Ten Runs Before the Hoards - 28 December 2025

Above: Deer Valley, 28 December 2025.
6-10-35 (Six outings year to date. Ten runs today. Thirty-five cumulative runs year to date... a meager ytd output compared to previous years)

Image: Mt. Timpanogos from Homeward Bound ski run.

The title of this blog, "Ten Runs Before the Hoards," does not refer to a Hollywood spectacular. Rather, it's the best description of my ski day today.

The period between Christmas and New Years is typically the most crowded part of the ski calander. Even in a good snow year most locals avoid skiing during this period due to the teeming masses of holiday skiers. This season snow conditions through yesterday were the worst I have seen in my twenty-five years of living in the Wasatch Back. There have been years of little snow, like this one, but there haven't been any low snow years where late November and December have been too warm for snow making. Accordingly, both Park City and Deer Valley, since opening two weeks ago, have had the worst skier to available ski run ratio of my twenty-five seasons skiing here.

Over the years, notwithstanding the crowds, I've skied daily during the holiday week period. This year I skied Christmas day at Park City and left the hill after only two runs. The snow was rapidly cut up in the warm temperatures and there were too many skiers, for my taste anyway, on the limited runs open. Uncharacteristically, I stayed home on the 26th and 27th. But, considering the cold temps that moved in late 27th I decided to give Deer Valley a try today, 28 December 2025. Also, I knew Deer Valley, considering limited open ski terrain, had been opening up at 8:00 AM, an hour earlier than usual. I knew that most skiers wouldn't come early so I surmised that I might have a better shot at a good skiing experience by skiing early.

And so, it happened. My first solid ski day of the year! And there were some surprises!

At 8:00 AM I rode up the Carpenter Express from Snow Park Lodge. I skied down Silver Link run to the Wasatch Express. From Wasatch Express summit I skied down the recently opened Nabob run to the Sterling Express lift. The conditions of these first two runs were great! The temps were about twenty-five degrees, the snow was firm, the sun had begun to flood the landscape, and as I had hoped, the hoards were nowhere to be seen. From the Sterling Express summit, I skied down Homeward Bound to the Ontario junction. I looked uphill and saw skiers coming down Ontario. Good, I thought. That means the Quincy Lift is open.

I rode up the Quincy Lift with a fellow from Texas. I'm driving back to Austin tomorrow," he said. "Maybe I'll stop at Pagosa Springs, CO on the way back. They've got more snow over there." On reaching the Quincy Summit, Flagstaff Mountain summit, the only ski option was Ontario and its side detour, Trump run. Then came the first surprise of the day.

Leaving Ontario, I took the ungroomed but open Trump run. I figured there wouldn't be many people on that run and I was right. Trump run, the name of which has nothing to do with the current US president... it's the name of an old mine... is rarely crowded. Many Deer Valley skiers have TDS and avoid the run. But here's the surprise. A new, short but wide ski drop off from Trump back to Ontario had been engineered in the off season. On this drop off I found... untracked POW!!! The drop off wasn't too steep and I swished with relish through five inches of pristine Utah powder snow. I skied this run twice to enjoy the powder skiing.

Surprise number 2. On my first Ontario/Trump run I was surprised to see a new lift, Pinyon Express, off to the right. It was open. I vowed to take it after my next Trump powder run. Pinyon was a beautiful six pack which climbed to the southeast. Currently, there was only one run open to ski down from the Pinyon lift, Clipper, an easy green, back to the Pinyon base. Halfway down Clipper was the summit of the new gondola coming up from the East Village. The gondola was running, but only to upload skiers from the East Village base. You could not ski back to the gondola base. If you took the gondola from east village to ski in the traditional Deer Valley ski area, you would have to take it back to East Village base to your hotel or to find your car. I was excited to see this new open area and skied Pinyon/Clipper a couple of times. I relished thinking about exploring this new area when all runs were open later in the season.

Surprise number 3. I skied down Clipper, picked up Ontario and got on the Judge Lift expecting to ski to Silver Lake Village for a pit stop. Instead, on a lark I skied past Silver Lake Village towards the Viking lift. I had decided to make the pit stop at First Tracks Coffee bar at Stein Eriksen Lodge. But wait... there beyond Quincy, Viking and Judge lifts, Red Cloud Lift was operating! Hey, good for Deer Valley, I thought, they are really trying hard to open up new areas. As a regular rider of Red Cloud in the past, abandoning my pit stop plans, I skied over and caught the Red Cloud lift. This I did before calculating which runs would be groomed. Well, too late. No runs were groomed. All the options were thin cover, mogul runs. I can ski bump runs, but I typically avoid them. Here I had no choice... so I picked the easiest of them, Star Gazer, still with some pretty steep spots, to ski. The Star Gazer descent took me a while. I'd make three or four turns, then stop to catch my breath. But my turns were good ones, well executed. At eighty years of age and still a bit overweight, Munjaro notwithstanding, I huff and puff a bit on difficult terrain.

Ten runs! Nine thirty! The hoards were building up on Quincy. I knew at Carpenter the hoards would be backed up one hundred fifty yards. Time to go. I took the Viking up, made a quick pit stop at Steins, waved hello to Salvadoran barista Helder, then skied down to the Silver Lake Express which I rode downhill to Snow Park, choosing to avoid the growing hoards skiing on Success run.

I was really pleased with ski day and my three surprises. Deer Valley staff, as usual, acted like people who like their job. A great AM all around. I had done it! "Ten Runs Before the Hoards." Now time to pick up TIMDT and Freddie to take Freddie to the Willow Creek dog park.