The Canyons, Utah Day 3 (Thursday 21 Feb)

Dan was still not up to skiing today so the Team was short-handed again today. We packed up our stuff and checked out of our plush Park City condo in the AM and Dan dropped the three of us off at the Canyons (barely a mile away).

The Canyons reported four inches overnight and it snowed steadily all day. This place is big as these ski areas go. It's a jumble of about eight big canyons inteconnected by ski lifts and trails.

The Team has gotten very good at figuring out these big, new-to-us ski areas. This is especially important when there isn't a foot of new powder covering everything. We look for the high-elevation, north-facing, steeper faces, preferably protected by stands of evergreen trees. That's where the snow accumulates and most other skiers don't go. The spruce trees shield the snow from the sun, so that powder that fell days or a week ago is still dry and fluffy and often untracked. Add a six inches of new powder and the Team has found what it's looking for - the best runs on the mountain. South-facing, Aspen-covered (deciduous trees) faces get warmed by the sun then freeze up every night, so they need ten inches or more of new snow to be great. These conditions are usually found at the highest peaks and bowls and at the extreme boundaries of the ski areas - along the ropes. At Canyons today we found these conditions at at least four different parts of the mountain(s).

Some of the runs we did today were equal to the best runs ever, plumeting down thru the pines in shin-deep dry powder, almost as good as our day at Keystone last week. For four runs in a row, I thought I had just made the most fabulous run of the day, each time even better than the one before. Then we made a run down a crappy south face Aspen glade that had a crunchy, icy crust under the surface powder - that broke the string.

Dan toured the town of Park City while we skied and got Becky a nice gift (I'm not saying what it is, Beck). I better find something for Cyn or I'm in trouble. I've skied ten days of the last twelve and haven't been in a shop yet. Ray, Anita, and I were still high up in the back country when 4:00 closing came, and it took us until about 5:00 to get back down to the base. The canyons are confusing - you can get from one to another in only a few places. At one point, we couldn't figure out how to get across one canyon to get home until we found a ski lift that actually took skiers down from one canyon to another.

We had dinner in a brew pub in the PCity village before heading north to Eden (near Ogden). Anita wanted to see downtown SLC and the Mormon Temple so we so we stopped and walked around Temple Square for a while (no worries, no one converted). We got to our new, much lessor condo in Eden late and pretty much fell asleep. Adventures are hard work!