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Canyons, Utah: December 27, 2012

thetrailboss

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Ski Area: Canyons, Utah

Dates:
December 27, 2012

Conditions:
P/PP, 50" base and some great Utah Pow.

Weather:
Sunny, temps in the 20's.

Report No: 8

As advertised here two weeks ago, snowmonster and I decided to venture to the dark side and to try out Canyons, Utah. Not that it is now "Canyons," and no longer "The Canyons." This is one of the many changes that has taken place since ASC sold this resort, its last one, to their landlord, Talisker.

Last summer I visited Canyons to see if it would be a good place to ski last season. I found a wonderful, but poorly executed, concept--a modern base village located just outside Park City leading to a behemoth resort. Looks are indeed perceiving.

Locals I talked with usually despised the place, and its new owner. Talisker is the company behind the proposed Ski Link project and is the landlord to neighboring Park City Mountain Resort and Deer Valley. Talisker now owns over 14,000 acres of land, with 4,000 of which making up Canyons. Talisker also has been involved in a lawsuit with PCMR because PCMR let their 50-year lease expire and Talisker wants their land back. Some think it is Talisker's thinly veiled attempt to take over PCMR.

But let's put all that aside and focus on the day, which began at Drafts in the Westgate Resort. The service in this pub was the worst I've ever seen--with slow and downright rude staff. Snowmonster, and his friend, were both disappointed having just come from a wonderful day at Deer Valley where the service is tops.

Thanks to a promotion from Costco, we were able to get day tickets, with no blackouts, and a nice trove of coupons for a mere $69 per person. Walk-up price for this holiday break was $106 per person. We held our breaths as we pulled into the Orange Bubble Express hoping that the tickets were indeed going to work and they did.

Canyons is downright odd because you can't really ski the whole resort from top to bottom. You have to ferry out of the base area via the Red Pine Gondola or the new Bubble Chair and then either download or ski Willow Draw down, ride a rope tow up, and glide down the last pitch. In a good winter you can ski down one or two runs from the Bubble Chair area, but with most of the resort built eastward from Red Pine Lodge, you need to ride a "Short Cut" lift up to these two runs.

ASC bought this resort, then known as Wolf Mountain, in the mid 1990's. It was originally called Park West and built by the original owners of PCMR. Park West then included what is now Sun Peak, Condor Area, and the lower mountain. ASC expanded the resort to the east--past Red Pine Canyon and to "Ninety-nine, 90" and Peak 5.

We rode up with a guy whose brother works for Ski Utah and it was his first day at Canyons as well. Beyond the fake village that I despised lies a huge resort with some of the best tree skiing I've seen and little or no liftlines.

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Our anticipation got the best of us and we prematurely unloaded at the mid-station of the lift. This ended up being fortuitous because it meant we could get down to business and ski down Super Fury, a carbon copy of Ovation at Killington. The deep Utah snow made for some great turns:

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One of the things that folks grumble about Canyons is that it is hard to navigate. Indeed the trail map is one of the most complicated ones you will see. But take out the base area, and the expensive homes that have sprung up in The Colony, one quickly sees that like its long lost sibling, Sunday River, there are a number of vertically oriented lifts that span from left to right. My eyes picked out a nice menu of peaks to choose from, and a strategy that worked well. We would begin at the looker's right and work our way to the left, going from Super Condor to Ninety-nine-90 and everything in between before going from there.

We had no problem navigating down Flume past Sun Peak Express to Super Condor, which ascended up a ridge that offered awesome views, great snow, and few folks. At the top Snowmonster pointed us into Condor Woods, the tightest ones we'd ski all day. We found deep snow in predominantly soft woods:

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We dumped out into a Canis Lupus, a designated "natural halfpipe" which led us to Lower Boa.

Our eyes had spied some nice lines on the looker's left of Super Condor, which were trail cuts in low brush reminiscent of the trails of lower PCMR:

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So we headed to them and hit Aftershock and then Lone Pine. The snow was perfect, although the scrub made Lone Pine a bit tricky.

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Nothing but smiles....

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And nice pow in the woods:

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Last edited:

thetrailboss

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But there was more to see. We glided down to Sun Peak Express and hightailed over to the Red Pine Lodge area to get onto the Saddleback Express to experience the Aspens gladed area, located pretty much dead center on the map. I figured that ads for the resort had featured skiers in these amazing woods, which we had to ourselves for two incredible runs:

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Pick your line....

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There was no wrong way to go!

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Enjoy the woods...

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And the amazing snow.

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We decided to hit Elk Ridge before working over to Ninety-nine-90.

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thetrailboss

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We took an icy and skied out Chicane to the Tombstone Six-Pack, and then down Silver Spur, through some nice trees onto Ripsaw, right to Ninety-nine-90.

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This is the highest peak at the resort and offers some more great tree runs and stuff that was steep and deep, including the 94 Turns Bowl area:

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Before dropping into some choice trees leading us to Aspen Grove and back to the bottom of the lift:

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[img[http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47a2cc11b3127ccef1a87b9b57f000000030O00IYtmjlm1atAe3nwA/cC/f%3D0/ps%3D50/r%3D0/rx%3D550/ry%3D400/[/img]

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And yeah it was all deep:

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On the next run we decided to drop into Fright Gully, which offered non-stop steep fall line skiing that reminded me of Paradise at Sugarbush:

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I had no problem finding a nice line:

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thetrailboss

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By now it was 3:30 and we had to begin the long journey back to the base by skiing Rhapsody through the Colony homes to The Drop, which was white ice, and then to Tombstone Express:

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Down a crowded and skied-out Sidewinder:

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Past Red Pine Canyon Lodge and to the "Short Cut" lift to get back up to the Orange Bubble Mid-station:

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And then down G-Force to the Willow Draw:

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Looks familiar, doesn't it? We came full circle:

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We, along with everyone else, skied Willow Draw to the rope tow and then to the base where there were some "cowboys" entertaining folks:

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As I said, the base area doesn't do it for me.

We got our stuff and rode the Cabriolet back to the cars at the base:

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So in sum, I still am not a fan of the base area and the parking situation. The fact that you can't ski all the way down, really, is also a draw back. But it was so huge that we had no lines and the trees were downright incredible. I'm a fan...if at least a closet one!
 

snoseek

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I usually avoid the wasatch back but when I'm there Canyons is def my favorite. I've only been a couple times and feel like there's so much more to explore. You guys got it good!
 

FRITOLAYGUY

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Im not sure if i want to ski canyons more or less after reading this report. Nice pics and descriptions of everything. Have u skied PCMR at all since you have lived there?
 

4aprice

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Im not sure if i want to ski canyons more or less after reading this report. Nice pics and descriptions of everything. Have u skied PCMR at all since you have lived there?

I'm just luke warm on Canyons. (PCMR is one of the worst layouts I think I've ever skied JMO) Agree the trees can be very nice but the village, parking and lift layout is kind of weird and to get from one section to another can use up a lot of time. Out of the 3 in that valley I'd take Deer Valley. That being said I've gotten to the point where I really only want to ski LCC and BCC when I go out there. Location is reason #1 (condo is located right between the two) but reason #2 is I just find the snow to be better in the Cottonwoods and between the 4 of them there definitely enough for me.

Alex

Lake Hopatcong, NJ
 
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