ELMERS IN PARK CITY by Karen

ELMERS IN PARK CITY by Karen

The best part of every Elmer’s trip is seeing all our friends and family. Of course we come for the skiing, but the company is so good that even if the snow was bad, we'd have a great time with everyone. I made some new friends, too.
We started our trip with what I considered a big thrill - viewing the Dual Moguls Freestyle Championships live at Deer Valley. Just after our initiation to the area, about 10 of us boarded the convoluted, but efficient (once you learned it) shuttle system and rode to Deer Valley, where we discovered that if we wanted to really see the competition we had to HIKE up the ski hill. Most club members have an aversion to hiking, and even though the hill we hiked up was "just the bunny hill", it felt like a pretty long slog. But it was worth it to be right there instead of watching on TV

     There were some incredible moves and in the ladies silver/gold final US vs CAN, our girl, Hannah Kierney took a gnarly fall after taking some big air on a fancy trick. She did walk away, but it was tense. It was cool to see her competitor, Jennifer Heil of CAN be more concerned about Hannah than her gold medal win. Jeremy Bloom of the US took the men's gold, so there was lots of noise about that on a home hill. Then, wonder of wonders, we just turned around and there was Cheap Trick to rock the night away on an outdoor stage. Best of all - It was snowing!!! It was a very good night and the start of a great week.
    Snow conditions ran the gamut from fresh (a little if you looked for it), nice packed powder, chalk, crud, corn and dirt/twigs/rocks. On some days it was all those together, and there was bright sun almost every day.
     Our Mountain tour at Park City on day one was excellent. Our guides spent the whole morning with us and I think they actually enjoyed it! It was by far the best tour of the week. The mountain is completely dotted with old mines and buildings from the silver mining heyday. After the tour and a good lunch up top, we (we being Jon, Craig, Mary and Pat and I) found some fresh crud up in Jupiter bowl - oh yeah, and some hard-like-rock bumps, too, but not too many. To end our day, we took the run that drops right down into town for our après beer with the intent to take the shuttle back to the hotel. After some confusted direction following we hiked in our boots, with out skiis, etc. about three (or more) blocks uphill to the transfer station only to discover once we were on the way back that the bus stopped just a few hundred yards from the après beer. Yeah, we needed that exercise...
     Day two at Deer Valley was really nice, too. The groomers are pure, but we found some soft steep bumps off Empire Canyon that held our interest more. After a lovely sun stop, we did a short hike into Ontario Bowl where we found some leftover pow and had a sweet run. While we didn't get to see Stein, several members of the club skiied his namesake run. I think we were near it on some very long bump run... I am aware that some didn't have the best day there, but I believe the management of Deer Valley made up for that later in the week.
    Day three brought just a bit more snow for our visit to the Canyons. The place is huge! Our favorite spot of the day was off the Dreamcatcher Chair where we did many laps of fresh pow on lovely, tree studded intermediate slopes. We found and lost the bulk of the club over on that lift, so I know most everyone got to enjoy that fine spot. We only explored half of the area that day, but did find some exciting terrain off 9990 and by dropping into the (tight) trees from the top of Tombstone. Of course, after the trees came one of those tight gullies that the area touts as natural halfpipes. Anybody else find some of those? Not my forte, but interesting. Ida joined us that afternoon, but didn't ski with us the rest of the week. I wonder why...?
     Then the day off - but not for my group of crazed ones. Jon, Craig, Pat and I rose early and drove to Alta for "the classic skiing experience". That's where the chalk snow was - ultra hardpacked powder that was easily carveable. Yes, the tales are true. I took off on a tiny cliff trail, ended up skiing (read: crawling) down a waterfall and popping out into a lovely little bowl of soft crud. Yes, my poor husband, wanting to be sure I was ok, followed, despite his fear of heights. And yes, it was the first time I have ever heard him curse me out loud for all in the bowl to hear. He did like the bowl, though. and such a tame name for a run - Cabin Hill. Yeah, right. Needless to say, he did not choose to follow when we next headed for a similar bowl entrance we'll call Craig's notch. But, we did do up a good part of Alta and had a lot of fun. The skiing was hard - all the runs were labeled black diamonds but many felt like doubles. We stopped four times for sun breaks, food breaks, beer breaks...
     Back to Park City again for Day Five. Race Day! A beautifully simple course and a good club turn out this year made the racing great. The gorgeous sun helped to. Then: "Come ski with us Deb, bring Carley" Off we headed to the double black Jupiter Bowl. "Carley can do this, right Jon?" "Sure, sure." Ok - just checking. A tight traverse - splat. A long steep bowl and just when Carley was doing great, she sat down and proceeded to slide the bottom half of the bowl, tumbling helmeted head over skiis, while her parents watched from above frozen in shock. Carley of course was fine - a bit shocked - and rather determined never to follow Karen skiing again, but she was the champ of the day. Jon said he had really bad dreams that night. But Carley is reconsidering following me again someday ( I think...). Later we went back (without Carley - or Deb) to hike a bit higher in the bowl for some fresh tracks. "Are we there yet?"
     Finished that day with a great lunch and joining up with all the young 'uns and then some for the last runs back to the base. We had a great human slalom where Rick Jr. discovered he can actually turn around "gates" (racing next year, Ricky!) and where thoughts of my dad (Bob Nordstrom) were high on everyone's mind. The day ended with an excellent club party at Nacho Mama's where the Elmers had a private room, good food and stylin' good times. Nice job, Bobbie! Typical first place racers were Jon and Deb, but Bob and Ida and Craig and Mary followed up and tossed the rest of us back into bronzes and honorable mentions.
    One more day (boo!) spent by half the club at the Canyons and the rest over at Deer Valley where they had a much happier time - at least until the last run where Gloria took a tired fall and put a hairline fracture into her pelvis. (She's doing better and taking it easy and still talking about skiing next year... some people are hard to slow down)

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