New snow, powder turns and terrain openings!

Working at a resort has its privileges, and I was lucky enough to experience some of those this morning. With almost a foot of new snow on the upper mountain, it was decided that today would be a good time to grab some video and photos. Our Park City Mountain Patrol was kind enough to let us ski and ride a quick run on Keystone and while it was just one  run, it was great getting that unique feeling of skiing Utah powder again (I even made it into the video, watch for me in the red jacket):

While the skiing was great on Keystone, I want to let everyone know that Thaynes Lift isn't going to be openable for a bit because there isn't enough snow around the bottom terminal of the lift and unfortunately, there's no snowmaking in that area. However, we are planning on opening Silverlode Lift plus Claimjumper and Muckers runs this Wednesday. In addition, our operations team is busily prepping additional terrain and we'll post updates as soon as we get 'the word' of any new openings.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!!!!

Comments

[406]

hey Eric,
when you gonna update my picture??
love, 406

Mr Saurer - it's done! Sorry for the wait & keep up the great posts! ;)

[Roderick]

Eric,

We are flying to Park City this coming Saturday from Florida to have a family white XMAS. Eventhough the whole mountain for PCMR will not be opened (let us hope that more gets opened) I am looking forward to the trip and some good Utah powder.
I have never done night skiing though, do you know if the night trails will be open for next week?
Thanks and see you soon.

Eric replies:
Roderick, we'll be announcing a good chunk of openings for Saturday shortly, and the forecast is looking great for you getting some great Utah powder skiing in.
Also, night skiing will open on December 25th!

[Jack]

hey , im going to park city in febuary and with the way the weather's been so far, i was wondering, if there is hardly any snow all year (god forbid), how much terain can you make snow on? It seems like mountains in the east (which is where i'm from) have much faster snow making. Whats up with that?
Thanks for the updates,
Jack

Eric replies:
Jack, February is a long way off, and I know that we'll have plenty of terrain open long before then! We have coverage on over 500 acres of our terrain with our snowmaking system. Also, our runs are typically a bit longer and wider than runs back east which means we do need more time to get each run open. See you in another couple months!

[Bryton]

Hey Eric,
I was looking at the mountain through the cameras and I noticed SNOW!! And tons of it! My family and I are going to PC this Saturday but it seems like theres barely anything open. :/ 8 trails out of 107 isnt that many. But I was wondering, since theres snow everywhere, and the forecast is well. Snow. Haha. Are there any big chunks of the mountain getting ready to be opened **soon**?? It seems 2 trails at a time, (thankfully better than nothing) is rather small. Wheres the peak?? And the beautiful bowls!!?
Sincerely,
Bryton

Eric replies:
Hi Bryton - oh yeah, there's snow! :-) But this last storm came in with a bunch of wind, so there are still a number of runs that have skiable parts with very thin sections in between.
Our snowmaking & grooming teams are working very hard to get a good chunk more terrain open this weekend, I hope to post more on this tomorrow...in the meantime, here's where we're blowing snow: Pick 'N Shovel, Silver Queen, King Con, Broadway, Lower Prospector and Temptation.

[Blake]

We were at PCMR on Thursday-Sunday, while we waited for our Idaho winter to kick into gear. Even though there were only 6 runs open, it was a blast to get out on the slopes. This was my first year in Park City. Looking at the trail map I had no idea how extensive an area the resort covers. With Bonanza open it seemed like the hill just kept going up and up. I had a lot of fun dragging my two little girls down the hills. We are looking forward to being there in a few more weeks and doing it all over again. Thanks for making Park City a great place to ski (especially for a family)!

Eric replies:
Glad you had a great time Blake and we look forward to seeing you again in a few weeks!

[Branden H]

wow just noticed its eric not dave...sorry!

Eric replies:
No problem!

[Branden H]

Hi Dave,
Thanks for the quick response. I am very excited that you think with some more snow everything could be open...please keep the site updated as well as you can so i can know what is going on there. This is my first trip to utah!
Thanks

Eric replies:
You're welcome Branden, and rest assured, we'll keep updating!

[Gaz]

Eric,

I'll be on the slopes on Sunday, so I'm starting to get a bit nervous! Please keep the updates coming as often as you can. Fingers are crossed for a surprise big storm in the next few days.

Thanks for your updates!

Eric replies:
Gaz, don't be nervous, it's just starting to get good, see you Sunday!

[Scott]

Hey Eric,
Thanks for all of your updates! I was hoping that with the new foot of snow though, some new terrain would be opened! But, it still looks like there's hardly any intermediate, and no advanced terrain open. Any idea if much more will get opened by Friday?

Eric replies:
Scott, our mountain ops team is up on the mountain right now and checking on what we and when we will be able to open more terrain. FYI, due to strong winds there are still spots that are really thin! We should have an update by this afternoon... :-)

[Chapel Hillian]

Thanks for the updates on where you're blowing snow. This is good information exhibiting how PCMR will be opening up more terrain. I appreciate it!

This is a challenging year so far. People have committed money to visting PCMR and want to see it was a good bet. The information you're giving goes far towards alleviating concerns. Thanks and keep up the good work! We'll be experiencing your good efforts between Christmas and New Years!

Eric replies:
Hi Chapel, it's great to hear that you're getting the info you need from our blog, because that's what it's intended to do - see you soon!

[Shawneen]

Hi Eric,
Enjoy your updates. :-) Not sure if this is up your alley or not, but do you have any knowledge as to when the personal mountain tours on the website will get updated to include the new lift? Thanks!

45 more days till arrival!! (ours, that is)

Eric replies:
Hi Shawneen - thanks for the note, and yes I do know about PMT updates...we're working on them now and should have Crescent included in the next week or two and the very most!

[Dave]

What's up with the terrain openings? Checking www.skiutah.com, PCMR seems to have the least number of runs open of any resort in the SLC area save Powder Mountain (no snowmaking) or Sundance. Even Wolf Creek has more than 6 runs open. Are you spreading your snow guns thin to try and get a chunk of runs open all at once for the Christmas tourists?

Eric replies:
Dave, of the three Park City resorts, I think that we actually have the most acreage open (depends upon what you call a run I think), also Homerun and PayDay both require a huge amount of coverage to open.
We are currently blowing snow on: Claim Jumper, the Summit area, Pick 'N Shovel, Quarter Load, Muckers, and Silver Queen and we'll be moving down to the King Con area next.

[Branden H]

how much terrain do you think will be open by Christmas?

Eric replies:
Branden, hopefully everything, but to get there we'd need a really good storm (can only hope). My guess is that we'll get a large chunk of the upper mountain open by then, but how much really depends upon how kind these next few storms are to us. Cop-out answer, I know, but we are really close on a bunch of terrain right now...just need a little more snow!!!