Pre-season training at Deer Valley

Since PCMR did in fact open today, I had to do my pre-season training session at Deer Valley. I went to the Empire Express base to skin up to the lift top station. That’s about 1,400 – 1,500 feet elevation gain. That is as much as you can do right now provided you are ready to hike some of it while carrying your skis. On the way down you will have to “Nordic ski” part of it on your skins and still walk some. The “variable” snow cover, as in snow, rocks, branches and the rest, makes it absolutely impossible to ski any of it unless your skis are throw a ways. The good news is that it snowed consistently there and over Big Cottonwood so hopefully that will add up to some sort of measurable result. However, unless we really get a lot of snow tomorrow, I will try to skin up from Silver Lake for my next training session on Wednesday. In the mean time here are some of today’s pictures: