Winter Park Resort--Sunday, March 1 to Sunday, March 8, 2026
The EISC had a great week skiing Winter Park. The resort had pretty good snow for skiing most of the week despite having most of their steeper runs closed because of a lack of snow. Later in the week we received three to four inches on Thursday and 13 inches on Friday that changed everything. It was a great time for folks who could deal with poor visibility and enjoyed skiing the powder. Some of us went from working on carving to trying to float turn in deep snow. It was a bit more work, but it was an opportunity we rarely get to enjoy. We were able to ski most of Winter Park, Mary Jane and the runs off of the Panoramic Express at the top of the mountain. Longtime Winter Park resident from Iowa, “Ingy” who works for the Zephyr Mountain Lodge served as a guide through the trees and bumps for several days for some of the club’s more accomplished skiers. Most of us tried to stay on piste when possible and tried to get the skis to perform as designed or as close as we could anyway.
The Zephyr Mountain Lodge was a perfect location above the village on the mountain. Some of the rooms may have been better than others reading the surveys. I believe everyone enjoyed the outdoor hot tubs below the gondola for relaxing and watching the skiers come in on the trails. Kathy Takes and Kari Wheeler hosted a great pizza party in the Zephyr lobby with a cool new shot ski that came all the way from New York. We need to recognize our new members from New York (Pat Tahan and Peggy Whaley) and from Oregon (Janet Hodel) that helped us fill this trip.
Winter Park and Mary Jane have a wide variety of great runs. Coming down from the top above the tree line into the tree glades is a real treat. The winding rollercoaster runs of the Edelweiss and Roundhouse were way entertaining. The wide blue cruisers like Cranmer and Mary Jane were super fun groomers early in the week and an enjoyable challenge with the deep powder later. However, the lack of snow and closed runs did cause problems with some over-crowded runs. We noticed some of the narrower or popular runs did get dangerous. A few people with lack of control and excessive speed made safe skiing a challenge and kept the ski patrol busy. We had a couple of accidents and wish everyone a speedy recovery.
Kathy and Kari did a great job as trip leaders, keeping everyone informed of what was going on in the resort, our planned lunch stops and the après-ski night enjoying a blue grass duo at the Sunspot Lodge at the top of the gondola. We even ran into some friends from the Iowa Ski Club based in Des Moines listening to the blue grass at the Sunspot. I spoke to their president, Deb Leonard who knew and spoke to several of our members from previous trips. Maybe we would have a mutually beneficial opportunity to work with them to help fill trips in the future.
The Winter Park trip went well for the EISC. We had a great time (mostly); it is one of our favorite ski resorts and I am sure we will be back in the future.