Ride Utah Blog

Utah’s Park City Mountain Resort late last week opened its Eagle Superpipe, Pick ‘N Shovel and Jonesy’s terrain parks in time for the holiday season.

“The cold temperatures we’ve received over the last few weeks have been great for snowmaking, superpipe and terrain park building,” said Jeremy Cooper, Park City Mountain Resort’s new terrain park manager. “We’ve spent endless man hours building the pipe and park over the last few weeks to provide the best possible product for potential Olympians who will use our pipe as a training ground for the 2010 Winter Games.”

Park City Mountain Resort’s Eagle Superpipe is the first and largest Superpipe to open in Utah for the 2009-10 season. The historic pipe, where U.S. athletes swept the men’s podium and won gold in the women’s event during the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002, will entertain the masses with Olympians again. The U.S. Snowboarding Grand Prix makes its final stop at Park City Mountain Resort for back-to-back night competitions, Jan. 22-23, after which the winners will be crowned and the 2010 U.S. Snowboarding Olympic halfpipe team will be named.

Pick ‘N Shovel terrain park, located at the base of the resort, has intermediate to advanced features including five jumps ranging from 30 to 50 feet and up to ten jib features. Jonesy’s terrain park, located off the Bonanza lift, is suited for beginner to intermediate terrain park users and includes ten features.

The PayDay terrain park will remain open with jib features for the remainder of the season. Beginning Christmas Day the PayDay jib park will be lit for night skiing.

Park City’s jumps are looking good despite the lack of snow here in the Beehive. Video by Pat Fenelon. Found via YoBeat.com.

Solitude Mountain Resort in Big Cottonwood Canyon opened today, making it the first resort in Utah to bring the shred.  It’s only 2 runs on 2 different lifts with a 16 inch base, but hey, snowboarding is always better than not snowboarding. Get up there and start making some laps.

Powder Mountain’s 11th Annual Spring Session presents the Trifecta of Shred on April 2 – 4, 2009. Surfers, skateboarders and snowboarders will compete in three separate competitions with the overall winner reigning as the 2009 Chairman of the Boards.

The ever popular Spring Session is the highlight of the freestyle season with a freestyle terrain and half pipe jam session at the Hidden Lake Terrain Park. The competitors and spectators will be treated to a barbeque and the tunes of Codi Jordan and Funk Shui. Registration is free for anyone with a valid Powder Mountain lift pass. The competition will run from 10am – 3pm with live music starting at 11am. Decade, Vitamin Water, Skull Candy and AMP Alarm are sponsors of the competition.

“The Spring Session is the original slopestyle comp at Powder Mountain and has set the stage for all other events at the resort,” said Dave Jessup, Terrain Parks Manager. “The Hidden Lake Park has continually evolved this year with new rails, jumps and walls. If you haven’t made it to the park lately, you will be surprised.”

It is a natural progression to include surfing and skateboarding into the competitive mix since interest in these sports resulted in the creation of the winter version of freestyle. The Trifecta of Shred gives snowboarders an opportunity to show their respect to their ancestral roots.

The event kicks off on Thursday with an indoor skateboarding competition at Crossroads Skate Park. On Friday, the competitors move to Flowrider for the surfing contest. The event will culminate on Saturday with the Spring Session at Powder Mountain. Athletes may compete in only one or two events, but must enter all three to be crowned Chairman of the Boards.

Thursday, April 2 Crossroads Skate Park
$15 Registration
3pm – 5pm Registration and Practice Session
5pm – 9pm Jam style Competition
95 North Harrisville Rd. Ogden, UT
801-605-3986

Friday, April 3 FlowRider
$15 Registration
5pm – 6pm Registration
6 pm – 7pm Practice Session
8 pm – 10pm Competition
10pm – 11pm Jam session $5 per person
2261 Kiesel Ave. Ogden, UT
801-528-5374

Saturday, April 4 Powder Mountain
10 am – 3pm Spring Session Jam
11 am – 2pm Live music by Codi Jordan & Funk Shui
Barbeque and Brat fest

Here’s some footage from the Intelligent Design contest at PCMR.  Music is by Salt Lake’s own Tolchock Trio.  Check them out on TolchockTrio.net.

Also, here is some much better footage prepared by Park City Television.

You might know that I’m a big fan of Powder Mountain and I love it when people figure out just how rad Pow Mow really is.  Looks like it didn’t take the Rossignol crew long to find Pow Mow’s gems.  Check out their great video.

Park City Mountain Resort has got it all.  Steeps, trees, and the best park around.  Here’s what another great day in the Park looks like.

Park City has received nearly two feet of snow in the past week (it’s still snowing) and we’re opening a lot more terrain in the next couple of days! By early next week, we will have 90 percent of our lifts open. The forecast calls for storms on Friday, Monday and through Christmas Day!!

Here’s our scheduled opening plan (conditions permitting*):

Friday, December 19
Thaynes Lift
Pioneer Lift

Saturday, December 20
Crescent Lift
McConkey’s Lift

Sunday, December 21
Motherlode Lift
Three Kings Lift
Mid-Mountain Lodge Restaurant

Tuesday, December 23
King Con Lift
Eagle Lift
Silver Star Lift (Uploading/Downloading only)
Eagle Superpipe

Thursday, December 25
Night skiing on PayDay and First Time Lifts from 4:00 – 7:30 pm

Check out Powder Mountain’s new terrain park feature.

There’s nothing like breaking in a new board on an epic day. It’s been dumping for a month straight here in Utah and the conditions are about as good as it gets right now. The holiday crowds are gone and the snow just keeps on falling. On Saturday, I pulled a new board out of the wrapper and took it for a few test runs at Solitude. Because of the deep powder conditions lately I’ve been riding my 158 Burton Malolo this whole month. But finally the temptation was too great and I pulled out the new Burton Custom X 160. Also, I tried out the new Idiom Speed Zone bindings for the first time too. On the first run I knew I was in love with this new setup. The Speed Zone bindings take some getting used to, but, I think once I get used to them, they’ll be super easy to get into.  The board ripped in the powder, and the few times I did hit the groomer it would turn on a dime.  I even landed a few spins and a couple of cliff drops on it.  The Custom X really is a go anywhere do anything board.

Here’s another video that was shot by Luke, our intrepid Ski Utah intern. (We’re trying to come up with a new job title for him. Email suggestions.)