Thursday, March 13, 2014

Utah-Colorado Day 2 - The Canyons

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The view from the top of the Ninety-Nine 90 chair.

03/13/14 Thursday

We began our first day on the Epic Pass tour at The Canyons just north of Park City.

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Skiing bumps on G Force.

The Canyons has been around since the 60s and used to be called Park City West.

They’ve have had a down snow year, about 70% of normal snowpack, but not nearly as bad as ours.

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Skiing Eclipse next to the Sun Peak chair.

It’s called “The Canyons” for a reason. The area is comprised mostly of steep ridges with scrub oak on the southern exposures and evergreens on the northern sides.

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Looking for freshies off the Super Condor chair.

Most of the runs consist of either skiing down a ridge or skiing the sides of the ridge down to a long drainage.

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Finding a little bit of soft.

It’s a strange topography, completely unlike anywhere I’ve skied before.

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Coming out of the Kestrel run.

It has some fun runs, but it’s a little hard getting around, with long runouts out the drainages.

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Skiing the aspens at the top of the Dreamcatcher bowl.

The southern part of the ski area towards Park City is more like your average ski area, with bowls and faces.

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Skiing past the McMansions along Harmony.

This part also has some funky runs along roads and under bridges past huge empty mansions.

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Backcountry tracks above the ski area.

The entire ridgeline above the ski area features bowls and faces for backcountry skiers.

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Celebrating the end of our first day of skiing.

Interesting day of skiing. Now we have a long drive to get to Beaver Creek.