good grooming
You know, like your favorite
THE CATS COME OUT AT NIGHT
Mountain magic happens after the
sun goes down. by Melissa Fields
U
ntouched powder snow is the stuff dreams are made of for many skiers and riders. But being the first to lay down a deep arc on a but- tery-smooth groomed slope is just as satisfying for others. And while Utah is known near and far for its consistent, foot-plus dumps, thanks to the hundreds of nocturnal hours logged by snowcat operators across the state every night, the mountain resorts here have also established a stellar rep for producing some of the most velvety, carvable groomed snow you’ll find just about anywhere. There are dozens of techniques used in
slope grooming, says John Neuhauser, Park City’s trail/slope grooming manager, which vary based on snow conditions and the terrain being worked. But in a nutshell, it all comes down to the snowcat operator, who constantly manipulates the blade (the plow on the front of the snowcat) and the tiller (the rear finishing
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implement) while grooming a slope to precisely shave the snow along the naturally undulating terrain and achieve the ideal corduroy surface. You know, like your favorite corduroy pants from the ’70s. The state’s most recognized example of
grooming expertise is, of course, Deer Valley, where every night members of the resort’s 33-strong grooming staff buff out at least 60 of the resort’s 101 runs. This commitment to perfection has earned Deer Valley no. 1-in- North America accolades for grooming from the readers of SKI magazine every year for the past decade. But Deer Valley is hardly alone in its dedica- tion to slope maintenance. Solitude grooms 49 of its 77 runs on a nightly basis. At Sundance, 23 of 45 runs are manicured every night. And even at Alta, where skiers from around the world converge for the steep and deep, 50 of
Park City doubled down last season on grooming, clearing 120 of its 300-plus runs.
116 runs are groomed regularly. But it’s the United State’s largest mountain
resort, Park City, that takes the quantitative cake for nightly slope prep. There, 120 of the 7,300-acre resort’s 300-plus runs are groomed most nights of the winter season; the most overnight grooming completed at any single resort in the Western Hemisphere. A Herculean task executed with a keen eye for detail as well. “Where some resorts just do one groomed track down the center of a run,” Neuhauser says, “we take pride in grooming wall-to-wall, laying fresh corduroy across the entire trail.”
So, this winter, on those days between storms, perhaps rather than hitting the snooze button you’ll be the first in the lift line. And the first to glide down those long, perfectly silky, groomed rows of The Greatest Snow in Earth.
For more about good grooming, go to
skiutah.com/grooming
Evidence of the nocturnal activity of Snowbasin Resort’s grooming team—untracked corduroy.
corduroy pants from the ’70s.
Nicki Stibi
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