Keye and John spend four days in Utah with Joe, Ginny, Max, Glen and friends. Then we headed to Las Vegas for four days with Keye's cousins, Ellie O'Rourke and Pat Lightfoot, at Ellie and Jack's home. The weather was perfect: it never stopped snowing in Utah and the sun was out in Nevada.
We stayed the first night at Solitude where Joe and Ginny had been for the previous three days. It was a good decision as the snow line was at 8,000 feet, just 600 feet below the Solitude base. Park City, where we were supposed to be, had no snow until the second night, by which time we had moved to our Park City condo, above. Ethan joined us for skiing at Park City. 87" of snow fell from Sunday through Friday. We skied one to two feet of fresh powder each day. The best powder vacation of all time.
Top left and right: We took a snow-cat drawn sleigh up about 1,000 vertical feet to The Viking Yurt at The Canyons and dined with the owners, Mr. & Mrs. Vic (right is Mr. Vik, a Norwegian.) Above left: The view from our condo. We had aproximately 18" powder the first day at Solitude. Scroll down for Las Vegas trip.
At Red Rock Canyon just outside of Las Vegas: John, Keye, Pat Lightfoot, Ellie and Jack O'Rourke. Scroll down for views of Death Valley, California
Above and below: Fields of desert sun flowers were in their best bloom in many many years because of all the rain that southern California had had since summer, 2004. These scenes are near the 20-Mule Team Box site. The remains of one of the bunk houses is visible below. Scroll down for more.
Just beyond the field of desert sun flowers is the lowest point in the U.S.: 282 feet below sea level in the heart of the salt laden valley. Beyond that is snow capped Telescope Peak at 11,049 feet. Below is a Toothed Dodder, a parasitic flowering plant. A whole field of them was quite a site.
