Monday, February 8, 2010

11,775 vertical feet - King Con Blue Zone


Mom introduced me to her favorite part of Park City Mountain, the trails off of the King Con lift. Well, I must really be like my mom because I enjoyed it so much that we rode up the lift 7 times. Yes, really. The picture to the right is of me at the top of the King Con lift.

Because it was Mom's first real day skiing, and only my second, we decided to take it easy again. We skied only blue groomers all day, and that was fine with me. A blue run is considered an intermediate run. They range from inclines from 25 degrees to 40 degrees. Blues are popular amongst most skiers because beginners can usually handle them when groomed and intermediates can hone their skills while experts can have a fun cruiser. For the record, I find blues to be fun cruisers, and thus consider myself an expert. I have been skiing since the age of two and my mom was a ski instructor...
At the top of each lift there is a list of all the trails off that lift. Next to the name of each trail it says whether the trail is closed, open, or groomed. I found this to be a useful tool, until I also discovered that you can just pick up a map of the groomed trails for the day. Of course, this is quite a waste of paper, but it's a great tool for planning your day on the mountain. Today's vertical feet total was 11,775ft, with 8,400ft being off the King Con lift. I figure I have 24 more days of skiing to explore the rest of the mountain.
Today, I will leave you with two videos. The first is a panoramic at the top of the King Con lift.

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The second video is of moi skiing down the trail called Shamus off the King Con lift. Shamus is a blue trail, and was groomed today. Shamus has an incline of approximately 35-40 degrees and is about 900ft long, though you will only see me ski about 500ft of it. My mom recorded it and you can hear her sweet commentary in the background.

I am going to be taking videos of my skiing throughout the trip so that I can analyze my ski style on different types of trails and watch for improvement.

Tomorrow, Mom and I are planning on skiing Deer Valley; a snowboard free, completely groomed, fancy schmancy resort that I hear has the best food of any ski mountain anywhere. I wonder if I will fit in there...

3 comments:

  1. I prefer blues. Greens are boring and even though I CAN ski blacks, I usually feel like they are a bit too much for me and not as much fun as a good blue :o)

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  2. I will always pick a good blue over a black. Black's are really steep and are often not groomed so they can get scraped and/or bumpy. But, if I'm feeling adventurous and the conditions are good, I'll go for a black anyday. Today I skied 3 blued that bored me to tears. The nice thing about Park City and Deer Valley is that they have "double blue" which is in between blue and black, so it's often a better fit for my level of skiing.

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  3. Yeesss! I remember the double blues from Jackson Hole. Wish we had those back East (if we do...never at a mountain I've been to, and I've been to six different mountains in MA and VT)

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