Park City Mountain Resort Blog

What a difference two days makes!

I can't believe I was skiing the same mountain today as earlier last week - 15-20 inches of fresh snow sure makes a huge difference! There was definitely enough snow to open a ton of new terrain today, and a bunch more tomorrow. If you have a powder day clause, I seriously recommend putting it to use tomorrow, here's a quick outline of the plan:

We're planing to open the majority of terrain serviced by Thaynes, Pioneer and Crescent Lifts, once snow safety checks have been completed and we're also working on McConkey's, which we're hoping to get open on Tuesday!

To get an idea of what conditions are like on the mountain, you can either trust me (hah!), or check out this video that Brent shot, showing our team getting everything ready to open tomorrow:

Big storm - and how to track it on on your phone!

The first really big storm of the winter is in the process of dumping a ton of snow on us - woohoo! Here's a note that was just sent to our staff:

Thanks to the 15" of new snow overnight we will open additional runs throughout the day off the existing operating lifts. These runs could include Assessment, Powder Keg, Mel's Alley, Belmont, and more. We are working feverishly to get as much terrain open as we can in a manner that is feasibly possible. Our Snow Safety team will be assessing the situation today and we plan to open much of our terrain as the week progresses.

Great news - and to help you find out what's opening while you're on the mountain, we've just updated our mobile website! Visit it at m.pcmr.com or take a peak below.

Wisconsin Cold

My wife is from Wisconsin and we have a cottage on Lake Superior in the Western U.P. so we should be used to cold. But working out on the mountain these last few days has been challenging at best.The cold we've had here lately isn't anything like we usually get in the Wasatch this time of year. Low temps of -10 and highs in the single digits, oh and throw in a strong west wind to drop wind chills to -30 and it's what we call Wisconsin Cold. Wisconsin Cold is good for snowmaking, very good indeed. The crew and their guns and hoses have been very productive the last few nights and days. We come to work in the morning to see giant new "whales" or piles of snowmaking snow. The groomers then spread these whales out and we have more open terrain. Today for instance we have one more run (Claimjumper) and one more lift (Silverlode) open. In the next couple days, we hope to get more (Eric is best with those details).

It's down right tropical out now; 10 above here at the Summit which is 20 degrees warmer than the same time yesterday. The "warm up" is due to a new SW flow that is hopefully bringing a warmer/wetter storm our way. The weather models tell us conditions are indeed favorable for a storm beginning Sunday morning. As we always say when discussing weather forecasts, we shall see.

Additional Openings!

With a little help from Mother Nature (the 8 inches we received earlier this week was composed of only a half inch of water content which didn't add much to the base), and a lot of continued hard work from our slope maintenance team, we're moving along with opening more terrain and facilities. Here's our plan for the next few days:

Thursday:
Silverlode Lift with access to Claimjumper

Friday:
Snow Hut Open at 9 am for beverages and snacks 11 am to 3 pm Lunch is served

Saturday:
Additional terrain off of Bonanza to include Silver Queen and Jonesy's run

Keep on doing your snowdances, and in the meantime, we'll keep the snowguns blazing!

Current Conditions

I was up on the mountain this past Sunday and Monday and I wanted to quickly note some thoughts on the current conditions. I spent several hours on Sunday doing laps on First Time lift with my 2 1/2 year old daughter and a friend or hers and I can now assure everyone that skiing with a youngster will keep you warm no matter what the temperature. Also, I'll vouch that First Time and Turtle Trail runs are in perfect shape for anyone looking for a beginner experience - the kids were bummed when we had to leave as they wanted to do more runs!

On Monday, I spent the morning at a conference and then snuck back to the resort along with several other attendees to show them around. We started with several laps off Bonanza lift, where conditions were very nice, with natural snow mixed in with man-made. We also noted the progress being made by the snowmaking team on Jonesy's, Silver Queen and Claimjumper. After that, we dropped back down to PayDay lift for several more runs, including this video that I shot (sorry if the quality is a bit off, I took it with my phone), of the 2nd half of Payday run. The snow surface was easily turnable and the fresh stuff mixed with the natural made for a really fun afternoon. Here's the video:

See you on the slopes!

Industrial Winter part 2

Cold is here as promised; very cold indeed. The last few mornings near zero with high temps barely making it to the teens. As we are now finally skiing and working out of the Summit, I've been meaning to tip my hat to those responsible. The snowmakers have a tough and dangerous job. They spend their shifts running around in the dark in sub-zero temps, working with pressurized water and air lines under the very loud and very wet snowguns. On years like this when we have 5 inches of natural snow at the Summit, we simply would not be working and you would not be recreating here without them. If you see the team in black coming off the mountain after their shifts or heading up the mountain while you are on your way to the bar, be sure to thank them.

Yesterday Colin and I took a ride up the Jupiter chair to set up our weather station for the season. There is actually more snow on the ground than we anticipated; 17 inches on our total stake. While the surroundings looked grim for December at 10,000 ft, 
the ridgetop west winds were cranking and it seems we are indeed in for a change in the flow pattern. The next week looks to be unsettled with a dusting of snow overnight, a larger storm Monday and Tuesday and another towards the end of the week. The last couple seasons mid and late December have been good to us. Remember the 36 inch Christmas eve storm last year? We can only wait and hope.

Cold temps mean more openings!

As Mark wrote in his Industrial Winter post, it's been getting cold and staying cold, which has allowed our slope maintenance team of snowmakers and groomers to work their magic in getting things prepped for  us to be able to open the upper mountain, serviced by Bonanza lift, on Friday!

Here's a detailed list of what we'll be opening on Friday and Saturday:

Friday, December 4
Bonanza lift with access to Upper Homerun and Bonanza run First Time run
The Summit House will open at 9 a.m. and serve beverages and snacks until 10:30 a.m. Lunch will be served from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Saturday, December 5
Town Lift will open for uploading and downloading only
Gorgoza Park will open for the season

Terrain Park Updates
Upper Homerun includes a triple jump line with 25', 35' and 45' jumps and 4 jib features
Lower Homerun has two smaller jumps and 6 jib features
Payday Jib Park has 8 jib features

In case you were wondering how things are looking up top, here are some photos I took this morning, enjoy and keep doing those snow dances!

Industrial Winter

It is Wednesday afternoon. In my effort to post more regularly this season, I have assigned myself Wednesdays. We DID pick up a trace of actual snow last night. I know, a trace does not a storm make, but at least frozen water fell out of the sky. What has/will help with our snowmaking efforts is the much colder air which moved over the Intermountain West last night. At this moment I am at our Summit Patrol computer at 9300ft and it's 12 degrees. This time yesterday it was 30 up here and the day before 40. Outside the window the "industrial snow" from the snowmaking guns is "falling" hard. In other words, it's dumping from the hoses.

It's supposed to stay cold the next couple days and things are looking good for opening at least part of the Bonanza Zone by the weekend. It will be nice to be working from our Summit "office," I think we're all getting tired of life in Payday Patrol.