Category Archives: Outdoor News

A Snowboard Is a Snowboard Even If You’re Handicapped.

Thomas Traviglini claims Deer Valley Resort is saying he’s not handicapped “enough”. They kicked the Connecticut guest and his friends off the mountain April 2, 2013, for riding a snowboard which he says is more like a modified monoboard for handicapped athletes. But DV President Bob Wheaton says he checked with the National Ability Centers in Winter Park, Colo., and in Utah and, nope, that’s definitely a snowboard in their book.

The bones in Traviglini’s right foot are deformed and that leg is shorter than the other. He says the only way he can ski is with a “Teleboard”, where one foot goes in front of the other on one ski so that the back foot carries little weight. The board is a modified snowboard but with telebindings mounted one in front of the other (instead of side by side) so that its ‘person’ faces downhill and uses ski poles.


Judging from these photos, it looks and skis more like a monoski than a snowboard. Monoskis are allowed at Deer Valley.

Traviglini has taken it to the court of public opinion. He stopped by Salt Lake City’s ABC 4 News yesterday for a chat. “I don’t think they should be allowed to deny a handicapped person access to the mountain,” he said. He also described a very standoffish attitude from Mountain Ops Director Chuck English who helped escort Traviglini off the hill “like a criminal”. The irony is that both English and Wheaton snowboard as well as ski.

Later, Wheaton spoke personally with Traviglini to assuage his ire and find clarity. According to a family member, DV approved Traviglini’s Teleboard last season (over the phone) and allowed him access. This year, they called Alta and skied there all day on April Fool’s. Wheaton says he’ll review the matter before making a final decision as to whether a Teleboard is a snowboard but their lift tickets have been refunded.

Let’s face it, Folks. Deer Valley owns their land and they can do anything they want with it; including banning snowboarders. Their guests love that rule so it won’t change anytime soon. If a disabled person wants to ski Deer Valley they can, they just need to use a different device? Anyway, get over it. You don’t really want to be caught in the daily mêlée down Northside or Birdseye on a board, do you? Go ride at Canyons or Park City Mountain Resort. You’ll be glad you did.

Utah Ski Resort Closing Dates

Here they are. The ‘official’ Closing Dates- until they change. As usual, the last two resorts to close will be Alta (April 28) and Snowbird (May 27).

I hear we are going to have a seriously wet April. Better buy that Bird spring pass. J

Park City Resorts

Deer Valley Ski Resort
Anticipated Closing April 14, 2013

Deer Valley Resort official website

The Canyons Ski Resort

Anticipated Closing April 14, 2013. Don’t miss their final free-at-3p après concert on the Plaza this Saturday- The Pour Horse is a Salt Lake based quartet that produces a mixture of rock, funk and blues with a little bit of a jam band-esque feel.

The Canyons Ski Resort – Official Website 

Park City Ski Resort
Anticipated Closing April 14, 2013
Park City Mountain Resort – Official Website 

Provo Resort
Sundance Resort
Anticipated Closing April 7, 2013. Will open for summer operations April 18! Guess with a 30″ base it won’t take long to melt off.

Sundance Resort – Official Website

LCC/BCC
Alta Ski Resort
Anticipated Closing April 14, 2013, then Fri-Sun. through April 28. No uphill traffic until May.
Alta Ski Resort – Official Website

Brighton Ski Resort
Night skiing ends April 6. Anticipated Closing April 21, 2013. Take advantage of their Tax Day Relief promotion, April 15. Lift tickets $20!!
Brighton Ski Resort – Official Website

Snowbird Ski Resort
Anticipated Closing Memorial Day Weekend (May 27), 2013
Snowbird Ski & Summer Resort

Solitude Ski Resort
Anticipated Closing April 14, 2013, Lift tickets are $49 until close; free if you stay at one of Solitude’s lodging properties.
Solitude Mountain Ski Resort – Official Website 

Northern Utah Resorts
Beaver Mountain Resort
Closed

Beaver Mountain Resort – Official Website

Powder Mountain Resort
Closing April 7, 2013
Powder Mountain Resort – Official Website

Snowbasin Ski Resort
Anticipated Closing April 14, 2013
Snowbasin Ski Resort – Official Website

Wolf Mountain Ski Resort
Closed
Wolf Mountain Ski Resort – Official Website


Southern Utah Resorts
Brian Head Resort
Anticipated Closing April 14, 2013. Don’t miss the Spring Carnival on Sat., April 13, with fun events from 11a-4p.
Brian Head Resort – Official Website


Eagle Point Resort
Anticipated Closing April 7, 2013
official website

SkiLink: Friend or Foe

By Jill Adler

There are more than a few entities who would like to put the kibosh on SkiLink. Gauging from the packed church at last night’s forum in Park City, Utah, the proposed gondola between Canyons Resort and Solitude Mountain Resort will definitely not go quietly.

“Park City residents are here because they’re concerned about this being in their backyard,” said Sierra Club’s Tim Wagner. The discussion centered on whether to support a land swap between the feds and Talisker Corp. which owns Canyons. Congress would have to sell 30 acres of federal land in Big Cottonwood Canyon for SkiLink to run and backcountry enthusiasts fear that means Talisker would have some serious control over their playground.

Those ‘for’, like the idea of propelling Utah skiing to the forefront of the industry. They say it would light the fuse to connect the other Utah resorts and create a ski experience similar to those in Europe and unlike anything in this country. They add it would alleviate traffic and congestion in the canyons, and create 500 jobs.
Those ‘against’, say a gondola would crush the backcountry and set a “dangerous precedent.”

Solitude Mountain’s Dave DeSeelhorst says that’s not a realistic fear. There’s plenty of water available outside of this particular watershed space and the gondola could be built with minimal environmental impact.

There’s still time to weigh in. The possibility of construction is a long way off. First Congress has to approve the sale and then the local governments would need to meet to decide whether SkiLink is a viable and beneficial project before Canyons can make a groundbreaking move.

The panel discussion last night is the first of many public forums to come about SkiLink. We’ll keep you up on the drama as it unfolds.

Too Cold To Snow

By PCSKIGal

Damn, it’s cold. Perhaps it’s the coldest stretch Utah has seen in decades? I’m no weather dude so I can’t speak to records but for the first time EVER I’ve run out of my stash of handwarmers.

It was officially two degrees colder today than yesterday but once you’re below the teens does it really make a difference? The snow was so cold…how cold was it? So cold that I had to grab onto Alta’s rope tow from the start rather than glide alongside it most of the way. (Cold snow = sticky skis.) It was so cold my snot froze. So cold my boyfriend had to drive with his ski boots on because he couldn’t pry the plastic open until the heater thawed them.

We headed up to Alta at 8:30 a.m. Saturday morning thinking that we were dressed as warmly as possible. The problem is that no matter how toasty your body is, the chairs are cold and boots are cold. ‘Snowbird’s the best on cold days because you can ride the tram,” Ryan said as we passed the Bird going up LCC. But yesterday friends reported waits of more than an hour for the tram. So the tram is warm but your wait isn’t. Kind of makes the ride moot.

I was prepared for the freeze after my few hours at Solitude yesterday. It was 9 degrees and that was cold enough. I made four runs in the 8 inches of windblown powder then raced down to the Moonbeam Lodge to rescue my feet. Three more runs and I was done. I probably would have stayed home today if it wasn’t so much fun to finally get freshies at Solitude. It had been nearly two weeks since the last big storm.

Alas, the most recent storm system has migrated east, clearing out the inversion (i.e. smog) in the Salt Lake Valley and leaving more snow in the city than in the mountains. Huh? A foot versus more than two feet on the Valley floor. The Utah Avalanche Center says it got “too cold to snow at the upper elevations. The best temperature range for dendridic crystal growth occurred in the lower elevations where it was a bit warmer.” Some areas north of Salt Lake rang in with 40 inches! The Cottonwoods got about 11″. The UAFC says the sub-zero temperatures above 9000 feet are the coldest of the season so far.

I hear it’s supposed to be even worse tomorrow. Make sure at the least you’ve got toe warmers, hand warmers, down coats and thick fleece baselayers. Do not leave home without them or that will be one expensive ‘lodge’ ticket. I really that it gets warm enough to snow. We’re about 50″ shy of a great base depth.

Snow Sightings

Utah’s winter has finally kicked in. Perhaps last season’s weaksauce snow turnout was Mother Nature’s way of putting us in our place. One can only hope that with this past week of storms, we’re back to “normal”. At least it sounds that way on Facebook.

FB is to the ski industry what the movies were to the military. There’s no quicker/better way to get the stoke rolling and to get everyone to ‘enlist’. There’s that brief, pure storm and Whammo! hundreds of posts and reposts:

“Received 10 inches of snow today”, “The Bird Gets the First ‘Dump’ of the Year!”, “Got some fresh stuff today! Who is heading up?”, “Bring it on”, “The white stuff is coming!”, “Yippee!!!!”

Carston Oliver at Alta Resort, December 15, 2012. Photo Posted on Facebook by Lee Cohen.

Carston Oliver at Alta Resort, December 15, 2012. Photo by Lee Cohen.

 

 

 

 

 

December is bringing cold temps and more snow than we ever saw last Christmas. Social media photos of skiers blasting through knee-deep plus erupt faster than zits on a teenager. “Snow in the forecast,” is all it takes to rile the natives.

Utah gets snow and Facebook lights up like Disneyland’s Main Street before a parade. Welcome to, as one prosaic poster wrote, Ski Season Foreplay.

Utah’s 14 resorts are now all open for business and one to two feet of snow is expected by Wednesday. Plus, the evening chill is enough to keep the guns cranked. Most of the resorts are touting ‘increased snowmaking’ as their greatest improvements for 2013; a result of the barren slopes of 2012.

Only Deer Valley and Snowbird threw down the gauntlet this past summer, spending millions on perceivable upgrades. I gotta say it’s about time for both of the two new high-speed quad lifts that debut this season.


The “old” Deer Crest lift. Photo courtesy of skilifts.org.

Deer Valley has replaced the excruciatingly slow Deer Crest lift on, you guessed it, Deer Crest. The new “Mountaineer Express” will carry 1200 skiers/hour much to the chagrin I’m sure of ski instructors who often took clients there to kill time. Look for that scenic side ofn the lower mountain to see huge upticks in skier traffic on its eight groomed runs. I’ve had my eye on the line under the lift ever since they opened Deer Crest but I’ve yet to see it open. Maybe now with popularity will come access.

DV invested more than $8 million over the summer (Snow Park Lodge was renovated and the Empire Lodge deck remodeled as well) but it’ll be Snowbird’s upgrade that makes all the difference in the Wasatch this year. The new Doppelmayr High Speed Little Cloud Express will zip riders to Hidden Peak in half the time. I foresee more skier traffice this year for the mere fact that you won’t have to wait an hour in the tram line to get fresh tracks on a powder day anymore (fingers crossed). Ride Peruvian, cruise into Mineral Basin, ride Mineral Express and drop over to LC for sweet laps in the bowl or, if the Tunnel isn’t yet open and you feel like parking in Gad Valley, ride Gadzoom and go straight to LC.

If reports are correct, the new Little Cloud lift is a hit. Skiers claimed it felt like the mountain was empty on the lift’s opening weekend. Now if only, UDOT (Utah Dept. of Transportation) could figure out how to make the drive up Little Cottonwood Canyon feel empty we’d really be in business.


Ba-Bye old Little Cloud!

P.S. The SkiLink proposal to join Canyons and Solitude resorts is still trotting along. Salt Lake County Councilman Michael Jensen and Canyons Resort Managing Director Mike Goar spoke to the U.S. House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands on December 2, 2012. Many in the ski industry think adding this kind of resort-to-resort access will be a game changer.

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