Twenty-four hours before Kristina Koznick, Alex Shaffer and Sarah Schleper caught a plane to the 1998 Winter Olympics, the U.S. Ski Team alpine racers were getting one last training run in at Park City's Eagle Race Arena. A World Cup venue since the mid-'80s, Park City Mountain Resort has long been considered one of the premiere racing and training facilities in the country. The recent addition of a burm- and ramp-filled terrain park next to the Eagle Race Arena allowed the resort to begin preparing for preliminary snowboard competitions that will accompany pre-Olympic alpine races in the years leading up to the Olympics.
PCMR is already home to the state's largest halfpipe, which will be lighted for night boarding this winter. At a length of 400 feet and depth of 10 feet, the pipe is large enough to accommodate several riders at a time and challenge the best boarders during U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association competitions.
It was not, however, the halfpipe, Pinecone Ridge or McConkey's Bowl that received the most attention at Park City Mountain Resort during the busy summer construction season. PCMR's beginner lift—appropriately named First Time—has long provided beginning skiers and boarders with a place of their own to learn the slippery sport of sliding on snow. After teaching thousands of people to ride and ski on the old First Time, instructors were delighted to hear the resort was devoting piles of money to move 250,000 cubic yards of earth—creating a perfectly-consistent plane for beginners to slide down without worrying about ending up anywhere but the bottom of the run and back at the lift.
PCMR Ski and Snowboard School instructor Ken Mattson said the summer-long project has created what he considers one of the best beginner hills in the country. Mattson, who was a ski and snowboard instructor in California before being hired away by PCMR, said beginning snowboarders take the worst falls on flat terrain and eliminating those areas was a goal in the regrading project.
"More consistent pitches make it safer to learn how to snowboard," Mattson said.
Once massive yellow earth-movers had rearranged the dark soil into a wide rectangle, and hauled the excess soil into Silver Hollow higher on the mountain, the task of planting trees to keep snow on the sides of the monstrous beginner hill began.
"This is currently the largest revegetation reclamation project in the state of Utah," said PCMR's O'Brien. "While we've expanded our commitment to expert skiers in the McConkey's Bowl and Pinecone Ridge areas, we've also made major improvements to our beginner terrain."
As the host site for 2002 Winter Olympic men's and women's giant slalom events as well as snowboard halfpipe and giant slalom, PCMR is in the middle of a five-year, $35-million capital improvement project. Once this season's snow melts off the World Cup race hill, bulldozers will begin realigning the Olympic run onto what is currently called Pick 'n Shovel. The end result will be a finish area large enough to house the thousands of spectators, athletes, coaches and media that follow Olympic ski and snowboard events.
Early-season snow already covering the mighty Jupiter Peak is a constant reminder to powder hounds, gate skiers and half-pipe riders alike, the hills that once provided pleasure in mined silver, now create fortunes in fun—snow fun.
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