Ok, I guess I’m recovered enough from our ski trip to write about it. Five days of skiing in a row, on big mountains, at altitude, with a couple of feet of fresh powder and no lift lines is hard work!

As we flew to Salt Lake City, we started to get a little nervous. The mountains of Colorado were brown, not white! Northern Utah looked a bit better, but once on the ground we realized that it was about 50 degrees out and there was no snow on the ground. The mountains had snow, but it didn’t look like much, at least not in the elevations near the city. Uh oh. We knew better than to ski the first day anyway, so we took the opportunity to drive around the city a bit (even though I once spent a week fourteen miles from downtown, I had never really seen Salt Lake City). Then we took a beautiful drive south to take a look at the Sundance ski area before driving back up to Park City, where we were staying for the first four nights of the trip. Sundance definitely had spring skiing conditions, warm and drippy. Not what I had been hoping for. Even worse, the forecast was for temperatures above freezing, with rain and snow likely through the weekend. Ugh!

Our hotel in Park City was right across the road from Utah Olympic Park, where the 2002 ski jumping and bobsledding events took place. We should have taken a picture of it that first day, but we didn’t know that at the time. As it turned out, all of the precipitation that week was snow, and the daily snowfall amounts would increase each day we were there. Although we did drive up to the ski jumps after our last day skiing in Park City, we could only see the bottoms of them, not the tops! Needless to say, the combination of snow and flat, gray lighting made for difficult skiing, especially for Ed, who also had to contend with problems with his glasses, his goggles, and general disposition.

But I had fun! I love skiing in the Rockies. The runs are steep and long, and there are lots of moguls (which I love) if you stick to the black diamonds. We skied at Park City, The Canyons, and Deer Valley while staying in Park City. All three were great. Ed preferred Deer Valley because they groom a lot of their runs, and their food was really good. They also had a NASTAR slalom course set up, and he enjoyed trying that. The Canyons had a lot of glade skiing, and a really fun steep mogully bowl that I skied after Ed had quit for the day. And Park City itself was fun, good restaurants and not as tourist-trappy as I had expected.

Speaking of tourists, it turns out skiing is not recession proof. According to some random guy on a chairlift, the number of skiers at Park City is down fifty percent, Deer Valley ten percent (it’s the rich people’s resort). What this meant for us was no lift lines, even on Saturday and Sunday. Combined with the speed of some of the detachable lifts, this meant we barely got breaks between runs. We probably skied more in two hours than we would have all day somewhere like Seven Springs. Exhausting!

Our plan was to stay in Park City through Sunday night, then ski at Alta Monday and Snowbird Tuesday, staying in downtown Salt Lake City. I had been a bit worried about this with all the snow. Our rental car did not have four-wheel drive, and I knew that Little Cottonwood Canyon road could be treacherous. As we got to the base of the canyon Monday morning, the traffic alert signs warned us that no cars would be allowed up the canyon without four-wheel drive or chains. We tried three places to get chains (the cheaper, cable kind), but they had all sold out in Novemember, and apparently it is SOP not to restock them (?). So it was back to the airport to trade in the rental car, then a slow drive up the canyon to Alta. We noticed that all the natives parking in the parking lot flipped up their windshield wipers so they wouldn’t get buried with snow, so we did the same.

Alta was as good as I remembered it, but by this time Ed was too frustrated by the snow and lack of visibility to enjoy it much. He had never skied in powder, and Alta is known for deep powder. It was knee high, making it difficult to get up after a fall. And finally, he fell and smacked his head on the ground (luckily he was wearing a helmet) and decided to call it a day. I went on and skied some of the really hard slopes I skied thirteen years ago with Sam, and tired myself out. Fun, but even I was wishing for some sun by this time.

The next day at Snowbird we did get one hour of sun, even though seven more inches of snow had fallen during the night. Snowbird is right next to Alta, but a totally different kind of resort. Alta is an old-fashioned resort, known for it’s excellent snow and runs rather than glitz. No snowboarders allowed, either, and most of the skiers are experts so while it has very difficult skiing, it feels safer than other places. Snowbird has more maniacs. I liked the mountain, particularly the Mineral Basin are of it, but I definitely prefer the feel at Alta. Anyway, after our fun hour of sun (we could see the bumps!), we descended from the top of the mountain in to a mix of frozen cloud and snowfall, the worst visibility of the trip. We could hear voices, but couldn’t see the people. That was it for Ed. He headed for the car to get out of his boots for the last time. I skied one more run and met him for a late lunch, intending to continue skiing afterward. In the end though, it felt like I should stop too, and once that decision was made, I realized how exhausted I was. I think we both were good at knowing our limits, and avoided injury because of it.

I wish we could ski more. We need to work on that.