A typical training day for us at Fasterskier.com living in Park City, Utah is skiing at the Olympic venue on the perfectly groomed trails of Soldier Hollow. Here are some photos from a different workout.
Mill Creek Canyon only 15-20 minutes from downtown Salt Lake City is where we go skiing when we are “tired†of Soldier Hollow Olympic course’s perfectly groomed trails and instead want “real winter feelingâ€, lots of powder snow, big pine trees and Christmas card scenery. Don’t misunderstand, Soldier Hollow is great, but this is a different type of beauty.
It’s always amazes me that a short 4-mile drive from the Salt Lake Valley can make the weather change from spring-time temperatures and no snow, to full winter with 3-10 feet of snow and great skiing.
Mill creek Canyon is all uphill skiing for 40-70 minutes depending upon your fitness level and recent grooming. Skiing back down again takes about 15 minutes and is a blast! The Park Service is grooming the closed to traffic road for both skating and classic roughly once per week.
Here are some photos I took of Anders Haugen on Monday when we did a casual “distance†workout up to the yurt where the grooming stops. The new snow made it hard to ski easy and we were in intensity “3†most of the time for the roughly 50 minutes it took. It would take another 30-60 minutes on back country skis to the very top. Our race skis would not be able to handle that.
It was about a foot of new snow and a couple days since the last grooming. It’s possible to rent the yurt and stay there overnight.
The yurt is also a great start point for those who like to do real back-country skiing and further explore the Wasatch Mountains and wilderness.
The kids climbing the roof are of local ski club members.
For a previous Mill Creek report see http://www.fasterskier.com/training241.html
