More than a hundred locals packed Park City Brewing for the fifth annual “Powder Buoy Powder Party,” a Utah Avalanche Center fundraiser that’s equal parts science, superstition and local tradition.
The party last week brought together backcountry enthusiasts who’ve spent the last decade timing their work calls and ski days around the buoy’s forecasts.
With live music from Stick the Landing, ski gear opportunity drawings and a silent auction, including a retired Town Lift chair, the crowd carried the same anticipation that fills the mountains before the first big powder day.
Conversations bounced between favorite touring spots and powder stashes and the ethical gray area of buoy-based time management.
At one table, newcomers Laurie Browell and Glenn Niemela were getting a crash course in local culture. The couple moved from Seattle in August and admitted this was their first exposure to the Powder Buoy — a local weather-watching ritual started by Parkite Mike Ruzek that tracks a buoy off Hawaii with rising swells that are rumored to signal incoming Utah snow. Browell said the event was a perfect way to meet people and learn what Park City is all about.
“We’re very new to Park City, so we’re really trying to go to a lot of the events and understand what’s going on here, see what and where we want to support,” said Browell. “This is really helpful for us to feel out the community, see what you guys are up to, where are our people, where are our friends.”
The Utah Avalanche Center met its $10,000 fundraising goal by the end of the night, with more than 100 attendees raising money to support education and safety programs across the state.
“The Powder Buoy has no bearing on our avalanche forecasting whatsoever,” said Kate Waller, the development director at the Utah Avalanche Center. “It’s really all in good fun. Everybody loves it.”
A recently retired P.E. teacher, Browell said she and Niemela moved for the skiing but have already fallen in love with the town’s sunny summers and hiking trails, excited to have all the outdoor access without the rainy skies of the Pacific Northwest.
“We’re big skiers. We moved here for skiing, and now we love the summers,” she said. “We’re obsessed with hiking now.”
They’re approaching the season with curiosity, ready to see where the snow takes them with new friends and increasing familiarity with the Wasatch Range.
“We’re trying to figure out what we want from this season,” said Niemela. “We’re just looking to get out as much as we can. Ski every day we can ski. It’s going to be awesome. We’re really excited to learn the mountains well.”
Across the room, Jory and Martha Macomber met new ski friends and swapped early-season routes. The couple moved to Park City in 2014, back when the Powder Buoy was still something locals whispered about like a secret recipe for snow. They’ve followed it ever since.
“We follow the buoy, and it really is usually pretty accurate,” Jory said.
Jory keeps his own missions mellow around Summit Park, sticking to low-angle lines when conditions allow. As a former alpine racer and coach of 25 years, he said skiing is identity as much as activity. Their oldest son just moved back to town, and the Macombers are already planning to get him out with them in the skin track.
“When I’m skiing, it’s the one place where I start singing,” he said. “It’s the sensation of skis across the snow. I wouldn’t want to live somewhere I couldn’t ski.”
Gavin Manes moved to Park City from Oklahoma four years ago. New to snowboarding, he said he hasn’t done much backcountry riding yet but takes avalanche safety seriously. Through his work as the director of Scouting West, he’s collaborated with the Utah Avalanche Center to teach Cub Scout kids how snow works and why safety matters, even if they’re not heading into the mountains just yet.
Like many in the room, Manes plans his life loosely around the buoy’s pop schedule
“I am religious about the Powder Buoy,” he said. “I believe it. It’s not a myth, it’s science-ish. It’s the science that we don’t tell the tourists about.”
Manes attended the Powder Buoy party with friend Tommy Thomassie, trading stories about their time together on the hill. Last winter, a pair of back-to-back storm systems buried the Dreamscape lift on Park City Mountain for several days. When it finally reopened, the untouched terrain delivered the kind of powder day that makes buoy believers out of anyone, Manes said.
“You don’t want to hope for lift breaks,” said Manes, “but we had some amazing ones last season. Two storms came through, nobody had touched it, and the snow was up to your nipples.”
Dreamscape, he said, is the perfect kind of local secret — an old, slow lift that’s easy to overlook when the rest of the resort is buzzing. The trick is that it’s slow enough to pull double duty.
“It’s the kind of lift where you can do an eight-minute Zoom call on the way up,” he said. “Everybody thinks you’re at work, but you’re really just halfway into a powder day.”
This season, most of Manes’ stoke revolves around sharing that snow with his 11-year-old son, who’s already fearlessly cliff-jumping on his board, and on a quick path to some serious avalanche training in his future.
Thomassie has been a skier for three decades. He’s lived in Park City for nine years now and followed the Powder Buoy just as long. Thomassie said his goal this season is to spend more time exploring the backcountry, leaning on the same Utah Avalanche Center resources that keep the community informed.
“Heli-skiing and cat-skiing are great,” he said, “but the backcountry and touring uphill are free.”
Thomassie said the buoy gives everyone something to rally around — part forecast and part reminder of why we all live here.
“You see that pop, and you start rearranging your life a little,” he said.
Jim and Vicky Fitlow, like Manes, have learned to quietly plan around buoy predictions and storm cycles. Jim confessed that when the buoy calls for snow, his work calendar tends to rearrange itself.
Vicky said she checks the Utah Avalanche Center forecasts religiously, even on days she doesn’t plan on getting on snow, finding the forecasts to be more accurate than any other weather service in the area.
“I love what they do, and they’re really good at it,” she said. “Always there, always accurate.”