The six of us from Cincinnati travelled out there on Friday night (1/7) after work. We all met up at the Outback in Concourse B for a quick bite to eat before the flight to Salt Lake City. We arrived in SLC, fought with the rental car agencies, drove to Park City, found the condo, figured out the sleeping arrangements, and crashed for the night.
For our first day of skiing, we decided to head to Canyons. On our other trips there, we've always spent all day exploring the ski area, and we've never managed to cover it all. As it turns out, we wound up exploring significantly LESS of it this time. Due to high winds, they had to close almost all of the lifts by lunchtime, so we wound up skiing just two areas.
On Sunday, we went to Deer Valley. Once again, my husband's luck held, and we did not get to experience the perfectly groomed trails that Deer Valley has built its reputation upon. Lots and lots of fresh, wet snow, and it continued to snow in little ice pellets all day long. In the morning, we tried to head over to Stein's Run, but it was closed, and were diverted down Perserverance instead. Our poor little group of midwestern/eastern skiers never stood a chance against the deep heavy stuff that we found there, so there was a LOT of perserverance going on-- We struggled, we fell, we got back up, we struggled some more, we fell many more times, but eventually we all made it to the bottom. And we even managed to commemorate the event with a photo op somewhere in the middle...
On Monday, we headed to Brighton, a perennial favorite. It was still snowing in little prickly pellets, and the snow on the ground was pretty heavy. (Actually, it never stopped snowing until Wednesday morning, when were preparing to leave. That's when the sun finally came out.) Due to the snow and the poor visibility, the professional photographers that are usually working at the top of the hill weren't there, so we took our own group photo.
Unfortunately, this was the day that my mom hurt her knee. She's tough, though-- She fell near the top of a run, but she got up and skied to the bottom, and made ANOTHER run before deciding that her knee was really hurt. We all thought that she had torn her LCL, but when she went to the doctor for x-rays and an MRI the next day, they found that she had fractured her tibial plateau. (Which just goes to show that you should always go to a professional and get a second opinion instead of relying on biomechanical engineers, physical therapists, and physicians to make a diagnosis without any imaging equipment.) So the bad news is that she broke her leg, but the good news is that she won't have to have surgery to repair a ligament.
On Tuesday, our last day, half our group (including Mom, obviously) decided not to ski, and the remainder of us headed to Snowbasin. After our first run, we went up John Paul Express to check out the top of the Olympic downhill run, and then, in the fog, we blundered onto Grizzly and wound up taking a REALLY, REALLY long time to get down. The snow was deep, and extremely wet, so we wound up traversing back and forth forever. We finally made it to lunch around 2pm, and while we were eating in the lodge at the top of the mountain, it started to rain. Blech!
Aside from the skiing, we did have a lot of fun together. The condo had a nice hot tub inside a gazebo, and we experienced the thrills of rolling in the snow after sitting in the hot tub. We played some euchre, shared some nice meals in Park City, and in general, just enjoyed everyone's company thoroughly. We're all looking forward to doing it again next year!
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