Park City Mountain Resort Blog

Jupiter Rumblings

Yes, we've had some snow the past couple weeks and yes, we've been able to push our open terrain higher up the mountain. If you were out and about today (Monday) you may have heard the rumble of "shots" rolling down Thaynes Canyon from the Jupiter area. A few of us were up there doing a little pre-storm explosive work and set up. Our goal was to shake up the new hard wind slab that was deposited over the last 24 hours and if lucky, even clean out some of the old, "rotten" snow from early season before these nasty layers get buried by our forecasted storms this week. We were somewhat successful in that we cracked up and punched some holes in the hard slab and even triggered a couple small slides into the older snow.
We were also able to get a good bit of the set up work done including padding towers and posts, running some of our longer rope lines, and getting first aid gear and rescue toboggans in place. Tomorrow we will do some more explosive work and set up on the Scott's Bowl side of the area. This way if we do get our forecasted storms tomorrow and Thursday nights, we'll be that much closer to getting Jupiter open as a Christmas present to our locals and holiday guests. We're doing our best to move things along; now we just have to keep an eye on the storms and our hopes high for some good deep snow to finish the job.

Back At Last for 07-08

So we've been open for a little over a week and I'm finally posting for the first time this season. Things have started a little slow so far; heck I was riding single track on a gorgeous fall day Thanksgiving weekend when most years we're skiing powder. Ah well, winter has started, we have a few lifts and runs open, and about half the gang is back working.

The Patrol gathered on the Mountain a little over a month ago for our annual lift evac training. Unlike most seasons, we did not have to train amidst the first big storm of the year.The weather was lovely, a little too lovely for late October really, and the training time was well spent. This was our first chance to work with this year's batch of rookies. I have to say that this season we have one of our lowest turn-overs ever, and the folks we did hire are certainly the best of the crop. The new crew will start on the mountain training next Monday and we look forward to having them around.

David and I attended a Snow Safety open house hosted by the National Weather Service and Utah Avalanche Forecast Center recently. The PHDs in the room told us the season may start slow with respect to snow (as it has), but should ramp-up in December. So far, 4 days into this month, they have been right. Conditions certainly have been colder and snowier and it looks like more is on its way. This gives me a chance to insert an early season avalanche safety reminder. With the recent new snow, many locals are skiing and riding lines in the upper (still closed) reaches of the Mountain. Coverage is pretty thin and the snow that is there is fairly sensitive. If you do venture into the high country, follow safe travel practices and ski/ride lightly. A few folks have taken some nasty rides in the Wasatch backcountry after our latest storm. It's way too early in the season to get hurt in a slide or by hitting stumps and rocks just below the surface. One other thing. As we do get more snow, we'll be heading into the upper bowls to start assessing conditions and even doing a some preemptive shooting. If you see us working around the upper mountain, please stay clear. We'll get those areas open as soon as we can.

National Safety Awareness Week 2007

We're in the middle of National Safety Awareness Week for Ski Resorts across the country. It's a week to raise awareness about Your Responsibility code and the responsibilities we all have when using the slopes to help make out slopes safe. We've posted a number of videos on safety to this blog in the past, and we also have the videos along with a bunch of other information on the safety section of our website. Take a look and stay safe!