Movie time

So we’ve been here about ten days so far, and are in the thick of the Sundance Film Festival.  I spend about 90% of my time skiing and 10% film-going.  Mary is 100% films.  PCMR got about a foot of snow a few days before we got here and so I got busy skiing as soon as possible.  However, the weather settled and a temperature inversion set in which drove temps on the mountain into the 40s.  Over the last week the snow has steadily withdrawn from the slopes.  It has gone from powder, to hardpack, to manmade and now to rocks and dirt anywhere other than the few groomed runs where they make snow.  As I write this, we have had rain today and the temps have remained above freezing.  Needless to say, the snow SUCKS right now!

This is a fun mountain to ski, especially during the film festival when the hotels are filled with Hollywood-types who generally don’t ski.  It doesn’t quite have the terrain of Snowbird or Alta, but is plenty challenging for me.  It has a lot of terrain that is just past the intermediate range, perfect for trying to push yourself to the next level.  There was a lot of mining activity on this mountain in the 19th and early 20th century.  The many abandoned old mining structures provide a nice visual change of pace.

A tower for an old cable bucket ore carrier used to bring ore down from the mountain via cable and bucket.

I had hoped to improve my skiing considerably while here, but so far its been pretty much a washout due to lack of the slippery white stuff.  Snow due in the next few days, so let’s keep fingers crossed.

So, the holidays are over and all our guests have departed and it was time to start our odyssey.  You may recall from a prior post (if I mentioned it) that we are first going to spend a little more than a month in Utah to ski and partake of the Sundance Film Festival.  Well, we thought it would be a good idea to drive our decrepit 22-year old Land Cruiser out there packed with a cat and a dog and enough stuff to live for a month.

Waiting for his driving shift

Given the tender condition of our truck and our pets, we decided to cut the trip into two days of about 6 hours travel each.  It took a little longer because on the inclines our old truck could only do about 50mph.  Its pretty embarrassing when big rigs pass you going up a hill, but we eventually made our first stop.

I don’t know if you can see that but we woke to -19F and fog in Winnemucca Nevada.  Apologies to anyone who hails from this shangri la, but this place is a good approximation of hell – depressing gambling town with topography that looks like, and weather worse than, Mars.  We got out the next day as soon as we could get the truck started.  After another long day of driving, we pulled into Park City and unloaded into our little rental and Mary set about planning her film adventure and I broke out the Park City trail map.  Let the games begin.