So I came to Utah to meet with a good friend and partake in the best snow on earth. Unfortunately Utah has been having a lousy season and there isn't much fresh powder. The upside of that is that I was able to fly in with out any problems at all. Getting out was a different story but you can't have everything. My friend Mike lives in Park City and so we go to the Canyons resort for 2 days. From the looks of the forecasts for the weekend I have to get back east in a hurry or risk getting caught in nasty weather and miss work on Monday. As appealing as that sounds to me it seems I need this job thing to keep my airplane... Friday departure seems to be inevitable.
Even thought the snow isn't too good it's better than anything back east. The runs are longer, the weather when it isn't snowing is usually blue sky, sunny and warm and whats more is that the terrain is much more challenging. Anyone who has skied both east and west has come to this conclusion. Anyway. I'm not trying to tell you what it's like to ski the Rockies, this is about what it's like to fly a little homebuilt plane coast to coast. Even still I'll put up a few pictures.
The first one above is Mike and I at the top of the Canyons resort after a 10 minute hike from the lift you get rewarded with an excellent view and that sign that is supposed to scare the bejesus out of you... I think it's there because of the lawyers but anyway it didn't bother us in the least. We went through the gate several times and had a blast doing it. The last picture is of a guy that was para skiing? you strap on a para foil and ski down until you have enough speed and the slope is steeper than the glide angle of the apparatus and voila you are flying . Pretty cool to watch but you have to be nuts to do that. One one of his flights he came right over top of me and made a steep turn that came about 3 feet from clipping a tree. That would have at least meant a very painful fall and serious damage to his rig.
