Liz had not been to Deer Valley so she was looking for a chance to try it once it was on the Ikon Pass. I wanted to hold off because the warm weather we often get during Iron Blosam week would create very sloppy conditions at the Wasatch back ski areas.
Fortunately the ongoing snowfall has kept conditions nice over all of Utah, and the immediate prediction for our first ski day in Utah was for more new snow and likely serious crowd issues at many places. It was not a surprise that it took people 2-3 hours to get up LCC Saturday morning and we heard even Snowbasin had a 4-mile backup of cars getting into its parking lot.
Forewarned that Deer Valley was not immune to congestion issues this season, we reserved in advance, got parking in the second lot at 8:15AM, had our day ticket by 8:30 but then hunted for a table and waited 10 minutes to get breakfast, Eggs Benedict for me and a custom omelette for Liz. Liz’ friend Lisa was not so lucky. She arrived at 8:45, barely made it into Deer Valley’s last lot and had to wait nearly half an hour in the ticket line.
The 3 of us boarded Carpenter a bit after 9:30 and worked our way to the top of Bald Mountain by 10:00. We took a warmup on Tycoon to the Sultan lift before checking out the 5 inches of new snow in Mayflower Bowl. I stayed near the skier’s right boundary Mayflower Chutes but got a good picture of Liz and Lisa in Mayflower Bowl.
There’s quite a bit of territory here to spread out the people, and the slow Mayflower lift was loading less than half its capacity. Nonetheless the subsurface of all the ungroomed was moguls and 5 inches was not enough to stay off them. Liz and Lisa got a more powdery first run than I did by staying off the steeper pitches. Fortunately with the ongoing snow and overcast we encountered zero melt/frozen snow, even on east facing Mayflower or low on the mountain.
We took 4 more laps here. Liz and Lisa are on Narrow gauge, Mayflower’s liftline,
Next was Paradise, the run just right of center here.
That pitch is mostly south facing but had more loose snow and fewer moguls so skied well.
I poked around the trees between a couple of the runs, but the aspens had a lot of low branches making fluid skiing difficult. Our final run from Mayflower was the groomed Stein’s Way, where we cut back to the Sultan lift to move on.
Deer Valley is noted especially in the new Ikon era of having selected runs with very high density. But we skied Wizard next to the Wasatch lift and it was nearly deserted. We then rode the short Crown Point lift and skied Sunrise and Kimberley through one of the housing areas and under two road bridges.
We soon reached Deer Hollow and the view over the base area.
The full parking lots are just right of center.
We continued past the St. Regis hotel to the Mountaineer Express, which took us to the top of Jordanelle. Here are Lisa, Liz and the Jordanelle view.
Just left of center you can see a road going up to a hilltop with buildings. Those are four mansions served by a private funicular, which is the diagonal line running below the left end of the houses.
When I first skied this with admin in January 2009 it was 100% firm manmade snow due to east exposure and the 6,570 foot base. But today it skied just like any other groomer, probably better as it had little traffic.
Riding up the Jordanelle gondola we get a good view of many more houses.
After a fast groomer on Mountaineer we skied to the base, rode lifts up to Flagstaff and skied to Empire. From the top of Empire Lisa headed home for the day while I showed Liz the traverse to the Daly Chutes. I sent her down Daly Bowl which she liked. I pushed on the Daly chute just short of the major rock outcropping. The top few steep turns were packed very firm by traffic, but it soon opened out into softer snow. Looking back up:
Looking across the hill in profile:
Seeing wide openings in those trees I went in there from the top on my next run and found more powdery snow.
Liz had taken a break as she was getting cold, so I joined her in Empire Lodge just before 2PM, recommended time when the crush in DV restaurants eases up. We still had to hunt for a table which we shared with an Arizona couple. But we got our turkey chili and cheesecake with no wait. Based on our limited sample, Deer Valley’s food still maintained its reputation with us.
Rolling out of there almost 2:45 we didn’t have as much time as I thought for Lady Morgan, which closes at 3:00PM. We got one lap in, me on Argus, Liz on Magnet. These were soft moguls with good spacing.
From top of Lady Morgan, weather lifted a bit for some good overviews of Deer Valley. This view east is mostly real estate though the base areas of Flagstaff’s Northside and Silver Strike lifts are at center right.
The St. Regis high rise is visible at distance left of center.
View SE, Bald Mountain highest point center left.
The Ruby lift running up Flagstaff is directly above the Closed sign. The large building left of the sign is the relatively new Montage Resort. I recall seeing that under construction during the 2009 visit.
We also had a good zoomed view of the Daly Chutes.
The Empire lift also closes at 3PM so there was a full maze on Ruby to exit this sector. It took less than 10 minutes, giving Liz and me time for one cruiser on Lost Boulder before the Flagstaff lifts closed at 3:45.
After a second ascent of Flagstaff we took the walk up to Ontario Bowl.
This might have been another 10 minutes. I had only been there once in 2001 and didn’t remember much. But emerging from the trees much of the snow was very lightly tracked.
In general the more skier’s right you went, the fewer tracks, but the runs got shorter dropping into the Ontario trail. Liz was fine with that. I pushed bit farther left, but from the Ontario trail lower down we could see longer lines emerging much farther skier’s left.
We skied to the base via Solid Muldoon and were on the road by 4:30. After a couple of stops we got to Iron Blosam around 6PM.
This was my seventh day at Deer Valley since 1986, and I remembered just enough to give Liz the survey tour with minimal congestion after spending the first several runs in Mayflower’s shallow but good quality powder. I skied 24,800 vertical and Liz was only one 1,300 Empire run short of that.
Lisa and her husband Andy get two Deer Valley days per season with their Snowbird pass. Andy says that’s just about right and I’m inclined to agree. Liz and Lisa were more enthusiastic, though I noted the day had been chosen for its excellent snow conditions.
Fortunately the ongoing snowfall has kept conditions nice over all of Utah, and the immediate prediction for our first ski day in Utah was for more new snow and likely serious crowd issues at many places. It was not a surprise that it took people 2-3 hours to get up LCC Saturday morning and we heard even Snowbasin had a 4-mile backup of cars getting into its parking lot.
Forewarned that Deer Valley was not immune to congestion issues this season, we reserved in advance, got parking in the second lot at 8:15AM, had our day ticket by 8:30 but then hunted for a table and waited 10 minutes to get breakfast, Eggs Benedict for me and a custom omelette for Liz. Liz’ friend Lisa was not so lucky. She arrived at 8:45, barely made it into Deer Valley’s last lot and had to wait nearly half an hour in the ticket line.
The 3 of us boarded Carpenter a bit after 9:30 and worked our way to the top of Bald Mountain by 10:00. We took a warmup on Tycoon to the Sultan lift before checking out the 5 inches of new snow in Mayflower Bowl. I stayed near the skier’s right boundary Mayflower Chutes but got a good picture of Liz and Lisa in Mayflower Bowl.
There’s quite a bit of territory here to spread out the people, and the slow Mayflower lift was loading less than half its capacity. Nonetheless the subsurface of all the ungroomed was moguls and 5 inches was not enough to stay off them. Liz and Lisa got a more powdery first run than I did by staying off the steeper pitches. Fortunately with the ongoing snow and overcast we encountered zero melt/frozen snow, even on east facing Mayflower or low on the mountain.
We took 4 more laps here. Liz and Lisa are on Narrow gauge, Mayflower’s liftline,
Next was Paradise, the run just right of center here.
That pitch is mostly south facing but had more loose snow and fewer moguls so skied well.
I poked around the trees between a couple of the runs, but the aspens had a lot of low branches making fluid skiing difficult. Our final run from Mayflower was the groomed Stein’s Way, where we cut back to the Sultan lift to move on.
Deer Valley is noted especially in the new Ikon era of having selected runs with very high density. But we skied Wizard next to the Wasatch lift and it was nearly deserted. We then rode the short Crown Point lift and skied Sunrise and Kimberley through one of the housing areas and under two road bridges.
We soon reached Deer Hollow and the view over the base area.
The full parking lots are just right of center.
We continued past the St. Regis hotel to the Mountaineer Express, which took us to the top of Jordanelle. Here are Lisa, Liz and the Jordanelle view.
Just left of center you can see a road going up to a hilltop with buildings. Those are four mansions served by a private funicular, which is the diagonal line running below the left end of the houses.
When I first skied this with admin in January 2009 it was 100% firm manmade snow due to east exposure and the 6,570 foot base. But today it skied just like any other groomer, probably better as it had little traffic.
Riding up the Jordanelle gondola we get a good view of many more houses.
After a fast groomer on Mountaineer we skied to the base, rode lifts up to Flagstaff and skied to Empire. From the top of Empire Lisa headed home for the day while I showed Liz the traverse to the Daly Chutes. I sent her down Daly Bowl which she liked. I pushed on the Daly chute just short of the major rock outcropping. The top few steep turns were packed very firm by traffic, but it soon opened out into softer snow. Looking back up:
Looking across the hill in profile:
Seeing wide openings in those trees I went in there from the top on my next run and found more powdery snow.
Liz had taken a break as she was getting cold, so I joined her in Empire Lodge just before 2PM, recommended time when the crush in DV restaurants eases up. We still had to hunt for a table which we shared with an Arizona couple. But we got our turkey chili and cheesecake with no wait. Based on our limited sample, Deer Valley’s food still maintained its reputation with us.
Rolling out of there almost 2:45 we didn’t have as much time as I thought for Lady Morgan, which closes at 3:00PM. We got one lap in, me on Argus, Liz on Magnet. These were soft moguls with good spacing.
From top of Lady Morgan, weather lifted a bit for some good overviews of Deer Valley. This view east is mostly real estate though the base areas of Flagstaff’s Northside and Silver Strike lifts are at center right.
The St. Regis high rise is visible at distance left of center.
View SE, Bald Mountain highest point center left.
The Ruby lift running up Flagstaff is directly above the Closed sign. The large building left of the sign is the relatively new Montage Resort. I recall seeing that under construction during the 2009 visit.
We also had a good zoomed view of the Daly Chutes.
The Empire lift also closes at 3PM so there was a full maze on Ruby to exit this sector. It took less than 10 minutes, giving Liz and me time for one cruiser on Lost Boulder before the Flagstaff lifts closed at 3:45.
After a second ascent of Flagstaff we took the walk up to Ontario Bowl.
This might have been another 10 minutes. I had only been there once in 2001 and didn’t remember much. But emerging from the trees much of the snow was very lightly tracked.
In general the more skier’s right you went, the fewer tracks, but the runs got shorter dropping into the Ontario trail. Liz was fine with that. I pushed bit farther left, but from the Ontario trail lower down we could see longer lines emerging much farther skier’s left.
We skied to the base via Solid Muldoon and were on the road by 4:30. After a couple of stops we got to Iron Blosam around 6PM.
This was my seventh day at Deer Valley since 1986, and I remembered just enough to give Liz the survey tour with minimal congestion after spending the first several runs in Mayflower’s shallow but good quality powder. I skied 24,800 vertical and Liz was only one 1,300 Empire run short of that.
Lisa and her husband Andy get two Deer Valley days per season with their Snowbird pass. Andy says that’s just about right and I’m inclined to agree. Liz and Lisa were more enthusiastic, though I noted the day had been chosen for its excellent snow conditions.
