Utah Olympic Park

    I am an Olympics junkie.  When I was searching for interesting things to do nearby Park City I saw that the venue for the 2002 Olympic bobsledding, skeleton, luge, ski jumping and Nordic combined was located just outside Park City.  I remember many of the exciting moments in these Olympics and was excited to visit the site.
   I planned the visit for Wednesday when Rick was taking a day off from skiing, but his cold is still making him feel pretty wiped out so he didn't ski again today.  We got another four inches of snow last night.  This morning, though, the sun was out and the views were just beautiful.  We could see the huge ski jumps set up against the mountain from a long ways away.  As we drove up the Olympic Drive to the buildings which were the base for the bobsled, skeleton and luge events I tried to imagine the huge crowds and the many Olympians wandering around the area.
   There are two free museums in the park - a Utah skiing exhibit with many hands-on displays and a 2002 Olympic Museum.  The Park offers activities all year round including zip lines, a summer aerial training splash pool, and mountain coasting.  It is a training site for future Olympians.  We started our tour by watching some news clips of the 2002 Olympics and I really got into the experience.
    I remember the opening ceremonies in Salt Lake - one of my favorites.  The museum had some of the huge puppets that were used.  I also really enjoyed seeing the gold, silver and bronze medals from 2002 as well as medals from many previous Olympic games.  I got to pretend to carry the Olympic torch and we saw pictures of its journey to Utah.
   I was most impressed with the avalanche display in the ski museum which included a film of an avalanche convincingly coming towards me with impressive sounds and thundering shakes.  We could have sat in a bobsled in front of a large screen and watched as we hurtled down the bobsled course while the bobsled swayed and bumped along.  Just watching folks do this made my stomach lurch so we passed this opportunity.
   We headed back to the hotel in mid afternoon as the snow showers returned and another couple inches drifted down.  As we walked to dinner we could see the lighted runs on the mountain which make it possible for folks to take the half hour drive out from Salt Lake for a couple hours of night skiing.  It has stopped snowing and the stars were out.  Tomorrow Rick is planning to ski - I sure hope he has a good night's sleep.
   

Snowing in the Wasatch Mountains

     Park City Mountain got nine inches of new snow overnight.  This snow added to the 110" of base.  It was snowing very lightly when I turned out the lights last night.  By morning there was a pile of snow outside my window and the ski runs on the mountain were completely hidden by falling snow.
    We are staying at a Hilton with 160 ski club members from around the country.  The hotel offers a buffet breakfast which comes free with our group rate rooms.  There are so many of us heading to the ski hills first thing in the morning that the hotel set up breakfast in a banquet room just for the ski clubs.  We thought we were moving pretty quickly as we arrived about 7:45 (the lifts open at 9), but many of the die hard skiers had already finished breakfast and were getting geared up for a snowy day on the mountains.
   Rick put on his long undies and warm fleece, but began to question the wisdom of skiing in white out conditions on a completely unfamiliar mountain.  Quite a few other Ullr Ski Club members agreed and we ended up having a long, slow breakfast while we chatted about our favorite trips.  Rick and I returned to the room to read the newspaper and then Rick had a two hour nap.  Our long trip yesterday on top of a cold has wiped him out.
   Just across the parking lot from our hotel is a car rental place.  We walked over and rented a little Hyundai.  I found a cafe nearby for lunch and filled Rick up with hot tea and soup.  Then we drove a mile to the historic main street of Park City which is crammed with historic buildings, art galleries, and shops.  Today the streets were also crammed with folks who decided not to ski in the deep snow.  Road crews seemed to be having trouble keeping up with the snowfall and driving was a challenge.  Parking downtown was not possible.  So we drove through and I promised myself to come back later in the week.

   As we got to the end of the town we looked for a place to go around the block.  Alas, we were on a steeply climbing mountain road that headed to the top of the ski runs of Deer Valley Resort.  This was not a road for a little car driven by folks who were not sure where they were going.  We saw several signs telling us that the road was closed in the winter just a mile beyond where we were.  Fortunately we found a even steeper road heading into a section of pricey homes in the fancy Deer Valley community.  We didn't stop to gawk, we turned around and just headed back to our hotel for a rest.
   Rick is hoping that all the rest he got today will leave him ready to hit the slopes tomorrow.  The snow is supposed to quit by lunch time and then we will have sun the rest of the week.  I want some photos of this beautiful town, so hoping for sun soon as well as a healthy husband.

Park City, Utah

    Leaving home at 4:30 am makes the day really long.  We found our group easily in the almost empty terminal and used our TSA Pre-boarding pass to skip most of the security line (except for one of us who had to be patted down after forgetting to take the metal objects out of his pocket).  Our flight to Denver left from Terminal 2 at 6:30 without any issues where we met up with our one hour flight to Salt Lake City.  I packed a bagel for breakfast for each of us which was lucky since SouthWest offers no food at all - just juice and coffee.
   We arrived in Salt Lake late morning and waited for additional members of our group who were flying in from Florida and Arizona.  Everyone found all their luggage and skis and all 39 of the over 60 Ski Club boarded a chartered bus for the 45 minute ride to Park City.  Within minutes of leaving the airport we were in the Wasatch mountains surrounding Salt Lake.  While there was no snow in town the mountains are white and the drive was beautiful.
    Park City is a pretty little town.  It boomed in the 1860's after the discovery of gold, silver and lead.  The silver mines flourished and Silver King Mine was one of the most famous in the world.  By the 1950's the price of silver was down and the town almost disappeared.  The ski industry was growing, however, and the town developed a resort called Treasure Mountain which opened in 1962. Park City now has two big ski resorts: Deer Valley and Park City Mountain.  Both resorts were major locations for ski and snowboard events at the 2002 Winter Olympics.  We are planning to visit the Olympic site this week.
    The forecast for tomorrow is for snow - 6 - 8 inches.  This should be pretty, but hard on the skiiers for their first day on the mountain.  We had a nap and then went to the "Arrival" party to socialize with the club and get ski passes and maps.  There are several other ski clubs staying here at the Hilton but we are both the largest and the oldest group.  These are some hearty skiers - most in their mid-70's to 80's.  Soon its early to bed for us, yawn.

Western Ski Trip

     It has been a while since we have gone to the western mountains in the winter.  In 2014 we went to Steamboat Springs, Colorado and Rick took a bad fall after only three runs.  Several other folks in the Ullr Ski Club fell that day as well.  Rick tore some ligaments which secure his collar bone and spent the rest of the week very uncomfortable.  It made him question whether he should continue to ski and certainly made him wonder about big mountain skiing.
    Since then he has been working with a trainer off and on, regaining strength and flexibility that is so essential to skiing and is so hard to hang onto as we age.  He has been feeling good skiing and decided that he is ready to tackle the big mountains again.  This year the Ullr Ski Club is headed to Park City, Utah for a week and we are going along.  Its a good place for us because the altitude is a couple thousand feet lower than Colorado.  This makes for a little more oxygen for our old lungs.
    It is a good time for us to take off for a bit.  We skipped our fall RV trip and our winter warm getaway while Matt has been fighting his colon cancer.  But now, Matt is successfully recovering from surgery and ready to finish his chemo treatments.  It will be good for us to have a little time away.  The unexpected warm spell this winter has made winter fly by, but we do get a traveling itch that needs to be scratched.
   Park City looks like a nice, little ski town.  Lots of shops and restaurants nearby our hotel.  I am bringing a big computer project and some hand sewing to keep me busy when I am not out wandering around taking pictures.  If I get bored, it will be my own fault as there is lots to do, including planning our upcoming trip to Iceland.  Keep watching for details on that!