Trip Leader: Dale Goubeaux
Our ski crew from Dayton flew out of the Dayton airport on January 17. We met up with our fellow OVSC club Lexington at the Denver airport and traveled the remainder of our trip on the same plane to Salt Lake City. There we traveled by bus to our destination, The Snowflower Condos, on the mountain in Park City. The Snowflower Condos are ski-in, ski-out. They were very nice accommodations and convenient to the free Park City bus lines or a short walk to downtown. The Snowflower staff was wonderful, helping with our bags and any other needs during our stay.
On Sunday, after our first day of skiing, both groups planned to meet up at Flanagan’s Irish Pub for a ‘Welcome Party’. We could not make reservations for our large group, so Louise and I scouted the venue out in advance. Because it was a holiday weekend and 6 PM dinner time all the restaurants downtown were overwhelmed. Speaking with the host at Flanagan’s he said he would ‘try’ to make it work for our 2 clubs. Fortunately, by the time all the participants arrived we had a separate room and an additional table just outside the room where both clubs could be together. We enjoyed each other’s company, our favorite beverage(s), and an Irish themed meal. Many thanks to the staff of Flanagan’s for making it a wonderful ‘Welcome Party’.
Park City Mountain consists of two former separate ski areas, Park City Mountain and The Canyons, which are now connected by a gondola making it the largest lift supported ski area in the US. On Sunday, we had a sunny, bluebird day with temps in the upper 30’. We lucked out and the good weather continued the rest of the week.
Before we departed for Park City, I was very concerned because of the lack of natural snow. However, the snow makers at Park City had done a phenomenal job of opening as many runs as they could. Some were not ideal; we had some icy spots which made for some cautious treks down on some runs. After a few days of exploration, we zeroed in on many fine runs. I applaud the snowmaking team at Park City; they made lemonade outs of lemons! I was amazed at how much was open and good skiing.
The next days we continued to explore the large ski area. On Wednesday we received reports of a massive storm headed for the mid-west. The predictions were for record amounts snow and freezing rain mainly south of Dayton. By Thursday morning the forecast for Dayton had changed, it was now also in ‘bullseye’ of the possibly historic storm. Howard, trip leader for Lexington, and I had to make the difficult decision of leaving early to beat the storm. With many thanks to Sara, our Sports America representative, she arranged a reasonable bus and flight schedule on Friday morning instead of Saturday.
We had a final group get-together with our OVSC partner Lexington on Thursday night. It was in the very nice, comfy meeting room at the Snowflower Condos. We shared stories of our good times during the week, the usual banter of skiers, and discussion of future trips.
Friday morning at 11:30 AM, we departed our condo and after a day of travel arrived safely at the Dayton airport Friday night comfortably before the storm arrived the next day. Both our original flight and Lexington flights were canceled that Saturday. We were fortunate we left early and were not stranded out west. We hated to leave early however under the circumstances we felt it was the correct decision. Other than the one-day early departure, it was another successful ski trip for the club.