up Thaynes lift and then down for lunch. There was a long queue so we carried on down Thaynes Canyon to Motherlode and then the cruise down.

After lunch we planned to take a few runs from Payday. The queue management was not good and the lift kept stopping. With the weather clouding over, we decided to call it a day after just 2 runs, one a cruise down Payday and one a more challenging run down the moguls of Nail Driver.

All in all, this was a disappointing day. In previous years we spent most of our time at Park City, with the occasional visit to other resorts. This year, this was the only visit to Park City during our 6 days in the area.