4 replies to this topic

[Skiing#1]

Season 1976 - 1977...there was lack of snow in Utah. Brighton, Alta and Snowbird opened on January 1977 and they closed on end of February 1977. Park City and Park West (now The Canyons) were closed for Season 1976-1977. That was sad.

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[truckintr]

In the very early years of DV, from what i was told by managers, Success didn't havemuch snow making on it. One season, the snow didn't come all that often,(think they opend dec. 26th) they were having to truck in snow from miles aways, install a bucket on a snow cat, and make many trips up and down Sucess, just to get a narrow ribbon of snow from top to bottom. I beleive there may be some pictures floating around in upper management offices.

When i was there, and there wasn't much snow, thus all the lifts weren't open yet, we would create snow shovling parties, walk down a run, IE: McHenrys,Onterio (before snow making was installed) with large sheets of plastic, lay them up onto the sides of the runs, in the trees, and shovel tons of snow down onto the run, to help cover thin spots. There would be lifites, mt.hosts and patrolers. Ya it was nuts, but we all dug in togther and did our part to help out.

This post has been edited by truckintr: 02 September 2006 - 10:37 AM

[ccslider]

Skiing#1, on Sep 2 2006, 09:28 AM, said:

Season 1976 - 1977...there was lack of snow in Utah. Brighton, Alta and Snowbird opened on January 1977 and they closed on end of February 1977. Park City and Park West (now The Canyons) were closed for Season 1976-1977. That was sad.

Well, you sort of got it right. The 76-77 season started slow as you said with opening day in early January, but then there was a memorable week long snow event in February where it positively dumped at Alta, including the night of the 22nd or 23rd where we saw 60+" overnight! Massive slides the next day with an interlodge called until 1:00 or 2:00 pm - snow was too deep to do anything but just go straight - had to pole all the way down Albion from the Alpenglow (where I lived and worked that season). Skiing was great all of Feb & March into April.

[ccslider]

Here are snow stats for Alta 76-77:

Inches, % Avg

314.5, 61.6%


There are a lot of ski areas that would love to get 300".

[liftmech]

'76-'77 was a bad year for may ski areas, I'm told. Pa kids me that it was a good thing he had a new kid to occupy his time that winter, because there was no skiing to be had in Washington.