Park City, UT 11/17/2006 - Opening Day

[Admin]

Greetings from PCOD. I'm up here with The Kid, to whom I granted a hall pass from school today.

Not quite the WRoD, but relatively boring with one run of manmade (Homerun) with a minor variation available for the top half (Treasure Run). Edge-to-edge coverage and not an icy spot to be found - pretty darned good, actually, although it doesn't hold a candle to what Alta will have this weekend. About the only bad spot is the first pitch of Treasure which was groomed too wet, leading to some death cookies. The decision to open Treasure today was a last-minute one.

Temps prolly in the upper 30s under partly cloudy skies.

I'll upload some photos after I get home, but now it's time for another run! :wink:


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[jasoncapecod]

I'm up here with The Kid, to whom I granted a hall pass from school today

you're a good dad

 

[Admin]

Well, I ended up taking 8 runs, with the Kid maybe taking a half dozen more. My quads started getting rubbery -- man, I'm in lousy shape! -- and I wanted to save some oomph for Saturday and Sunday at Alta.

I wouldn't want to be there tomorrow, with a Saturday crowd on the first weekend of the season, and with a high-speed six pack loading up what is in essence one route down. Heck, I'm probably staying away from Snowbird, too, as the Gadzoom, Wilbere and Gad I lifts pretty much dump everyone into the same couple of routes down. I'm betting on Alta having more open based on what I saw them grooming. Alta will be running Wildcat, Collins, Sunnyside and Sugarloaf, accessing most sides of the mountain.

The Kid rode the lift with Ashley Battersby, with whom first he got a chance to chat at the athlete autograph session at SnowJam 2006 last weekend. My wife and I know her folks, and she ended up giving The Kid her cell phone number to hook up at Alta tomorrow, so we may be getting schooled on Saturday. :lol:

Here are the pix:

 

[Tony Crocker]

Looks like a table, not a rail. Can he do a single or double rail?

Topography of Alta lends itself to much more being skiable on the ~30 inch base you have than Snowbird. I recommend rock skis based upon my Christmas 1986 experience, though I think Snowbird has put in some (don't know if enough) lower mountain snowmaking since then.

 

[powderfreak]

The Kid rode the lift with Ashley Battersby, with whom first he got a chance to chat at the athlete autograph session at SnowJam 2006 last weekend. My wife and I know her folks, and she ended up giving The Kid her cell phone number to hook up at Alta tomorrow, so we may be getting schooled on Saturday.

How old is The Kid now? He looks much older and maybe its just the photos you take, but he looks like he's got some style. Four years ago at Bromley (50F spring day in January; some things never change) he was pretty good but just looked like he needed to get out more often. Amazing how fast people can pick up the sport...especially at this age. Dave, who I know you've seen skiing in pretty much all my reports last year, came to Vermont knowing he wanted to ski a lot but due to geographic factors was only able to get out a few times per year in high school. Looking back on video from one of the Dec '03 Nor'easters (my first Dec in college and it snows 5 feet in Burlington and 7-9 feet in the mtns...I thought that was how it was going to be, ha), Dave definitely had the natural ability but if you compare it to a video from last season, he's taken it up a notch or two.

Myself on the other hand, I don't seem like I've changed, haha. My style looks exactly the same...don't leave the ground too often, for a long and lanky kid I ski pretty low to the ground, too. I think skiing bumps, bumps and more bumps as a kid must've led to my hunched-over style...I also ski like the "heaviest" lanky kid around. Fall like a ton of bricks and dig as deep as possible into pow.

Anyway, if you ski with Battersby...you better have the camera ready. The Kid is a lucky one.

Topography of Alta lends itself to much more being skiable on the ~30 inch base you have than Snowbird. I recommend rock skis based upon my Christmas 1986 experience, though I think Snowbird has put in some (don't know if enough) lower mountain snowmaking since then.

30" base opens every trail in the east...its funny to think of rock skis for X-Mas with a 30" base. The majority of the 150" per year resorts (Adirondacks, through Southern VT and most of NH up into Sunday River) have a hard time getting a 30" base at any point in the season and usually max out around there. Northern VT usually maxes out at 70-90" (Mansfield and Jay stations).

What's always interested me is how much bigger the western ski areas are but that the actual vertical drop isn't that different. Gore in the Adirondacks has the same amount of vertcal as Alta...same with Stowe. Yet, even in the east, Stowe seems to ski a lot larger than Gore, and Alta larger still. Mount Snow, VT looks like a sledding hill to me but has the similar vertical as Big Cottonwood Canyon areas and a few spots (Alpine Meadows) around Tahoe.

I have still yet to fully understand how the same vertical drop or even higher vertical drop in the east, seems not comparable with the west in any way. Total acres make the western areas "bigger" but I still get surprised when I actually look up some of the vertical drops of famed wesern mountains. Standing on the top of the Chin at Stowe with a solid 2,500 vertical to go, doesn't seem the same as lthe same thing out west.

Anyone know how much snow tree-skiing areas out west (say Steamboat) need on the ground to open the runs up? 30" of snowpack in the east will have every ski area 100% open. Heck, Stowe's 30" of snow in Oct/early Nov had the entire mountain skiable, even the woods on the top half of he mountain and i think depth probably maxed out at 20-24".

 

[Patrick]

Anyway, if you ski with Battersby...you better have the camera ready. The Kid is a lucky one.

What powderfreak said.

 

[Admin]

How old is The Kid now?

15.

He looks much older and maybe its just the photos you take, but he looks like he's got some style.

He's starting to outski me now. Definitely more aggressive, and style is coming around, too. He typically blows right past me on the hill, is confident, and rock stable. I even commented to him after our first run this morning on how he's come miles in a very short time.

He's very comfortable in the air, something I've never been:

(June 23 at Timberline)

The aerials he practices daily on a trampoline in our backyard blow my mind -- and he nails them. I took some skiing photos of him just below Piss Pass today on East Greely, too -- we'll see how those come out and if any did I'll include them in my post later today on Alta's opening day.

Since moving here he's spent a lot of time skiing with classmates much better than him/me -- many are sponsored. He spends a lot of time with one such kid on their trampoline, too. Just like every other similar situation, you just keep getting better and better by skiing with folks better than you. He likes goofing around in the parks, but lately has shown some renewed interest in skiing big mountain lines. He dreams of getting a sponsorship someday himself. I'm going to take an avi course with him this winter, and once he gets through that I'll start taking him with me into the backcountry and sidecountry.

Today I quit after lunch, but he opted to stay until 4:30 and take the UTA bus home. We picked him up a pair of Line Motherships just last March, but he's now dedicated those as pipe/park skis as he bought himself a pair of Line Prophets over the summer with his own earnings. We bought him an AltaBird pass this fall, and he bought a Park City pass, too with his own money. He works to ski. He eats, sleeps, and dreams skiing -- he's now thoroughly addicted.

Anyway, if you ski with Battersby...you better have the camera ready. The Kid is a lucky one.

At the time that I left around 12:30 it seemed unlikely. He called around lunch time, but her phone was going straight to voicemail. I called her father's cell phone last night, and he indicated that he wasn't coming over to the front side of the Wasatch today. We'll ski with the family at some point this winter -- I've been meaning to hook up with her father for a few runs since we moved here. We spent a whole day skiing with them while visiting on a press trip back in 2004 and had a terrific evening having dinner with them that night -- they're great folks. We really enjoyed their company.

The bottom line is that he's hundreds of miles ahead of where I was at his age.

 

[Patrick]

And when I think I just brought my 9 year old to her first Warren Miller last night. And she LOVED it.

BTW, I was totally surprised, Off The Grid didn't suck, much better than the all few years. I guess they have made a few ajustments.

He's starting to outski me now. Definitely more aggressive, and style is coming around, too. He typically blows right past me on the hill, is confident, and rock stable. I even commented to him after our first run this morning on how he's come miles in a very short time.
(...)
Since moving here he's spent a lot of time skiing with classmates much better than him/me -- many are sponsored.

I guess that if he continues like that, he might be getting more cellphone numbers from girls. :wink:

The bottom line is that he's hundreds of miles ahead of where I was at his age.

Do you mean West also right?

To make us old folks feel better, when we were 15, we had to wait in liftlines for hours, chairs were slow and ski patrols would pull your ticket is made any tempt to jump. :lol: All this to say we didn't get the mileage as the kids do today. Imagine how much vertical Alf Engen skied when HE's was 15???

This being said, we had John Fripp (who won the Alta cup against Alf Engen(?) in the 40s) raced in our Ottawa Masters Final a few years ago, he was in his early 80s and we were going "Man, I want to ski like that when I grew up". We then turned around and made fun of his son (in his 50s and also racing) and told him that he better put out that cigarette and start training is he wanted to catch his father. :lol:

 

[Admin]

The bottom line is that he's hundreds of miles ahead of where I was at his age.

Do you mean West also right?

No, what I meant was that his abilities are far beyond what mine were at that age.

You raise valid points about the advent of high-speed lifts and more tolerant attitudes. Beyond that, however, I was lucky to ski 10-15 days a year in those days -- my family was not as committed as I was, and we lived hours from the hill. By contrast, he's getting lots and lots of days and lives 20 minutes from the hill -- he's even talking about going up for an hour or two after school tomorrow. He also has a parent who's much more committed to the sport than mine were.

And one other thing -- he gets lots of inspiration by sitting in front of the tube and watching ski DVDs, then going out back and working out on the trampoline trying to imitate what he's watching on the TV. By contrast, I don't think even Warren Miller movies were available on home video when I was 15.

 

[Patrick]

The bottom line is that he's hundreds of miles ahead of where I was at his age.

Do you mean West also right?

No, what I meant was that his abilities are far beyond what mine were at that age.

But I also think he lives closer to mecca, n'est pas? :wink:

By contrast, I don't think even Warren Miller movies were available on home video when I was 15.

They only came in 8mm film when we were that age. :roll: Not that's depressing.

Yep, my kids have a hard realizing that they wasn't any VHS and DVD movies at home when I was their age, you had to wait until the World of Disney on Sunday evening or watch Saturday morning cartoons. The same applies to skiing also.

I'm curious how Morgane is going to progress now that she's not taking lessons and skiing with me this Winter and will be more nomadic in her ski areas.