Annual hike to the Silver Fork Lodge

A record 16 of us did Ron and Carol Lee's hike over to Big Cottonwood Canyon. It was the Lee's fifteenth year and our fifth.

Half way up Rob's trail we ran into a dad, a mom and a baby moose.  They were hidden in the trees enough to prevent a great photo, but it was a nice start to the trip.  A bit earlier, they had actually been hanging out on the trail.  You could tell because of the large poop deposits they left for the mountain bikers to run through.

This shows a good example of how aspens spread.  One family is interconnected by the roots as a giant living organism.  An interconnected group changes color all at once.

Nice color and beautiful blue skies.

Julie and I.  Thanks for the photo Randy.

Not quite everyone, but most of the group as we get to Desolation Lake.  A little bit further and we turn down Bear Trap Canyon heading into Big Cottonwood.

Hiker Julie!

After 10.5 miles and a lot of up and down over the mountains, we reach the Silver Fork.  It's a great little place to stay the night (very simple) and an even better place to eat lunch and dinner.  The owner, Dan, is about as nice as he could possibly be.

The next day we chowed down on a big breakfast and took off again.  Sunny and highs of 80.  It didn't feel like late September.  On last year's hike we were hiking through some light snow.

There aren't that many ponds up in this stretch of mountains, but this one offered some nice reflections just above the Jupiter chairlift.

The only mildly annoying thing we ran into was the construction at Park City Mountain Resort.  Vail has a ton of lift work going on and it resulted in quite a few trail closures.  That meant having to detour off our normal routes, but nothing much.  This is the new King Con lift.

 

Great weather. No hail this year. No medical emergencies. No one getting locked out of their rooms all night.  It was pleasantly void of excitement.

Review of Canyons Golf Course in Park City

This is a bit delinquent.  Julie, Cathy Clark and I played the Canyons golf course about two weeks ago.  I wanted to write up a review, but we headed out to the east coast and I got behind.

There is a very long history to this golf course.  It was supposed to be developed about a decade ago as part of the Canyons' master plan.  Unfortunately, there were all sorts of disputes about land agreements, several of which ended up in court.  Then American Ski Corp went out of business. Then the new owner, Talisker, leased everything out to Vail.  A decade late, the course is in place and playable.

It was actually completed last fall and they allowed one day of invitation-only play, but they really opened it up to the public late this spring. The course winds around the lower areas of Canyons ski resort.  I have to give them credit for figuring out how to fit a course around all those buildings, which are surrounded by lots of steep mountains.  While an impressive achievement, it also resulted in a number of things I didn't like.

For being one year old, the course is in great shape.  As you can see from this photo of the first hole, the fairways look nice, especially for fall.  The grass on the greens is good, but the course definitely needs to settle in a bit.

The first thing you will notice playing the course is that there are some extreme elevation changes.  These make for spectacular scenery, but some fairly unpredictable golf shots.  In the photo below, we are aiming for the green in the middle of the photo, by hitting to the fairway on the left.

This photo also shows some of the issues.  The cart paths everywhere are fairly rough gravel roads.  They advertise this as "soft cart paths that you can play from."  There is no way in hell I would take a swing off one off these paths.  There is also a real gravel road running right along this fairway and we saw construction trucks driving through as we played.  The course distances aren't well marked and it isn't on any of our GPS systems yet.  I don't know how long that process normally takes.

There is a drink cart, but the elevations are so steep that the cart can't get to half of the front nine.  That's probably for the best.  Some of the cart paths wind up switchbacks so steep that you wouldn't want to drive them if you had been drinking.

Now my problems.  The course is very short.  Right now it is a par 70, with the tips playing less than 6300 yards.  To compensate for the shorter course, they designed the greens to be something like Extreme Putt Putt.  I regret having not taken some photos of the greens, but they normally have tier after tier with steep slopes between tiers.  This means that you may hit a nice lofting shot within 5 yards of the flag, only to have the ball roll 30 yards and you are off the green.  Now you get to judge the speed to putt the ball back up two or three tiers to get to the flag.  A mistake can result in a long putt ending up right where you started.

That's exactly what happened to me here.  This is a short par 5 (450 yards?) with a monstrous drop in elevation. You are aiming at the green to the left of these two lovely golf models.  My first tee shot was a nasty hook off to the left.  I teed up another and absolutely crushed it.  With the massive drop in elevation, it took forever to come down, but it ended up just short of the tree next to the green.  I was about 10-15 yards from the stick.  I made a decent chip, which for me is a rarity. The ball rolled onto the green and hit the side of the flag stick, deflecting it a bit left.  I thought I would have a 5 foot putt for a 3, but that isn't the way in extreme putt putt.  The ball slowly rolled down tier after tier, finishing about 30 yards away. It simply didn't feel a bit like golf.  I was so annoyed I just picked up my ball.

I played the rest of the round, enjoying the scenery, not keeping score, always looking for the windmill or the clowns mouth on the greens.

Just to reinforce my frustration, the golf Gods left a divot repair tool in the cart path, which my cart immediately found.  I have had problems with golf carts before, but never a flat tire.  The Canyons employees were great about getting us another cart quickly.

It is a great course to go play once.  The huge elevation changes and beautiful views of the Snyderville Basin make the course unique.  Just the same, I doubt I would ever put this course into my rotation.  I prefer Park City, Soldier Hollow, Wasatch and Mountain Dell better.  And if you can get on them, the numerous private courses like Red Ledges and Promontory, while difficult, are much more interesting as golf courses. 

Aututmn Aloft

About 20 years ago, Park City had a balloon festival, but it became very popular and apparently outgrew itself, so it died.  Last year they got it started again and it was a big success.  Unfortunately, we were out of town and missed it.  This year I missed the first day, but caught the second.

Here are my two assistant photographers for the morning.  If it looks like Julie is overdressed for this time of year, it is in the low 30s, which is actually a good bit warmer than yesterday morning. Jasper, of course, is completely indifferent.

They festival is held on the North 40 fields.  For those who have been to Park City and seen the giant "PC" up on a hillside, this is right at the base of that hill.  We got there around 7:30 and a lot of the balloons were being rolled out for inflation.

They fill the balloons with portable fans until they have mostly taken shape.  Then they start firing up the burners.  I have to guess that a few balloons each year catch fire at this phase.

The flag balloon on the left is ready to go.  The rest are all still being inflated with fans.  The impressive thing is that a decent fan was able to inflate a balloon in about 5 minutes.

The launch starts.  We have now moved up the hill to get a different perspective.  I wish they would start about 15 minutes later.  These photos are tough when the balloons are in the shade and the background is bright and sunny.

There was wonderfully little wind this morning.  That meant that they could rise slowly and hang around the field.  I don't think they could have designed better weather.

 Pretty soon, they were taking off every few minutes.

In total, I think I counted 20 balloons, one of which remained tethered to the ground, providing people with little 50 foot rides.

Our fall tree colors are pretty terrible this year.  They have mostly been going quickly from green  to brown to gone.  Some years the mountains would have offered a much more colorful backdrop.

 With the air being so incredibly still, any surface of water provided mirror-like reflections.

The North 40 fields are over near the Park Meadows golf course and the festival had arranged to be able to use the golf course as a landing zone if that's where the winds were heading.  This turned out to be fantastic.

 Like most golf courses, Park Meadows has some ponds.  The first fun was just capturing the reflections.

 Then we sat and watched a game the balloons like to play.  They come down so that their baskets just touch the water.  That had to be a great ride for all of them.

It was cold enough to have a frost hold on the golf course, but I hope they hadn't scheduled any tee times for the morning anyway.  It would be tough to get your golf ball on the green with  a giant yellow balloon in the way.

 It is probably too small to see in this photo, but on the left bank of the pond, there is a woman standing outside her house in her bath robe taking pictures.  The balloons were coming right over her house.

Here was our water skimming champion.  He kept the basket right at the water's surface and went across the pond like he had a boat.  They probably went 200-300 yards doing this.

And we end with all reflection, no balloon.

Congrats to the people running the Autumn Aloft festival.  It was easily accessible, free to attend and a spectacular sight.  I was walking by one woman who said to her friend "Isn't it incredible to be somewhere where every single person has a huge smile on their face?"

Yet another scam

I am way behind on my blog posts.  Here is a quick one I got in this morning's mail.  Of course this is from someone I don't know.  I would reply and have some fun with the scammer, but I think that might just increase my spam rate.




Sorry for any inconvenience, My family and i made a trip to out of the country due to an emergency unfortunately for us, we were robbed and i was hurt on our way back to the hotel. I need your help to sort out some bills here and get back home. I promise to refund you the money immediately once i get back home.

Let me know if i can count on you

Ben

Vail's huge summer upgrades

Not too long after Vail bought Park City Mountain Resort, they announced plans to merge it with Canyons, creating the largest ski area in North America.  In a normal year, a resort will spend between 1 and 5 million dollars updating the resort.  The $5M normally only occurs when a new, major lift is going in.  This year, Vail announced they were spend $50M in a single summer in Park City.  That's so far beyond anything we have ever heard of, it is almost hard to imagine.

You can read a bit of plans and updates here.

Building a large restaurant and 3 ski lifts on the back side of a mountain can be quite the challenge.  How do you get all those materials there?  You start by staging everything in the PCMR park lot.  These are new lift towers.

These are odds and ends, including tops for the towers.

Then you bring in this beast.  I would describe this as a flying jet engine with a small seat.  The cabin is just big enough for the pilot to get into.

Helicopters have a hard enough time in the thin air at elevation.  Flying with big loads over windy mountain ridges has to be nasty!

This helicopter looks weird.  First, it has two counter-rotating blades. That would be odd enough, but the blades are offset by about two feet.  Looks closely at the centers of the two blades.

It was taking it about 5 minutes to make a round trip.  Pick something up, fly it over the mountain, drop it off, and come back for more.  I am sure this type of helicopter costs a fortune per hour, so you don't leave it sitting around.

Everything on the ground was already prepped for pickup so there was no delay.  These guys at the bottom of the cable had a miserable job.  The helicopter kicked up a LOT of wind and in a dirty mountain parking lot, that means choking dust and swirling debris. 

Jasper and I enjoyed watching a handful of flights before they had to stop the copter for refueling and a pilot break.  I wish Vail luck with this.  They have a tremendous amount of work to get done in a very short building season. If it starts snowing early this year, completion may be a huge fight.

Park City Art

Jasper and I were going for a walk around Park City today and ran across some new art being created.  One of the pedestrian tunnels along Poison Creek was being painted with a mix of geometric patterns.  The guy doing it works at a local restaurant and is an art student at the University of Utah.

The fun part was that he would let you paint one of the triangles so it becomes a community art project.  The woman in the blue top is about to paint hers.  Then she offered to hold Jasper so I could paint one.

Mine is the beautiful purple one.

I will head back and take a photo of the entire tunnel when he is done.   It is a HUGE improvement over what has been there for years:  dirt and mud on old white paint.

It is nice to live in a city that supports projects like this. 

Visiting Michigan

Julie and I went up to Michigan to visit with Julie's family.  We stayed with her mom for a few days in Royal Oak and then went with Julie's cousin Kathleen and her husband Bill to their cottage on Rush Lake.

They recently acquired a pontoon boat, which is perfect for this lake.  It's great to take around any time of day, including this gorgeous sunset.

 Kathleen and Julie, our beautiful boat bling.

 As the sun dropped, the colors kept getting better.

In the morning, Bill would wake up and head out on to the dock with his fishing rod, in search of the perfect bass.

But he let me use a rod, and I got the big catch.  It's about a 15" large mouth bass. It is back swimming freely in the lake again.

During the time we were there, we saw a number of other family members.  This is Megan, Bill and Kathleen's daughter.  We also went out to dinner with their sons Michael and Patrick.

We also got to spend time with Julie's uncle Tom and her aunt Marie.  Below we have Tom and Julie lounging on the back deck.

Nice trip.  It was fun getting to see everyone and we had nice weather, although it did get hotter and more humid than Julie and I are used to.  Once we left North Carolina, we have grown soft (and dry, and comfortable).

I bought a Phantom 3 drone a month ago to use for video and photos.  Yesterday, I got to ride in a much bigger, much nicer one, a Bell 407. I hope as I go through life, the only time I have to ride in an AirMed helicopter is when I am up shooting photos.

Paul Hewitt, a friend, fellow Rotarian, and runner, is our Park City Fire Chief.  He set up a ride with our local helicopter ambulance company, AirMed, which is part of University Health Care.  The idea was to fly around the local fire district, checking out the foliage (dry versus green).  I got to tag along and take some photos.  What an opportunity!

For those in Park City, the AirMed office and landing zone is over near Promontory, tucked back away from all the houses.  It is conveniently close to Park City, but out where the helicopter noise doesn't upset the locals.

My photos aren't terribly artistic.  I was shooting out a little hole in the door's window and as nice as this helicopter is, we weren't exactly sitting still.  You will notice some pieces of helicopter showing up in some of the photos.

This past year, Park City, Summit County, the DOT and a few others got together to build this very nice tunnel under highway 40.  Humans can traverse through it, but the main push was for all the deer, elk and moose.  There had been a lot of big road kill accidents in this stretch.

This is the Park City Heights subdivision, out by the hospital.  They started building 2 or 3 years ago, but ran into some EPA issues with mine tailings.  Seems like it will be a long time before we see houses.

The first stage of our new movie studio is nearing completion.  Eventually there will be a hotel and a few other buildings around it.  I don't know the details, but I heard that they are already successful at finding companies to pay for the space.  Maybe it won't have to be converted to a Target store after all.

This is the lower half of Old Town.  The big building on the right is the newly refreshed library.  Most of the ski runs are Park City Mountain Resort, with a few from Deer Valley on the far left.

And the upper half of Old Town.

Same area, but looking back through town towards I-80.

Can't fly around Park City without taking a picture of the house.  Right below the white spot on the hill is our ex-house.  Our condo is just to the right of it.

Another view of our neighborhood, looking from the northwest.  This elevation is the only way you can see the entire neighborhood at once.

This is the base of Park City.  This may be one of those great pictures to look back at a decade or two from now for a before and after.  That base area will see some very serious development.

Wonder how Vail is doing on development of the new Gondola and the Snow Hut restaurant?  Right now, they are basically a big hole in the ground.

Here is a closer look. The gondola base will be on the left and Snow Hut will be on the right.  They have a long way to go before the ski season.

The Montage hotel, up at Deer Valley.

This is the Hotel Park City, which also serves as the clubhouse for the municipal golf course.

The Utah Olympic Park.  The big Nordic ski jumps are on the left.  The luge and bobsled track is on the right. The collection of white lines in the bottom, middle are the practice jumps for the ski jumping.  You can see the big pool they land in.  They just rebuilt that entire area with new jumps, a new pool, and even a climbing wall.

While a lot of my pictures were a bit soft, this one came out very sharp.  Zoomed way in, you can see some of the jumpers standing on the jumps.

And the last photo is a shot showing the huge value of having conservation easements on local land.  The pretty green area is the Swaner Nature Preserve.  The closest area is Kimball Junction.  The contrast is amazing.

Getting to take these shots was a fantastic opportunity.  A huge thanks to both Paul Hewitt and the great group at AirMed!