Snowboardless Wonderousness - 21,390 Vertical Feet

I failed to include in yesterday's post what happened AFTER The Canyons. Please backtrack with me a little bit.

Last night the three of us went out to dinner in Old Town Park City at Cafe Terigo. Mom had eaten here before on previous trips to Park City and liked it so much she wanted to share the experience with me and Shane. The 22 year old restaurant resides in a brick building right on Main Street. The menu boats both French and Italian cuisine. I consider Cafe Terigo a fine dining establishment without the fuss. Families are welcome here, as is casual dress. I enjoyed the artichoke appetizer and the lamb chop entree, Mom had the Utah trout which she thought was delicious, and Shane had the chicken fettuccine which was good enough to doggy bag. When my glass of wine came with dinner, I immediately appreciated the big full glasses of wine I get back in New York. Silly Utah drinking laws.

Skiing in Deer Valley today was the polar opposite of The Canyons yesterday. As you all know by now, I am a big fan of Deer Valley. The comfort level is fantastic. Every chair lift has a foot rest, there are multiple tissue boxes on every lift line, the food is amazing, the accessibility is superb, just to name a few. It is safe to say that Shane's first experience of Deer Valley was a good one, and luckily for him there were no fires in any lodges.

After skiing both Deer Valley and Park City many times in the past few weeks, I have discovered what I like about skiing each of them. Deer Valley always grooms runs rated green circle, blue square, and double blue square. There is usually one single black diamond (not including Stein's Way which is always groomed) that is groomed (today there were two, Evergreen and Oriental Express). At Deer Valley I can either ski an easy cruising run or a difficult bump run, but not much in-between since blacks are rarely groomed and blues are rarely left ungroomed. I can't get a steep cruiser or a not steep bump run.

At Park City, the grooming report every day is wildly different. There are groomed runs, day old groomed runs, not groomed since last century runs; blue, double blue, black, Park City doesn't discriminate with it's grooming process which means I can get a less steep bump run and a steep cruiser, which I rarely get at Deer Valley. I can also ski less steep groomers and steep bump runs at Park City in addition to Deer Valley. The variety in types of runs at Park City can't be beat. But, the snowboardless wonderousness (sorry snowboarder friends, I still love you) of Deer Valley is unparalleled. In fact, there are only three snowboardless mountains in the entire USA; Deer Valley, Alta (also in Utah's Wasatch Mountains), and Mad River Glen in Vermont. The lack of snowboarders makes the snow less scraped and the noise level lower. And let me defend myself here and say that I have nothing against snowboarders in general, just the bad ones who don't know how to turn and scrape off all the snow who are also oblivious to the people around them (and yes, there are skiers like this too).

Today's 21,390 vertical feet was the perfect amount to ski. I wasn't so exhausted that I was not functional upon returning to the condo, yet I definitely felt worked out. When I returned to the condo I spent a seriously long time in the hot tub, then took a bubble bath, then a shower. My skin seriously misses hydration. It could be that time in the trip where I start to miss things back home (humidity, for example). My plane leaves in 6 days and I am going to enjoy my time in Utah all 6 of those days.

Tomorrow it's back to Deer Valley to stay away from the Park City weekend crowd. Until then...

Me, Mom, Shane at the top of Bald Mountain on Stein's Way