Less snow means closing trails, opening others later and limiting grooming at Park City Mountain, and Deer Valley Resort has been taking similar precautions.
The mountain opened Empire Express Dec. 27 but left most runs ungroomed, marked experts-only.
Deer Valley resident Tom Smith says the mountain did a good job with the delayed Empire opening.
“Very few rocks. They had a couple of groomed runs coming down from Empire, and the open terrain was reasonable,” he said riding up Sterling Express Dec. 29. “I will say by the second day, it was pretty well skied-over.”
Thinly-covered runs can’t always be groomed without additional snow cover or else mountains risk incorporating dirt and gravel into the skiing surface. Because snow crystals are so fine, rocks can actually float up through multiple feet of snow as it gets compacted, says Steve Graff, Deer Valley’s vice president of mountain ops.
Sometimes runs get closed if they get too skied-out. Graff estimates the resort will hover around 60 or so runs open until the snow starts falling.
He and his team always check to see which runs are ready to go. Graff skied Know You Don’t Dec. 29 after some promising reports from patrollers, but decided it wouldn’t last more than an hour or two.
“Right now, the snowpack is very faceted, and while it's really fun to ski, because those snow crystals aren't bonding together—it feels a lot like powder—if that is all we have, it won’t support skiers,” he said.
That’s why you see some runs covered in snowcat tracks shortly before they open. Mountain ops is trying to get the sparkly, crystalline facets to bond together into a durable surface.
“I've come back to the groomed runs because the ungroomed have gotten a bit ruddy,” he said. He gave the groomed runs a B+ the morning of Dec. 29.
Deer Valley is grooming 31 runs nightly, Graff says. The Jordanelle Gondola has been running since early December, and now Jordanelle run is open too.
Graff says mountain ops is working on Perseverance off of Sultan Express right now, which he expects will be the next lift to open. Snowmaking is currently underway at Lady Morgan too.
Once Lady Morgan opens, that just leaves Mayflower.
To see how Park City Mountain is navigating the lighter snow season, click here.
