在犹他Snowbird雪场磕磕碰碰测试新雪板

犹他盐湖城（Salt Lake City）虽离南加州不到两小时的空中航程，但却从未涉足。似乎真验证那句“离家门口越近，就越没去过”的旅游名言。前段时间自己刚好换了新的Freestyle单板，而机票和酒店的价钱也蛮配合，终于一尝犹他滑雪的滋味！

1.犹他雪场分布图（来自网上，点击看大图）


因为是一个人去，租车并不划算。而只是利用普通周末滑两天，决定了我这次最多去两个雪场。在UTA（Utah Transit Authority）的网站上查到有专门的雪场巴士从盐湖城市中心去SNOWBIRD/ALTA和SOLITUDE/BRIGHTON。启程前尽管有去查它们的滑道图，但研究得并不仔细。四个雪场中Snowbird名气最响，面积最大。很自然的，第一天我就选了它。事实上，为了这个想当然的决定后来我是吃了苦头。

不知是新到一个地方还是心里太兴奋，尽管出发前不幸患上流感，在盐湖城周六的早上四五点钟就醒过来。实在睡不着，刚过六点就拿着雪板从酒店出发。这么早，雪场巴士还没开呢：）幸亏盐湖城的公交系统很方便，于是我先坐轻轨，再到山脚下换巴士到Snowbird。一路上，看着路旁与科罗拉多和加州景色截然不同的陡峭山谷，心里不禁有点打鼓。

2.UTA雪场路线图（来自网上UTA官方网站）


3.到了雪场，还没到八点。简单吃了点早餐后，走出室外，哇，好漂亮的景色！（当时想不到那一刻其实是Snowbird上当天最好的天气。）


4.Snowbird雪道图（来自网上。按图的标识，雪场最高峰HiddenPeak是有一条弯弯曲曲的蓝道下来的。加上天气好的鼓励，我决定马上上HiddenPeak!）


5.上HiddenPeak的巨型缆车（据说一次可载百多人!）


山上天气真的是说变就变！蓝天白云没一会，转眼就乌云密布，天空还飘起片片雪花。上到HiddenPeak，狂风大作，眼前一片漫然：（看到没什么好景，只好赶紧下山。唉，那条所谓的下山蓝道CHIP\'S ACCESS说它是羊肠小道一点都不过分，又窄又弯。心想这还没热身就上了贼船！没办法，硬着头皮蹭着单板磕磕碰碰地下山。幸亏新换的Freestyle单板韧性好，加速不快。没太艰难到了半山腰，马上坐下来喘口气。

6.在Snowbird半山腰眺望山谷外的盐湖城




人真是不见棺材不流泪！可能这次从Hidden Peak下来不是太费劲，也可能买了US$ 69的全天票只坐一次缆车心有不甘。到了下午，就算天气更差也再上了一次Hidden Peak。原本计划是滑背面的Mineral Basin，但能见度实在太差！橙色的雪道标记杆在狂风暴雪里根本看不清，而看着从Mineral Basin下面坐双椅吊车上来的滑雪者就象是突然从另一个世界里蹦出来一样。没法子，我只好沿着上午滑过的那条CHIP\'S ACCESS下山。呵呵，这回我是真尝到苦头了！在这种能见度几乎为零的情况下，人对距离的判断力几乎丧失。有一次不知不觉就滑到雪道的边缘，而下面就是似乎望不到底的双黑道。磕磕停停，实际上并不太长的CHIP\'S ACCESS感觉无穷无尽！好不容易才到了半山腰。All right, that is enough for one day! 接下来我最多就上到半山腰。

7.在山下中午休息时随便拍了几张






8.下午转瞬即逝的阳光


滑雪时碰上感冒是非常讨厌的：（就算是刚喝水，嘴很快就干，涂再多的润唇油都没用。而水喝的多就容易想上厕所。整天里我几乎是每上一次山，下来就得上厕所、省鼻涕和喝水：）也因为如此折腾，到了下午三点多我就歇脚休息了。趁着雪场巴士还没到，在Snowbird里乱窜拍照：）

9.你这小子照我干嘛？


10.父女情深


11.从天而降的巨大缆车让我想起科幻片的场景


12.雪场的入口处


在Snowbird的网站上会提到它和邻近的Alta被SKIING杂志连续五年评为全美第一雪场。如果想当然地认为所有人都会喜欢这里，那就大错特错了！现场的感觉是Snowbird最适合水平较高的传统滑雪者，因为它的山势陡峭，大部分雪道并不宽，而邻近的Alta更是不欢迎滑单板的。当天在雪场里大概就只有四分之一的人是滑单板的，其余都是滑Ski。实际上在巴士能到的雪场中，我应该去稍北一点的Solitude和Brighton！

从盐湖城回来，我在网上查了查，按维基上看到的资料（02年冬奥会举行比赛的场馆/地方如下）：

Venues

Deer Valley - Slalom, Freestyle Moguls and Aerials
Utah Olympic Park - Bobsleigh, Luge, Skeleton, Nordic combined and Ski jumping
Soldier Hollow - Cross-country skiing, Biathlon and Nordic combined
Rice-Eccles Stadium - the opening and the closing ceremonies
Peaks Ice Arena - Ice hockey
E Center - Ice hockey
Delta Center - Short track speed skating and Figure skating.
Park City Mountain Resort - Giant Slalom, Snowboard GS and Halfpipe
Snowbasin - Downhill, Combined Downhill and Super-G
Utah Olympic Oval - Speed skating

Snowbird并不在名单里。哈，不知当年组委会是否觉得它的地势对奥运选手也太富挑战性了？：）

不过说回来，Snowbird的配套设施还是相当完善，US$ 69的全天票相对科罗拉多/加州的雪场而言也便宜些。无论如何，犹他确实是个滑雪的好地方。最好的行程是呆一个星期（也最好有车），把所有好的雪场都滑遍！：）

犹他滑雪官方网站：SKIUTAH.COM

关于不欢迎滑单板的北美雪场（还剩下三个），请看摘自LA Times的：
No-go zones for snowboarding down to a final three

Taos Ski Valley lifts its ban Wednesday, leaving only a trio of U.S. sites reserved for \'two-plankers.\' Snowboard Nation\'s Jake Burton and others call the controversial exclusion \'fascist.\'

By Devon O\'Neil, Special to The Times
March 18, 2008

ALTA, UTAH -- He strolled across the snow at 3 o\'clock on a brilliant February afternoon, his goggles warding off the high-altitude glare that makes Utah\'s Little Cottonwood Canyon glow.

But his dark lenses couldn\'t combat the laser-beam stares, which suddenly homed in on his head from all directions. At the crowded base of Alta Ski Area, one of the last remaining North American resorts to ban snowboarders, what you don\'t want to be at this time of day is a scruffy twentysomething with baggy pants and a board under your arms.

In other words, exactly the mold this guy fits.

It wasn\'t his first time as the only cat in a houseful of dogs, that much was obvious. He challenged the stares in silence, gazing in their direction with pursed lips but maintaining his stride. When a man on the outskirts asked him to explain his choice of equipment -- What\'s with the board, dude? -- the snowboarder ignored the question and walked right by, shaking his head.

After a minute, he was gone, and the winter revelers returned to the scene before them: another bluebird day in a vanishing, and controversial, brand of paradise -- one that has incited civil rights arguments for years, but which also attracts some of the most devoted powder seekers on the planet.

On Wednesday, Taos Ski Valley in New Mexico will open to snowboarders for the first time in its 53-year history. Operators of the storied family ski area cite the business they\'ve turned away for decades -- nearly 30% of lift tickets these days are paid for by snowboarders -- as well as the need for fresh energy.

The significance of the move, however, is broader than introducing a more inclusive Taos. It means there are now only three remaining holdouts that enforce a snowboard ban: Mad River Glen in Vermont, and Deer Valley and Alta, located eight miles apart outside Salt Lake City.

The effort to protect such exclusivity dates back more than two decades. When snowboarding first went mainstream in the 1980s, the war between knuckle-draggers (snowboarders) and two-plankers (skiers) raged -- with snowboarders considered the renegade bunch.

Only a few resorts in the nation allowed boarders back then; the vast majority found strength in unity, denying the existence of something that was radically different than what they\'d grown up with.

But over the years they gave in, one by one, until finally only four remained. Taos, a remote, expert skier\'s utopia founded in 1955 by a tough, bearded German named Ernie Blake, became something of a mecca for skiers intent on making turns sans snowboarders.

When Blake\'s 90-year-old widow and descendants decided to drop the ban in December, the cozy little culture they helped create became a national issue.

Word spread through the industry like celebrity gossip. On the front lines, longtime Taos skiers did everything but organize a revolution. In one instance, an aggressive local confronted a visiting media member who was using a snowboard to get around the mountain, explaining in terms more blunt than these, Your kind isn\'t welcome here.

Adriana Blake, Ernie\'s granddaughter, who runs Taos\' marketing department, said she refunded five season passes for locals peeved at the change in policy, even though it wasn\'t going into effect for four months.

I think we knew it would be a huge deal, but I don\'t think we realized the extent of how huge a deal it would be, she said.

The fiercely protective sentiments aren\'t confined to Taos. Although Alta spokesman Tyler Jackson said he fields his share of nasty phone calls and e-mails from snowboarders, the volume pales in comparison to the number of complaints he got a few years ago when a group of local skiers spotted a snowboarder descending an Alta trail -- by permission -- during an early morning tour organized in conjunction with sister resort Snowbird.

At Mad River Glen, a nonprofit co-op with 1,800 shareholders, old-school ski patrollers have been known to call the cops when they catch boarders poaching off-limits terrain.

In response to it all, snowboarding icon Jake Burton and his Burton Snowboards team launched a competition this winter in which they offered $5,000 per holdout ski area -- $20,000 total -- to the rider or riders who produced the best video of a poach in action.

Burton called the remaining bans fascist, pointing out that in some cases the areas lease public land, then discriminate by not allowing snowboarders to use it.

(Adriana Blake dismissed that claim, saying, It would be like the government coming into your restaurant and telling you what kind of food to serve. We\'re only required to treat the forest well.)

Still, hard feelings persist among snowboarders. Alta local Dylan Crossman, 27, a five-time national champion extreme skier, says when he visits other Utah resorts, he\'ll often see a mutation of the classic Alta snowflake sticker plastered on riders\' boards, with the snowflake turned into a swastika.

You tell people you ski at Alta, said Crossman, and they\'re like, \'Oh, so you\'re one of those guys.\'

Indeed: an Altaholic, as they\'re known, consistent with the almost cult-like following that characterizes Mad River and Alta devotees. Deer Valley is on the opposite end of the posh scale, employing a five-star approach that includes ski valets who help guests click into their bindings next to slope-side mansions; yet the fundamental bond among the three remains: no snowboarders allowed.

The stakes are different for each. Whereas California\'s busiest resort, Mammoth Mountain, averages more than 1 million visits per year -- including 400,000 by snowboarders -- Mad River is happy if it hits 85,000. Nevertheless, the goal, to turn a profit, is the same for all.

Deer Valley, which allows its guests to vote on its skiing-only policy, is coming off a third consecutive season in which it set records for revenue and skier visits.

At Mad River, lift lines are a half-hour long when it snows -- a welcome sight for shareholders, among whom only a two-thirds opposition vote would overturn the ban.

And at Alta, without disclosing numbers, Jackson said the policy remains strictly a business decision, one that\'s reevaluated every year by resort officials but which he doesn\'t foresee changing any time soon.

If we look out the window one day and no one\'s here, Jackson said, the snowboard ban is one of those things we might consider, among others.