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Still no snow! It’s blue skies and white clouds over my house this morning. Sigh. I keep seeing the California forecasts and wondering why Utah has become the big hole in the weather donut. I couldn’t help shaking my head at the greeters at the base of the Cabriolet yesterday after spending a couple of hours on the hill. Canyons is not looking too good unless you want to spend all day in the terrain park.

I know what the marketing machine would like me to say. Of course I can highlight the positive, putting on the spin but that’s a PR person’s job. They’re paid to convince you that the skiing’s wonderful no matter what. Go ahead and spend your thousands of dollars on that once a year ski vacation. If it were me, I’d wait a bit longer to see where the storms wind up. Or least consider skiing over in the Cottonwoods until we get something more substantial in Park City. Face it, Folks. People are golfing and biking in Utah right now.

I’m not saying don’t book a trip to Utah. The weather is ideal. You couldn’t ask for better weather… if it was May. It’s warm; it’s sunny; lodging is cheaper; it’s a vacation, you’re getting away; and if you’re a beginning skier, the runs are well-groomed and empty. These are all terrific reasons to visit.

The scary thing is that it’s December, when thousands of people are supposed to show up to ski the runs and hills of Park City and there’s just not enough snow for everyone. Those were my thoughts as I rode that cabriolet. About two hours prior I was going up the people mover, then the gondola then Saddleback Express all to ski four groomed runs off Saddleback (and finish off through High Meadow- the bunny area). They were hoping to get Doc’s open this weekend but there are some mighty big dirt patches that would reveal themselves before the end of the day
if they did.

Tombstone was still roped off; same with anything over on the Conder side. The snow itself was soft. The warm temps had stirred the manmade that’s making up the groomers so that it felt more like spring skiing without the water content.

All this doom and gloom really isn’t a big deal if you have an Epic Pass (and you should!) like most of the people who live in Park City. You can take a couple of runs, practice a few things, feel good about getting outside and then you go home. However, if people are planning to purchase a ticket at the window and they’re an intermediate skier and above, my recommendation is to buy trip insurance and watch the storm system. $90 is an awful lot of money to throw away on four runs.

The good news is that there is snow forecasted for tonight. It’s not supposed to be more than a few inches but you can still be optimistic. I will be. Park City Mountain Resort and Deer Valley have a lot more open so I’ll try to get there this week and report back.