Tony Gill is the outdoor and Park City editor for Salt Lake Magazine and previously toiled as editor-in-chief of Telemark Skier Magazine. Most of his time ignoring emails is spent aboard an under-geared single-speed on the trails above his home.
Watching professional mogul skiers in action is truly something to behold. Their legs fire like pistons and knees launch into the chest as they careen down steep courses, yet their upper bodies remain implacably composed as though partaking in a completely separate activity. Don’t even get me started on the aerialists. Launching skyward off comically large cheese wedge-shaped jumps, they perform a dizzying array of flips and spins in the stratosphere before landing squarely on their feet. As someone who’s spent a considerable portion of my life skiing moguls and hitting jumps, I find the whole exercise equal parts inspiring and humbling. The FIS Freestyle World Cup at Deer Valley is an annual chance to see these world-class athletes up close in person, and the event is back this week bringing high-flying antics and Olympic qualifying stakes to the slopes from Jan. 12-14.
This year marks the 24th time Deer Valley has hosted the event, which has become a legendary good time for snow-sports diehards and more general Olympic sports enthusiasts in Park City. Large, boisterous crowds gather at the base of Champion—the run used for the mogul competitions at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympic Games—and get vehemently patriotic in support of the hometown skiers. In addition to being a top-echelon event on its own, the 2022 event has Olympic qualifying implications for the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics upping the ante even further.
All competitions for the 2022 FIS Freestyle World Cup will be held during daylight hours this season instead of in prime time under the lights as they had traditionally been. That just means spectators will have to get the party started earlier. The aerials competition takes place on Jan. 12 (the final is at 3 p.m.), while the mogul competitions will be on Jan. 13 and 14 (the finals begin at 2 p.m.).
If you’re lucky enough to have a Deer Valley or Ikon pass, you can make some turns in between the action. A short walk uphill from the Snow Park base area at Deer Valley provides access to the event venue for everyone else. All competitions are free and open to the public. The events can also be streamed live on the NBC Peacock App if you happen to be stuck at work. The event schedule is below, and complete information can be found on Deer Valley’s website here.
Cheer on Team USA in person before you see them on television from Beijing. Read more outdoor coverage here.
Well, it’s official. We just can’t have nice things these days. That dastardly old Omicron variant has given COVID a whole new flavor to kick off 2022, and the surge it’s set off has gone ahead and derailed the in-person portion of Park City’s dueling Sundance and Slamdance Film Festivals. The hybrid festival lineups were supposed to mark the triumphant return of Park City as the epicenter of the independent film universe, but as we’ve so often recently found the best laid plans are pretty much worthless these days.
Festival organizers had tried their best to stem the Omicron tide. Sundance was requiring all attendees, including filmmakers, talent, volunteers and ticket holders to show proof of vaccination (including boosters for all eligible people) and wear masks. Dates for the festival remain unchanged, however single ticket sales which were supposed to be available this week will now go on sale next week on Jan. 12 (for Sundance Members) and 13 (for the general public). People who have already bought passes and ticket packages will be updated to have online access for the films during the festival.
Curiously, Sundance screenings at seven satellite venues Amherst, Mass.; Baltimore; Lawrence, Kan.; Memphis; San Diego; Seattle; and Winston-Salem, N.C. are still scheduled even though events throughout Utah have been canceled.
The decision to take Sundance online follows that of the Slamdance Film Festival, which announced in December it would be rescheduling its dates and taking the entire program online. Originally planned for Jan. 20-23, Slamdance’s indie lineup is now scheduled for Jan. 27-Feb. 6.
This is quite the bummer for everyone involved, including certain writers who were planning on attending the event under the guise doing actual work. But there’s still a great lineup of creative indie films available for aficionados to check out. Support the film festivals from the comfort of your own home for the second year in a row, and cross your fingers while hoping the bustle and energy of Sundance and Slamdance will return to Park City next January.
An avalanche accident in the Millcreek Canyon backcountry on Feb. 6, 2021 shook the Utah ski community to its core. Thousands of words devoted to the details, causes and aftermath of the accident have already been written, but endless stories about the people involved remain untold. This is but a single one of those stories, honoring the memory of those lost and seeking to chart a path forward.
Photo by Alessio Soggetti
Chris Gmitro shot awake at midnight. An idea took root in his head, the kind that brings sudden lucidity even at the end of a REM cycle. Three hours remained until the alarm was set to kick off what was to be a massive day in the mountains, but the iron was hot. It was late March 2019.
Quietly, Chris got out of bed and began to pack a climbing kit—ropes, cams, nuts and carabiners—alongside the backcountry ski gear already lined out. An hour later, he woke his partner Sarah Moughamian to consider the amended plan. It was a ladies’ choice day, and Sarah had laid out an ambitious itinerary that ticked off all three skiable aspects of Lone Peak, the towering 11,260-foot monument southeast of Salt Lake City. Chris wanted to add a fourth slope. The Center Thumb, a stout 550-foot alpine climb on a west aspect that would complete the Compass Rose. Or, they could sleep for an additional two hours. Without a moment’s hesitation, Sarah was up.
Still hours from sunrise, Chris and Sarah left their car and began to climb. Every step upward yielded that snowy squeak underfoot that’s always louder in the predawn cold, part of the oddly rhythmic symphony that accompanies ski touring. The pair moved in tandem on skis up the flanks towards the Northeast Couloir where they would bootpack—laboriously stepping into snow—towards the summit of the mountain where they had first met in 2016.
Sarah rapelling high on an alpine wall. A typical ski day for Chris and Sarah often involved diverse and technical mountaineering skills. Photo courtesy Chris Gmitro
It was summer then. Chris descended alone through the forested trails after climbing the granite walls of the Lone Peak Cirque. He’d come to Utah in 2006 after college in Flagstaff, camping in church parking lots and doing generally whatever he could to facilitate climbing and skiing. Sarah climbed the same trail that day on her way to scale those same looming towers. Raised in a small town, Idaho City, she hadn’t let a stint in Virginia for college or a bona fide professional job as a market analyst derail a life shaped by the mountains.
“I was immediately intimidated. Didn’t even make eye contact,” Chris says. “When I turned to look, she was already looking my way and smiling. That was it.” A few days later Sarah came into The Gear Room, the outdoor shop Chris opened with his brother Kevin in 2014. She was there to buy some gear, but it was as much pretense for an introduction as anything. You can get cams in a lot of places in the valley.
Three years later, the pair expertly dissected the terrain on Lone Peak, following the sun. First was soft cold snow on the direct East Face. Then, perfect corn snow on the South Face as it warmed. The ski kit was left on top, replaced by a climbing kit for the west-facing Center Thumb. Finally, back on skis, they exited north into Big Willow. It was a 15-hour push with ruthless efficiency hewn from hundreds of days in the mountains together. Details were second nature, turning what would for most be a staggeringly large objective covering more than 10,000 vertical feet into just another day. The Lone Peak 4X4, as Chris and Sarah coined it, was a distillation of the process and ambition at the center of their lives together. One adventure of many, with a mountain at its core.
Feb. 6, 2021, was a different type of day. No middle-of-the-night packing sessions breathtakingly early starts or lofty tick lists. This day was to be just a casual backcountry ski tour alongside friends. It was a special occasion only in that Chris and Sarah rarely skied with others.
The couple had strikingly compatible goals and they outmatched casual invites. Some of their objectives were enormous—The Evolution Traverse in the Sierras and the WURL, a 36-mile, 18,000-vertical-foot ridge linkup in the Wasatch, for example—and frankly out of reach for most. Even an “average” day—which, for these two, was considered a mere training day—was itself outside most people’s comfort zone. Written in Sarah’s journals from before she’d met Chris were three lifetime mountaineering objectives. Two of them, The Cirque of the Unclimbables in Canada’s Northwest Territories and Cassin Ridge on Denali, were also in Chris’ top three most sought-after objectives. This couple had very high aspirations.
Still, the idea of a more relaxed day in the mountains was refreshing. Joining Sarah and Chris that Saturday were Louis, Thomas and Steve. (Editor’s note: To respect the privacy of people involved, we will use primarily first names, as contemporaneous reports did.) Louis, a regular at the Gear Room, had been working at the shop for about a year and a half. A remarkably fit cyclist with a relentlessly energetic personality, he had long, curly hair, pulled over a buzzed side of his head. He wore a pink spandex suit for the ski tour. “He didn’t need your attention, but he commanded it,” Chris says.
Thomas, a frequent ski partner of Louis, had ski mountaineering race experience and was a prototypically fit and strong athlete. Steve had come through the Gear Room a year earlier. A strong climber with California roots and plenty of experience in Joshua Tree, this was one of his first backcountry ski tours. Chris recalls, “He held great value for the mountains. We’d helped him with his kit in the shop, and I wanted to fill the void as a mentor for him.”
The couple had strikingly compatible goals, and they outmatched casual invites.
The day’s objective was Wilson Glade, a northeast-facing slope that descends into Millcreek Canyon from Wilson Peak just shy of 10,000 feet. The group began around 7 a.m. from the Butler Fork trailhead in Big Cottonwood Canyon. Using climbing skins, they moved methodically up the steep-sided, pine-rimmed gulley toward a ridge between Soldier Peak and Wilson. The weather was mild and partly clear, and two storms that week had dropped 21 inches of snow at nearby Solitude Mountain Resort. Amid a lackluster winter, skiing conditions were finally optimal. Avalanche conditions, as they had been for much of the season, were anything but.
The skin track to the summit ridge meanders through a tightly packed, south-facing aspen forest. It’s a pleasant and still atmosphere, below the saddle separating the two canyons. Replete with views and a notable absence of sound, it was the ideal environment for backcountry skiers to feel at peace, in their element, hidden from the scale of nature. Not until nearly reaching Wilson’s summit, 3,000 feet above the car, do the more imposing aspects of the mountains emerge.
The Wilson Chutes. Perfect, nearly symmetrical barrels running almost eastward from the peak. With mid to upper 30-degree slopes blanketed by wind deposited snow, the Wilson Chutes are what powder dreams are made of. They’re also obvious avalanche terrain, devoid of vegetation often with cornices at the top and recent debris at the bottom. Today, they held an ominous sign. Natural avalanches had stripped the snow to the ground, leaving barren rocky scars in their wake. Uninviting, and a clear reflection of the day’s forecasted avalanche hazard, which the Utah Avalanche Center (UAC) rated as high for persistent slab avalanches on all terrain above 9,500 feet on the eastern half of the compass.
Wilson Glade is avalanche terrain—generally understood to be any terrain 30-degrees or greater in steepness—within the high-danger parameters regarding aspect, elevation and slope angle on Feb. 6. But backcountry skiing is rarely a cut-and-dried affair, with much of the activity taking place on the margins of safety. Wilson Glade is a place where sliding scales of risk tolerance and probabilities frequently overlap. It’s avalanche terrain to be certain, but compared to surrounding areas it appears almost innocuous. Below a steep, short headwall of pine is an open meadow. It touches the 30-degree threshold, but only just, and for only a couple hundred vertical feet. Large avalanches here are comparatively rare, and all these factors can contribute to a false sense of security.
I, myself, have frequented Wilson Glade on days when considerable avalanche risk was forecast thinking, as the group on Feb. 6 did, if there were any slides they would be pockety and manageable through a combination of careful terrain choice and travel protocol. I say this without judgment and acknowledge a baked-in complacency around certain terrain and behaviors that have permeated parts of the backcountry community. Denial is the religion of the insecure.
37 people died in avalanches in the United States during the 2020-21 season according to data compiled by the UAC. Seven of those deaths occurred in Utah. These numbers are simultaneously astonishing and pedestrian. We humans have a strange relationship with risk assessment. A single shark attack fatality and a handful of encounters off the coast of Cape Cod since 2012 have people scrambling from the waves like characters in Jaws. Meanwhile, hundreds of people are killed and thousands are injured annually on Utah roadways, but there isn’t much panic-driven discourse surrounding people driving on snowy mountain roads.
Backcountry skiing is caught somewhere in the middle, more dangerous than great whites, less so than cars. But the risks are gaining wider attention. Last year was among the most dangerous on record for backcountry users, but not by a stunning margin. There were 34 fatalities in both 2007 and 2010. Still, anecdotal judgments about the cause of accidents abound. It’s new, inexperienced users because of the pandemic. It’s overcrowding on the safer slopes because of the sport’s popularity, pressuring people to push boundaries. It’s social media hype and available information on the internet getting people in over their heads. And on it goes.
Every avalanche accident is a result of cascading factors. Yes, the aforementioned concerns do contribute to some incidents. But the numbers suggest on a per-user-day basis, backcountry skiing is likely becoming safer, not more dangerous. Backcountry travel numbers are difficult to accurately count, but total UAC contacts (page views, forecast hotline calls, mobile app sessions and forecast emails delivered) peaked at around 2.25 million in 2007 and reached nearly 4.75 million in 2021. Though vague on specifics, this indicates a huge influx of backcountry users with only a mild uptick in total accidents during a year with a particularly complicated snowpack.
Sarah enjoying the granite of Little Cottonwood Canyon in summer. Photo courtesy Chris Gmitro
“A common theme across the west last season was early snow in November followed by sustained dry periods in December, almost the entire month,” says UAC forecaster Nikki Champion. “In the Wasatch, that created faceted grains and a weak persistent layer all over the range. In Utah, it’s common to deal with faceted grains on north-facing aspects, but we’re less familiar with seeing a persistent weak layer that lasts for so long. Storms weren’t deep enough to bury the weak layer and cause it to go dormant until almost the end of the season, a problem that plagued the entire west.”
Persistent weak layers are named for a reason, they persist. Faceted snow grains, which create an unstable layer, can form quickly, in hours to days, but they take a long time, sometimes months, to heal. Because facets often exist deep in the snowpack, they are widely distributed across terrain beneath thick slabs of snow. When avalanches occur on failures in persistent weak layers, the slides are often deep, well connected across entire slopes and very dangerous. Such avalanches are also less predictable than avalanches that occur in new snow, creating an ever-present threat that lasts throughout a season.
“Last year’s persistent weak layer led to issues with decision making,” Champion says. “There was user fatigue and forecasting fatigue communicating the same problem from day to day. When people are avoiding the persistent weak layer and aren’t getting negative feedback, complacency builds and it’s more difficult to respect how dangerous it still is. There’s a large range of outcomes with snowpack structure and stability, and as weather patterns change, we need to become more comfortable with them in the Wasatch.”
In Wilson Glade, Chris, Sarah, Louis, Thomas and Steve were greeted with cold powder. One by one, they made arcing turns down the open meadow for several hundred feet before a few more turns where the slope angle lessened and the trees got tighter. Afterward, they put skins on and climbed back up, spacing out one at a time to cross the steepest, most exposed portion of the slope. The skin track on the slope’s east side was commonly used and their travel protocol was sound for many days in Wilson Glade when persistent slab danger is lower. Upon reaching the ridge after the second lap, Steve decided he would rest up top while the other four took a final lap. The four skiers dropped in once more, scrawling the last of the 14 tracks they made on the slope before beginning to ascend as they had twice already.
Meanwhile, a second group of skiers was heading up to ski Wilson Glade. Stephanie, Nate and Ethan started from Millcreek Canyon around 8:30 a.m. They skinned up the plowed road until reaching the Alexander Basin trailhead, where they headed southeast towards Wilson Glade. Nate and Ethan, slightly ahead of Stephanie, waited near the bottom of Wilson Glade to regroup and discuss travel and conditions before entering steeper terrain. Unbeknownst to them, Chris and Sarah’s group was ascending just above. They, likewise, were unaware of the group below.
That’s when the mountain, suddenly, roared to terrible life. An avalanche 1,000 feet wide, between 3- and 4-feet deep, tore from the slope. It’s impossible to know exactly what triggered the slide. Chris lunged for a tree, miraculously holding on as the snow engulfed and swept past him. The very ground beneath his feet was gone, leaving him clinging to the tree above the bed surface as the torrent came to rest. Steve, on the ridge above, was safe. The other six skiers were buried, and it was silent once again.
A rescue, equal parts heroic and tragic, unfolded. Chris dropped from the tree and turned his avalanche transceiver to search as Steve skied down to assist. Chris acquired a signal, struck a person with his probe and with the help of Steve dug out the victim who was unconscious but breathing. It was Nate, who they neither recognized nor knew was on the slope. A stranger to them. Chris made a call to 911. It was 11:40 a.m., roughly 10 minutes after the avalanche. Just feet away, Chris and Steve had located and began to uncover another skier. Nate had regained consciousness and assisted in shoveling. It was Ethan, another member of Nate’s downslope group. Ethan was unconscious but breathing.
Chris acquired another transceiver signal and the three rescuers located Sarah about 150 feet away. She was not breathing and didn’t have a pulse. Chris began CPR on Sarah while Steve and Nate continued searching for victims, finding Louis just downhill. He was not breathing and didn’t have a pulse. At this point, Chris ceased resuscitation efforts and rejoined the search for victims. The group located and uncovered Thomas, and then 100 feet downhill, Stephanie. Neither was breathing nor had a pulse. By 1:40 p.m., rescue personnel were lowered onto the scene via helicopter, after which Chris, Steve, Nate and Ethan were taken from the area in a Life Flight air ambulance. Four people, Sarah Moughamian, 29, Louis Holian, 26, Thomas Steinbrecher, 23, and Stephanie Hopkins, 23, had lost their lives.
The remarkable rescue effort by the surviving skiers had saved two lives. Nobody could have achieved a better outcome under such circumstances.
The aftermath of the avalanche in Wilson Glade. The crown of the avalanche shown in the photo is nearly four feet deep in places. The slide broke nearly 1,000 feet wide and ran more than 400 vertical feet. The failure occurred on a persistent weak layer of faceted grains near the ground. Photo by Bruce Tremper
Spend enough time in the mountains, and it’s likely you’ll be touched by tragedy. It’s a cruel bargain. Between our conversations, last fall, a friend of Chris and a pillar of the climbing community, Mason Boos, was killed while climbing in Little Cottonwood Canyon. A loose block of granite had fallen. It was a callously random and blameless accident. Mason was 25.
Chris speaks with a poised self-awareness about life in the mountains. Utterly sincere without a trace of glibness. He has a clear-eyed understanding not only of what hindsight says about the accident that changed his life but also of the inherent paradoxes that bring people to the places where life and death can intersect.
“There are entire books and professions devoted to understanding risk, but there are no great answers,” Chris says. “We talked about our expectations and how dangerous our lifestyle could be. It’s a beautiful gift to have had those conversations with Sarah. We can rationalize our mortality, but there’s a finality I didn’t appreciate. Inherently we knew what could happen, but we never thought it would. Otherwise, why would we do it? The answer is always a dead end.”
Concrete details are evident. A persistent weak layer of faceted snow formed during cold, dry periods in December. At some point on Feb. 6, a large, though not unprecedented, avalanche for Wilson Glade was initiated on that layer, 90 cm deep, while seven skiers were in exposed terrain, and four people were killed. A preventable tragedy with lessons to learn for every honest observer. Yet, intellectual exercise can take us only so far.
Each person involved was a wonderful soul full of hope, ambition, flaws and promise. That’s what the community lost. Promise and innocence. Diagram, analyze and rationalize all you want, the only certainty is perfection isn’t possible and we will end up here again. Call it passion, desire, a sense of identity or something else entirely, but there’s a magnetism that pulls towards a mortal line. An abstract combination of randomness and fallibility determines which side oif that line any day can land on.
In the fall, Chris was rehabbing an ACL injury sustained while skiing a month after the accident. He had no plans to give up skiing and climbing. Steve, likewise, remains embedded in the mountain community, working part-time at the Gear Room.
As Chris reflects, he returns again to that day in 2019, a moment of tandem purpose and dreams liberated from the tragedy of Feb. 6, 2021. Atop Lone Peak, Chris and Sarah shivered, huddling in their warmest layers waiting for the sunrise to wash the summit in pink light. The first climb of the day was over. The reward, indefinable but endlessly imaginable, is still ahead. It is a brief respite from endless motion. Little to do but wait and find peace in thinking of nothing particular at all. “Sarah never wanted notoriety or recognition,” Chris says. “She found such joy in the purity of pursuit and the process. The most amazing stories are the ones that are never heard.”
High in the Park City mountains, the term resort fare became a sort of euphemism. Meals were well-prepared, if uninspired iterations of vaguely western-themed Americana. This isn’t quite an indictment of Park City dining’s old guard, but an acknowledgement that restaurants here lacked that certain spice of life. “Variety,” some call it. A procession of new chefs and restaurateurs has come to the hills, changing the culture of cuisine on the Wasatch Back.
We went on an exhaustive and calorie-intensive journey around town from the heart of Main Street to the outer reaches of Snyderville Basin, all with the goal of mapping out dining itineraries tuned to any taste. Carnivores, we have you covered with top cuts. Vegetarians, we compiled cuisine for your values. Fish lovers, we found flavors that won’t leave you floundering. Read on for some of our favorite dishes and get ready to take your taste buds for a trip around Park City.
Superb Seafood
It doesn’t get more landlocked than Utah, but that doesn’t mean seafood lovers will be fish out of water. Dive in.
Breakfast
Lox Sandwich ($8.99) from Park City Bread and Bagel
This lox sandwich is a finely executed standard, especially because the cured salmon is served on a bagel that even New Yorkers must admit is delicious.
Real Mainah Lobster Roll ($27) from Freshie’s Lobster Co.
Freshie’s lobster rolls won the title of World’s Best Lobster Roll in 2017 while competing against the best the Northeast has to offer. This one’s a favorite for even the most ardent locals from the upper right.
Salmon L. Jackson Roll ($19) and Small Sashimi Plate ($45) from Sushi Blue
The finest high-altitude sushi around is at Sushi Blue. The clever names adorning many of the rolls on the menu are almost as delightful as the dishes themselves. Almost.
Plant-based diners rejoice! Fertile frontiers have given rise to a wonderful variety of vegetarian-friendly dishes on the Wasatch back.
Breakfast
Buddha Bowl of Goodness ($15) from Harvest
An alluring brew of veggies and grains—highlighted by the likes of butternut pumpkin purée, herb salad, avocado and more—is both morally conscious and utterly delicious. 820 Park Ave., 435-604-0463, harvestparkcity.com
Lunch
Falafel and Hummus Tacos ($5 each) from Vessel Kitchen
Flat out, the best falafel in town is rolled into a naan flatbread taco with some spicy Fresno chili and mango slaw. It sure beats bean and cheese. 1784 Uinta Way, 435-200-8864, vesselkitchen.com
Dinner
Dal Makhani ($14.99) from Ganesh
This delectable concoction of black lentils, onions, tomatoes and spices, with a little naan thrown in, is a wonderfully comforting dish to warm up with after a long day playing in the surrounding mountains and on the ski hill. 1811 Sidewinder Dr., 435-538-4110, ganeshindiancuisine.com
Masterful Meats
All that ranch land out west pays serious dividends. Enjoy some mountain-raised meats with these fine meals.
Breakfast
Pulled Pork Benedict ($16) from Five5eeds
Light it ain’t, but tasty it is. Start the day off right with pulled pork and apple cider hollandaise on top of some sourdough. This isn’t your grandparents’ Benedict. 1600 Snow Creek Dr., 435-901-8242, five5eeds.com
Lunch
Bacon Bleu Cheeseburger ($16.50) from Annex
The legendary buffalo burgers from the No Name Saloon are available to people of all ages at the Annex. The bacon bleu burger is everything it’s cracked up to be and more. 449 Main St., 435-649-6667, annexburger.com
Dinner
Trio of Wild Game ($55) from Riverhorse on Main
When mountain fare’s done right, who am I to argue? The buffalo, venison and elk combo with a port reduction is a highly elevated version of a western classic you could imagine done over a campfire. 540 Main St., 435-649-3536, riverhorseparkcity.com
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What we’re debating here is the very foundation of this community. It’s the literal ground we’re standing on—like the actual dirt. Seriously. Even the dirt in Park City is fraught with contradiction, caught between a bygone silver mining era and the eternal transformation into a worldwide destination resort for outdoor enthusiasts, art aficionados, indie movie darlings, cuisine Instagrammers and whomever else we can market the community to. That mining part left a legacy of environmental contamination—tailings laced with lead, arsenic and the like—which is quite literally resurfacing as the development boom races ahead in its myriad of incarnations. The questions at hand are, one, what we do with those soils and, two, who’s responsible for them. Thus far, Park City hasn’t dug up any easy answers.
Building new things first requires digging holes in the ground, and Park City is doing a lot of both. The proposed Arts and Culture District, for example, will unearth endless piles of soil needing to go somewhere. Because the soils are contaminated it can’t just be haphazardly dumped. Carbon-based life doesn’t get along great with mining-era contaminants.
Currently, every truckload of contaminated soil from Park City is taken down to a contaminated soils repository in Tooele, a solution which is expensive and laced with ethical quandaries about offloading inconvenience on another community. City officials sought another solution: to build a repository on municipal acreage alongside S.R. 248, which would be more cost effective. The city previously used a repository in Richardson Flat, but it has been closed since 2010.
The concept, with both its flaws and virtues, never got off the launch pad. An overwhelming flood of negative community pushback thrust the issue to the forefront of public consciousness. It was called a toxic waste dump and a community hazard. Even if those proclamations are vague and hyperbolic, some concern is valid. “Utah has weak fugitive dust regulation, which means there are insufficient controls to keep contaminants from being airborne,” says Scott Williams, Executive Director of HEAL Utah. “It’s more well-regulated when transporting materials off site, but the process hasn’t been well publicized or transparent enough.” City officials say disinformation created the charged atmosphere, which ultimately led every mayoral and city council candidate in the 2021 election to abandon the solution they’d designed. Councilors Max Doilney, Steve Joyce and Tim Henney all asserted deep politicization of misinformation derailed honest assessment. Incumbent Mayor Andy Beerman and challenger Nann Worel both stated the need to respect the desires of the community, while noting the issue wouldn’t evaporate under the status quo.
For now, Park City keeps on trucking…dirt to Tooele. But the larger issue won’t stay buried.
The Waste Repository That Wasn’t
The planned contaminated soils repository was to hold 140,000 cubic yards of material. That’s enough for 15 years storage, after which it was to be capped and turned into open space for recreation. Construction was estimated to cost $2.7 million but recoup multiples of that initial investment over the course of its lifetime.
Sundance and Slamdance have released the lineups for their 2022 film festivals. The dueling events—one which has grown since its inception into an international spectacle and the other which adheres strictly to its independent, DIY ethos—will take place concurrently in Park City, beginning on Jan. 20, 2022. Last year’s Sundance and Slamdance Film Festivals were derailed by Covid, but organizers and attendees are banking on vaccination and testing protocols to return the 2022 editions to their former glory with in person screenings and an interactive, welcoming atmosphere.
The Sundance Film Festival, which hardly needs an introduction at this point, has been a midwinter mainstay in Park City since 1981 and returns to the community from Jan. 20-30. Sundance’s profile has risen over the years as the film industry’s glitz, glamour and funding have become part of the production, but the festival’s always been a breeding ground for independent film that would go on to gain wider acclaim. The first edition of what was then called the Utah/U.S. Film Festival included canonical films such as “Deliverance,” “Mean Streets,” “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “Midnight Cowboy,” after all.
Still from “Living;” Photo courtesy Sundance Film Festival
Audiences in 2022 can get excited about an enormous variety of independent film genres and visions. Highly anticipated selections from the lineup include IFC Midnight’s “Hatching,” a suspenseful feature about a young gymnast hiding a mysterious giant egg from her domineering mother, “Living,” a reimagining of Akira Kurosawa’s “Ikiru (To Live),” “Lucy and Desi,” a documentary examining the enduring legacy of the unlikely partners from director Amy Poehler and “Master,” a horror tinted psychological thriller about an elite New England university built on the site of a Salem-era gallows hill. Typical cinema fare these films certainly are not. For more details about the festival schedule and lineup, visit the Sundance website.
Slamdance has become, in its way, the antithesis of Sundance, eschewing the creep of Hollywood influence in favor of an unwavering independent spirit. To be eligible for Slamdance’s competition lineup, the 23 features chosen from more than 1,100 submissions are all directorial debuts with budgets under $1 million and without U.S. distribution.
“We are anti-algorithm. That’s always been true, but it’s more urgent than ever as we continue to celebrate truly unique voices that defy simple classification and transcend analytics,” said Slamdance President and co-founder Peter Baxter. “This year our programmers gravitated towards films that embody the true DIY spirit of guerrilla filmmaking and push the boundaries of what’s possible in storytelling.”
Still from “Facing Monsters;” Photo courtesy Slamdance Institute
Films audiences can look forward to run the gamut from “Facing Monsters,” a feature-length documentary about West Australian ‘slab wave’ surfer Kerby Brown, to “Killing the Eunuch,” a horror feature about a serial killer using his victims to kill further victims, to “Forget Me Not,” the story of a family fighting for their son with down syndrome to be included in the country’s most segregated school system. Click here to see the full festival lineup, and visit the Slamdance website to purchase passes for the January 20-23 in person portion and January 20-30 online portion of the festival.
We’ll have plenty more film festival coverage as Sundance and Slamdance take over Park City in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.
It’s a little drier and warmer out there than Utahns are used to at the beginning of December. Instead of gazing at majestic mountains bathed in a fresh coating of powder, people along the Wasatch Front and Back are staring up at a scoured patchwork craggy rocks and paltry snowfields in the peaks. But old man winter’s lackluster effort hasn’t stopped resorts in the Wasatch from firing up the lifts, and Snowbird joined the action on Dec. 1, throwing a Birdstock party to celebrate the beginning of their 50th season.
While conditions weren’t the famed deep powder of Little Cottonwood Canyon, the Bird did serve up some 3,000-vertical-feet of top-to-bottom skiing via the Tram as well as the Gadzoom and Little Cloud chairlifts. That’s nothing to sneeze at after a snowy October gave way to a heinously warm and dry November leaving little natural snow of note anywhere but the highest elevations. The resort supplemented the skiing with good vibes courtesy of DJ supplied tunes, swag giveaways, contests and a retro 70s theme that’s a throwback to the mountain’s early days.
Powder? Not so much. Smiles? Plenty. Photo courtesy of Snowbird.
Of course, Snowbird isn’t the only show in town as resorts throughout the Wasatch have had the snow guns going full blast whenever it’s been cold enough. Park City Mountain now has both base areas open, though each offers a single ribbon of snow for skiable terrain at this point. Snowbird’s Little Cottonwood neighbor Alta has been going strong for a week with surprisingly good skiing conditions considering the meager season totals, while Big Cottonwood mainstays Solitude and Brighton are also open for business. Further south, Brian Head hasn’t skipped a beat either.
Models show winter may finally be arriving early next week to ward off the dastardly high-pressure ridge that’s skunked much of the early ski season. That’s good news, but instead of sitting home with our fingers crossed, we might as well head to the mountains to warm up the legs so we’re ready when the snow starts falling. I snuck out for a few decidedly mediocre turns this morning and was quickly reminded any time spent skiing is better than time spent sitting inside.
If drought conditions persist further into the winter, we’ll consult our meteorologist friends for a more thorough analysis, but I’ve been assured by trusted University of Utah trained weather nerds we don’t have anything to panic about. Yet. In the meantime, get out there and enjoy what little snow there is. Birdstock is a great example of how we can enjoy skiing without turning to jaded powder snobbery when the conditions aren’t ideal. I’ll see you on the slopes.
There’s a familiar grating sound ski and snowboard edges make as they cut into early season snow. The surface—typically a mixture of manmade flakes and what’s charitably referred to as “frozen granular”—may not be the Greatest Snow on Earth splashed across the pages of magazines expounding on the virtues of Utah skiing, but there’s an undeniable joy to those first few days on the mountain, when clicking into your bindings feels like the unlikely realization of some distant shoulder season fantasy.
To put it more directly, everyone knows a mediocre day skiing is better than a great day at work. The conditions won’t always be epic, but the early days of the season are a great opportunity to experience a different side of mountain culture. The lift lines are nonexistent, the hotel ski-and-stay deals are radically antithetical to skyrocketing costs, and the pace of everything is just a bit more leisurely. It’s the perfect time for a ski road trip through the Utah mountains that doesn’t involve obsessively researching weather models or selling a prized internal organ. Load up the car and get ready to shred.
Stop #1: Ski Brighton, Stay at Silver Fork Lodge
Brighton is the first resort to open in Utah each year—both Brighton and Solitudewelcome skiers on Nov. 23—so, naturally, it’s the perfect place to kick off an early season ski trip. While many other mountains play the waiting game ramping up to the lucrative holiday season, Brighton cranks the snow guns to 11 and gets the lifts spinning as soon as possible.
New for this winter, Brighton is offering the Early Pass for maximum shreddage during those early days. For just $249, pass holders get unlimited skiing and riding from opening day through Dec. 23. That’s about the same cost as two individual day tickets, a pretty unbeatable bargain, with the option to upgrade and apply the cost to any other season pass—midweek, night or full.
Spend the night in Big Cottonwood Canyon just down the road from Brighton at Silver ForkLodge. It has a charmingly rustic character, a fantastic restaurant and affordable rates outside of peak season.
Courtesy Snowbird
Pit Stop 1: Hog Wallow Pub
It’ll only take about 40 minutes to drive down S.R. 190 and up S.R. 210 to get to the top of adjacent Little Cottonwood Canyon, but it’s worth a quick stop at the Hog Wallow Pub for some smoked wings and a brisket sandwich with a pint to wash it down. The seminal après joint has a great atmosphere and hosts live music most evenings.
Stop #2: Ski at Snowbird, Stay at the Cliff Lodge
After scratching the early season itch at Brighton, seek out gnarly turns by day and luxurious digs by night. Snowbird is renowned for its steep terrain and copious snowfall, and it’s frequently home to an early-season powder bounty that leaves other resorts envious. The Aerial Tram whisks riders up to 11,000 feet where the temps are cooler and the snowpack is deeper than at lower elevations.
Skip the pre- and post-ski canyon rush with Early Bird Stay and Ski specials, packaging lodging with lift tickets at affordable rates you won’t find during the rest of the season. Each booking includes one lift ticket per adult for each night of the stay and children under 12 ski for free. Myriad accommodation options can be booked online, including the Lodge, The Inn, or my personal favorite, The Cliff. The iconic Cliff Lodge is a mere ski boot’s throw from the Tram and has a pretty delightful spa and pool for some decadent après.
Pit Stop 2: Centro Woodfired Pizzeria
Up next is a nearly four-hour drive down I-15 to Brian Head, but head past your turn in Parowan for just a few miles for a bite at Centro Woodfired Pizzeria in Cedar City. The pies are in the running for the best in the Beehive State—I’m partial to the Dolce Diavola with whipped ricotta and a honey drizzle—making the extra minutes in the car well worth the effort.
Stop #3: Ski Brian Head, Stay at Best Western Brian Head Resort and Spa
It seems like just yesterday people were heading towards the desert for shoulder season shenanigans, and now it’s time to point the compass south again in search of snow. Topping out at 10,920 feet, Brian Head has high alpine terrain that’s heaven for anxious powder hounds. The resort makes an effort to open before Thanksgiving each year—they are currently anticipating a Nov. 24 opening—providing a surreal early-season setting to arc turns down groomers and dive into cold smoke while overlooking the red rock landscape of Cedar Breaks.
New for the winter, the resort is managing the Best Western Premier Brian Head Resort and Spa just a half mile from the Navajo Lodge base area. It’s the first lodge the resort has overseen and has really easy access to uncrowded slopes. Early season lift ticket specials are available on the Brian Head website. The earlier you buy the better the deal you’ll find, so plan your trip early.
Oh, how I wish there weren’t a need for this article. Alas, as the ski industry rapidly adopts the airline model of “always monetize everything, always,” the simple act of getting to the mountains around Salt Lake City has become the most challenging part of any day. I don’t know if the Cottonwood Canyons are shrinking or if there’s been enormous population growth along the Wasatch Front coupled with a renewed enthusiasm for outdoor sports in the wake of a pandemic—it’s probably the latter isn’t it?—but whatever the cause, ski traffic and parking are increasingly problematic.
Proposals to alleviate the issue are being bandied about, from gondolas to buses (just definitely not trains), and in the meantime parking restrictions are all that’s keeping the levees from breaking as the powderhounds flow in. While opening dates have been pushed back throughout Utah, here’s a little breakdown of the parking situation at resorts near Salt Lake City so you can be ready when the snow starts falling. We’re going to focus on the ones in the Cottonwood Canyons (and touch on Park City), since that’s generally where the issues are focused. No matter where you’re headed, leave early, be patient and pray for snow.
Free lunch at Alta is over. The resort is implementing a weekend and holiday paid parking reservation system. They say it will keep them from having to turn cars away, but also I think the resort likes to make money. The $25 per-day fee will apply not only to those who park in the resort area base lots to ride the lifts, but also to backcountry skiers and snowboarders who park at the Grizzly and Flagstaff lots. That’s a bummer for people trying to access public lands.
About 40 days of the season are subject to parking restrictions. The remaining days will be just like the free-for-all they’ve always been. What about passholders? There’s a special reservation system for Alta passholders to hold two reservation days at any time, though there is a $25 no-show fee and I’ve heard anecdotal evidence of it being a bit difficult to use. Reservations and paid parking for public land access aren’t fun, but it appears the demand has far outstripped the supply. Carpool and take the UTA ski bus if you can.
The Bird is ditching mandatory parking reservations after last season’s ParkWhiz powered system left something to be desired for many, especially late arrivals who ski after work. Free parking will be available on a first-come, first-served basis at Entry 1 (the Upper Gad Valley Lot and Wilbere Hill), the Main Lot, Chickadee Hill, the Superior Lot and the Bypass Road excluding the preferred parking area.
Carpooling will be encouraged, and those with four-plus people in a car will have access to carpool-only parking areas and discounted preferred parking in Gad Valley (both as available). Paid parking with reservations is available for $25 per day, as the $699 preferred parking season pass is sold out. The Bird is the word, but unless you show up early, off hours or with a car full of your friends you may have to pay to play.
Paid parking is back at Solitude this season. Thankfully, it’s tiered by vehicle occupancy, so if you like to ski or ride with friends it won’t be too burdensome. For four or more occupants, the cost is just $5 per day, $10 for three occupants, $15 for two and $25 for one. As of this publishing, season parking passes are still available for $275 ($150 for a midweek-only pass) which makes sense if you’re a frequent visitor. Some of the namesake Solitude is vanishing as evidenced by the scores of cars stashed along the roadway to skirt the parking charge, but at least it encourages people to carpool.
Brighton doesn’t charge for parking, but they will turn you around if you get up there at 10 a.m. on a Saturday powder day expecting a primo spot. There’s no way to ensure a spot at Brighton, so the resort recommends showing up early or late (before 8 a.m. or after 1 p.m.) to get a spot. Let’s be honest, if you’re arriving after 8 a.m. on a weekend, you’re not going to make it up the canyon anyway. Carpool with friends and adhere to the off-hour shuffle to avoid maddening traffic and the dreaded turnaround.
Park City Resorts
There is wonderful and woefully underutilized public transportation from Kimball Junction and Ecker Hill to both Park City Mountain and Deer Valley. The best option, especially when it’s crowded, is to leave your car at the park and ride and enjoy relaxing, regular bus service to whatever mountain it is you’re trying to ski. If you simply must burn your own gas, here’s where to go.
There are base areas with parking at Park City Mountain, one at the Canyons on 224 and one in town. Both are free (for now) and offer paid, preferred parking options. The base area in town fills up super early, so if you aren’t on the strict a.m. program, start at Canyons base area. Even if you want to start skiing or riding at the Park City base area, you can hop a bus from Canyons to PC. Afternoons tend to open up a bit in town for later arrivals. Carpooling is key as traffic from I-80 and U.S. 40 can be rough, especially on powder days.
There’s a huge free parking area at Deer Valley’s Snow Park base area, though it can fill up on snowy weekends and holidays. There is also a paid parking garage with very limited space at Silver Lake. Driving all the way through town can be anxiety-inducing, even if there is ample parking, so don’t be afraid to take the bus.
If the skull and crossbones weren’t ominous enough, the all caps “YOU CAN DIE” was meant to be. The warning—printed on the orange gate separating avalanche-controlled terrain within Park City Mountain boundaries from uncontrolled backcountry terrain on adjacent forest service land—is a blunt statement about the hazards of skiing and snowboarding in the backcountry, especially for those without the requisite knowledge and equipment. The appeal of untracked powder leads many, heedless of caution, to head out anyway, and, after two fatal avalanches just weeks apart in January 2021, Park City indefinitely closed backcountry access gates at the resort. The popular gate atop the Ninety-Nine 90 Express chairlift remains permanently closed, though the gate atop the Peak 5 chair will reopen.
The move irked some backcountry skiers and riders who had long used the resort’s chairs to chase untracked powder just beyond the ropes. Others felt the move was warranted, as throngs of unprepared people having easy access to avalanche terrain—in full view of and just steps from the chairlift—seemed a recipe for disaster.
“We have made the decision to reopen the resort exit on Peak 5 for backcountry access, and to permanently close the exit at the top of Ninety-Nine 90. While both exits access the same area, the Peak 5 exit requires more hike-to effort, preparation and intention to reach the terrain,” Park City Mountain COO Mike Goar said in a prepared statement released in August.
The issue came to a head during a particularly tragic avalanche season in Utah that saw six skiers and snowboarders killed, including two along the Park City ridgeline after exiting the Ninety-Nine 90 gate. The snowpack’s persistent instability was cited as a cause, but, even in years without compounding stability issues, accidents happen. There have been nine fatalities along the Park City ridgeline since 2000, and ease of access is almost certainly a contributing factor. Significant avalanche paths are mere steps away from the top of the Ninety-Nine 90 chair. Many lead directly back into the resort, doubling down on the convenience. From Peak 5, accessing the ridgeline requires using specialized climbing skins, or a superhuman appetite for nightmarish postholing up hundreds of vertical feet of snow.
“The Peak 5 gate encourages more responsible use both because of the increased effort it requires and the lack of a visual from the gate itself to the terrain it accesses,” says Chris Tolli, a longtime backcountry skier who frequents the Park City ridgeline. The change isn’t a panacea, however. “There’s still a lot of avalanche terrain people can get themselves into quickly,” warns a Park City ski patroller who spoke about the topic on condition of anonymity. “Often all it takes is seeing someone go through the gate and people will get excited to follow.”
Backcountry skiing and riding carry inherent risk, and eliminating every accident is impossible. But if moving the gate could mitigate some accidents while enabling people to access national forest land like they have for decades, it’s worth a try.
