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TR Utah visit



 
 
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  #1  
Old January 17th 04, 08:59 AM
Ken Roberts
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Default TR Utah visit

I'm having lots of fun in my visit to Salt Lake City -- excellent snow cover
and warm weather make a nice change from the Northeast U.S. What I've been
doing so far:
-- Mill Creek Canyon + Mountain Dell
-- cross-country and video at Alta
-- backcountry tours in powder snow

I arrived on Monday afternoon and headed straight for Mountain Dell -- no
single killer climb, but plenty enough hills on this one-time World Cup
course to put my flatlander lungs into searing. Track firm by Utah
standards, but when I strayed too far from the center, or I poked my pole
way down into the snow several times. A fun place, despite being a golf
course right next to Interstate 80.

Tuesday afternoon: So much snow this year, I was able to start a steep-ish
backcountry directly from a normal city street with residential houses.
More searing while climbing up on skins, and after half an hour I was
half-lost. But then I figured out where I was, and enjoyed some nice turns
coming back down in "decent powder" (Northeast terminology) or "old
consolidated snow" (Utah terminology).

Wednesday: Three hours of skating at Mountain Dell -- with no searing in my
lungs any more. Finally learning to skate slow. Tried Vordenberg's Hot
Feet drill -- I find I'm liking the Nathan Schultz "slow tempo but immediate
leg-push" variation.

Thursday: Heard the reports from Chris and others about XC skiing at Alta,
so Sharon and I drive up there. Along the way Dave calls my cell phone and
invites me to join him and other partners on a "super" big backcountry tour
on the weekend to take advantage of the unusual snow conditions.

Alta cross-country: Wow these Utah skiers are animals! The Alta trail map
says that the Albion area has green novice trails, but they'd be
super-expert anywhere else. After a hundred meters of climbing I just gave
up. I asked someone wearing an Alta jacket what I should do, and he said I
should get up the hill by riding on the lifts -- so that's what I did.
Going down, I saw the signs for "Easier Way" and followed them. At first I
was tentative on my Madshus Hypersonic 3x3 skate skis and Pilot boots, but
then I passed a couple of people with yellow Pilot boots, and I felt more in
control when I got back to the bottom.

So then I decided to try the "blue" trails, so I rode up the Supreme lift,
and made lots of stem christie turns all the way down. My next exploration
was the Sugarloaf lift, and I decided the "black" trail was worth a try, so
I made a bunch of stem christie turns down the "Sugarloaf Bowl" trail. I
was kind of amazed that the plastic(?) edges on my race skate skis worked on
that hardpack snow up so close to the windy ridge. (I had been wondering
how those Sierra adventurers could do those big backcountry traverses
without metal edges, and now I have a clue.)

Videos: Sharon took some more videos of my V1 technique at Alta -- I've
fixed a couple of things, but still too much up-and-down motion, and not
enough push out to the side.

Friday morning: Backcountry tour with Eric. Like Chris suggested, the
north-facing shady areas still had some fun powder snow. We had a wild time
dodging trees and going air-borne off soft snow pillows.

Mill Creek Canyon on Friday afternoon: Excellent grooming of a wide
snow-covered road that goes up, and up, and up. Great place to fix those V1
mistakes uncovered by Sharon's videos of me at Alta. More on the Hot Feet
drill. I'm passing classic striders and walkers, no other skaters. Feels
better than I've ever skated before. But I have to stop after 13 minutes,
and again after another 5 minutes, and again and again. It feels so
powerful that I can't make myself do it slowly. Made it to the top, start
skiing back down, and . . .

Lots of skaters climbing up -- really good skiers. So every time I reach
one, I stop my descent and turn around and follow them up a ways, to see
what I can learn.

Best politically-incorrect exercise: A woman skating up with her poles held
horizontally across her waist, turning from side to side with each leg-push,
and seeing her poles turn with her. So I tried it, but not for long. What
a mind-blowing idea, skating up Mill Creek Canyon with no poles -- and
smiling. (Do not get into a race against her)

A few minutes later I come to a guy with a full beard climbing with a quick
V2. In my dreams. I did not try to copy him. When I finally got to the
bottom of the snow and my car, my face muscles felt nearly frozen. So
that's what all those skaters had in those little backpacks: extra clothing
for the descent.

Ken


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  #2  
Old January 20th 04, 11:32 PM
Ken Roberts
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Default TR Utah visit

Sharon and I continued to have a great time around Salt Lake for another
three days.

Saturday we followed Chris Cline's suggestion of looking for backcountry
powder on the ridge between Big Cottonwood and Mill Creek Canyons -- and
found a nice downhill run -- after a moderate pretty approach under another
bright blue sky. Not real deep or light snow, but plenty good enough for us
Easterners, with only two other tracks there before us.

White Pine Touring in Park City was our XC center for Sunday. It's got the
biggest set of gentle trails we've found there so far, and another sunny
pleasant day. Then we went down to the hillier Farm area, and Sharon took
lots of videos of me climbing the first big hill on the loop. After that I
inflicted some pain on myself doing repeats of the Junior Team trail.
Overall the strongest skating I've ever done.

We slipped in another hour at Mountain Dell before we drove to the airport
and flew home in the evening. My first lap I got behind a slower but solid
skater, and got some more excellent practice on how to skate _slow_ up the
hills. Second lap I allowed another skater to gradually leave me behind. I
was also working on fixing some things I saw in the yesterday's videos. And
it was working -- my best day of controlled-pace skating ever.

I could have stayed another couple of days, but without any fresh snow in
the backcountry, I decided to go home with Sharon. Then I was rewarded by
new snow at home -- pleasant ungroomed skating in our local city park, under
_bright_ sunshine (unlike the city parks of the Salt Lake City valley).

Alta -- Someone pointed out to me by private Email that the designated
_cross_country_ trails at Alta are _not_ the ones I was on, and the real XC
ski trails there are much gentler than I described.

Ken


  #3  
Old February 2nd 04, 08:33 PM
Walt
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Default TR Utah visit

Ken Roberts wrote:

Alta -- Someone pointed out to me by private Email that the designated
_cross_country_ trails at Alta are _not_ the ones I was on, and the real XC
ski trails there are much gentler than I described.


Yes, the trails you mentioned are lift-served alpine ski trails, not XC
trails.

I didn't even know Alta had designated XC trails. Can anybody provide
more info about this? There's nothing on their website...


(P.S. Sorry for coming to the party late, but I was Googling on XC
options near Alpine skiing and this post popped up. It seemed recent
enough to warrant a reply.)

--
//-Walt
//
// http://tinyurl.com/3xqyq
  #4  
Old February 3rd 04, 12:49 PM
Daniel Vargo
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Posts: n/a
Default TR Utah visit

Alta does have XC skiing. It is turning into the early season (usually
early November) training area for many SLC skiers. It is not the most
challenging area and the loops are small, but at 8500 ft you definitely
get altitude. For those familar with Alta, the loops are on each side
of the transfer tow from the Wildcat base to the Albion base.

The other area is up the "summer road", a nice climbing workout. It is
the takeoff for many backcountry tours and usually has a good surface.

A map is located at the bottom of the page at
http://www.alta.com/trail.html

Click on the map to get a more detailed view.

Dan Vargo
SLC, UT

In article , Walt
wrote:

Ken Roberts wrote:

Alta -- Someone pointed out to me by private Email that the designated
_cross_country_ trails at Alta are _not_ the ones I was on, and the real XC
ski trails there are much gentler than I described.


Yes, the trails you mentioned are lift-served alpine ski trails, not XC
trails.

I didn't even know Alta had designated XC trails. Can anybody provide
more info about this? There's nothing on their website...


(P.S. Sorry for coming to the party late, but I was Googling on XC
options near Alpine skiing and this post popped up. It seemed recent
enough to warrant a reply.)

  #5  
Old February 3rd 04, 02:27 PM
Walt
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default TR Utah visit

Daniel Vargo wrote:

Alta does have XC skiing. It is turning into the early season (usually
early November) training area for many SLC skiers. It is not the most
challenging area and the loops are small, but at 8500 ft you definitely
get altitude. For those familar with Alta, the loops are on each side
of the transfer tow from the Wildcat base to the Albion base.


Thanks. I don't know how I missed it on the trail map.

Sounds to me like this is more like poling around the base area of a
downhill resort than getting off into the woods to explore.

--
//-Walt
//
// http://tinyurl.com/3xqyq
  #6  
Old February 3rd 04, 07:23 PM
Chris Cline
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Posts: n/a
Default TR Utah visit

--0-1683732688-1075835614=:13985
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Alta has something like 5 - 10 K of groomed nordic track in Albion basin and circling the rope tow between the "Goldminer's" base area and the Albion base area. It's essentially down in the meadows along the streambed, and rolls up into the foothills below Rustler. The Albion Basin road is also good for skating without having downhillers hurtle past you-- it ascends with several switchbacks from the Albion base area up into the basin proper.

Chris Cline
SLC, UT
Walt wrote:
Ken Roberts wrote:

Alta -- Someone pointed out to me by private Email that the designated
_cross_country_ trails at Alta are _not_ the ones I was on, and the real XC
ski trails there are much gentler than I described.


Yes, the trails you mentioned are lift-served alpine ski trails, not XC
trails.

I didn't even know Alta had designated XC trails. Can anybody provide
more info about this? There's nothing on their website...


(P.S. Sorry for coming to the party late, but I was Googling on XC
options near Alpine skiing and this post popped up. It seemed recent
enough to warrant a reply.)

--
//-Walt
//
// http://tinyurl.com/3xqyq





---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
--0-1683732688-1075835614=:13985
Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii

DIVAlta has something like 5 - 10 K of groomed nordic track in Albion basin and circling the rope tow between the "Goldminer's" base area and the Albion base area.  It's essentially down in the meadows along the streambed, and rolls up into the foothills below Rustler.  The Albion Basin road is also good for skating without having downhillers hurtle past you-- it ascends with several switchbacks from the Albion base area up into the basin proper. /DIV
DIV /DIV
DIVChris Cline/DIV
DIVSLC, UTBRBIWalt >/I/B wrote:/DIV
BLOCKQUOTE class=replbq style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid"Ken Roberts wrote:BRBR> Alta -- Someone pointed out to me by private Email that the designatedBR> _cross_country_ trails at Alta are _not_ the ones I was on, and the real XCBR> ski trails there are much gentler than I described.BRBRYes, the trails you mentioned are lift-served alpine ski trails, not XCBRtrails.BRBRI didn't even know Alta had designated XC trails. Can anybody provideBRmore info about this? There's nothing on their website...BRBRBR(P.S. Sorry for coming to the party late, but I was Googling on XCBRoptions near Alpine skiing and this post popped up. It seemed recentBRenough to warrant a reply.)BRBR-- BR//-WaltBR// BR// http://tinyurl.com/3xqyqBRBRBRBR/BLOCKQUOTEphr SIZE=1
Do you Yahoo!?br
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. a href="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=21608/*http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/"bTry it!/b/a
--0-1683732688-1075835614=:13985--




 




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