The Canyons, UT 11/25/2006

[Admin]

Day 7: More of the same

The Kid headed off this morning at 9:30 for Park City to ride the terrain park with buds from school. Given that everything here is hard and scratchy, I opted instead to sleep in as I drove my wife to the airport at 3 a.m. Once I got up, I decided to mix things up and head to The Canyons to pick up my season pass, take a few runs, and notch resort #122 on my lifetime tally.

I've never skied there before, so although the terrain was quite limited today, I was constantly looking around at opportunities -- and saw many. There are some gorgeous aspen stands up there for tree skiing, and I was gazing across to Ninety-Nine 90 and drooling. I'll be sure to hit it up on a powder day!

Things were very firm and fast on the open groomers, so I only stuck around for four quick runs. Uploading and downloading is via the Flight of The Canyons gondi to access open terrain served by the Saddleback Express, High Meadow and Sun Peak Express chairs, plus the beginner poma near Red Pine Lodge that somehow doesn't even appear on the resort's trail map.

Upon disembarking the gondola I headed straight to the Saddleback Express quad and slipped my way down Kokopelli, finding the manmade base much too scratchy for my liking. I headed for the Sun Peak Express where snow guns were blazing everywhere, and despite the occasional chunk of Wasatch geology mixed into the surface, the new layer of manmade offered the most edgeable conditions I found all day. It was therefore worth repeating, skiing Echo to lower Eclipse.

Back atop Sun Peak Express, I headed back to Red Pine via Main Line and The Meadows. Somehow on the first lift ride I'd missed The Aspens near the top of the lift, and they're some of the finest aspen glades I've seen anywhere. I headed down Snow Dancer snapping photos before downloading back to the truck.

I got home and spent the past four hours trying to convert a GPS track to Google Earth format. Dammit. I was using a bluetooth-powered Pharos mouse GPS unit attached to my pack's sternum strap, feeding data to Cetus GPS running on a Treo 650 in my pocket. The size of the track file confirms that the requisite data is in fact there, but even Cetus' own conversion utility doesn't recognize it. Double dammit! I've tried everything I can think of. Next time out I'll try another Palm GPS utility, CoTo GPS, and see if I have any better luck.

There's much less snow right now on the Wasatch Back than there is in the Cottonwood Canyons. Things are about to improve considerably, however, for this Monday-Tuesday storm is starting to look like a monster. Per the NWS, "Snow totals by late Wednesday could exceed 2 feet in the Cottonwood canyons."

A relatively dry westerly flow will be over the area tonight then back around to southwesterly Sunday ahead of a developing winter storm. This storm will start to bring snow to the northern mountains Monday morning with a cold front passage late Monday. A cold...moist and unstable west to northwest flow will follow the front and persist into Wednesday. High pressure will return for the end of next week.

and also:

A strong storm system will impact northern Utah Monday through Wednesday. Prefrontal precipitation on a strong southwest flow will start in the mountains on Monday. The cold front will reach northern Utah Monday afternoon, bringing snow to the valley floor. There may be a bit of a break Monday night, and then a cold moist unstable air mass will be over the area Tuesday through Wednesday. Snow will continue through out this time period in the mountains, first on a westerly and then northwesterly flow.

 

[salida]

Oh man, scratchy! Come on!

 

[Patrick]

Oh man, scratchy! Come on!

Have you gone soft on us Marc? You've been spending to much time of Utah snow. :lol:

 

[Admin]

Oh man, scratchy! Come on!

Have you gone soft on us Marc? You've been spending to much time of Utah snow. :lol:

Yeah, I have. What's your point? :wink:

 

[jamesdeluxe]

I'll be at The Canyons Weds late morning to reap whatever comes from this lame, overhyped storm (anti-jinx).

The NOAA forecast is calling for mountain temps to be in the high single-digits on Tues/Weds, then jump to highs into the low 40s for the rest of the week. Sounds like what happens to us in the East after a big dump, but without the rain.

I've always liked The Canyons and never understood why it takes so much abuse from people... especially the "it's hard to get around" gripes. There are tons of short, but nice tree shots all over the place. A lot of the ill will probably comes from the timeshare zombies that greet you at the base village.

 

[Admin]

A lot of the ill will probably comes from the timeshare zombies that greet you at the base village.

And even at the base of the Cabriolet. I agree that it's a major turn-off.

 

[tirolerpeter]

As nice as some of the terrain at the Canyons is, I dislike the entire procedure of parking, hiking, and making my way up to the actual lifts. I have not found any place to keep gear other than with me in a back-pack, or all the way back at the car. It definitely seems that they do not want "day-trippers."