On Saturday, Edmund “Ted” Crittenden, a petty officer in the U.S. Navy, who served aboard the USS Allen M. Sumner destroyer, was presented the quilt of honor and a plaque by representatives from the Daughters of the American Revolution during a ceremony at Francis City Hall.

Crittenden was born in Hoytsville on March 24, 1927. Raised on his grandfather’s ranch, he enjoyed trapping and skinning muskrats, selling their pelts for $1.50 each. With this hard-earned money, he said he purchased a couple hounds from back east to hunt cougars and other wildcats.

During World War II, Crittenden volunteered to join the Navy at the age of 17 on March 6, 1945, serving as a boatswain’s (“Bo-suhn’s”) mate on the destroyer USS Allen M. Sumner. He said he remembers how seasick many of his shipmates where while crossing the San Rafael Swell, but it never bothered him. One of his responsibilities was to operate a tender to transfer his captain to and from the ship. As an 18-year-old, Crittenden ran a crew of seven other seamen.

Crittenden said he was stationed on the western Pacific island of Guam when the components for the atomic bomb were delivered by the cruiser USS Indianapolis.

Crittenden remained in the Navy for about 18 months following the end of the war. Traveling all over the Pacific, he visited Australia, the Philippines, China and Japan. He endured the infamous naval rite of passage to become a shellback, having crossed the equator.

He returned to Hoytsville in January of 1948 and soon married his wife, Pauline. There they raised five children: Ronald, Norman, Kendall, DeAnn and Cindy. Crittenden worked for Summit County for many years, eventually retiring from there.

Following Pauline’s passing in 1983, Crittenden married his second wife, JoAnn. Together they have lived in Kamas for 40 years.

Now, Crittenden is known for his love of woodwork and fishing, and his “Old Fisherman Crossing” sign can be seen while driving north on Foothill in Kamas. His legacy includes 32 grandchildren, 95 great-grandchildren and three great great-grandchildren.

Also during the event, organized by Councilman and U.S. Marine Corps veteran Clint Summers, Cold War Victory medals were presented to eight other veterans in Francis: Roger Cox, Jack Prescott, Robert C. Delaney, Wilfred J. LaPointe, William W. Striegel, Mark Avery, Charles Farrell Jr and Eric Averett.

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The International Olympic Committee announced Tuesday that Nordic combined, a men’s-only Olympic discipline, will not be a part of the upcoming 2030 Winter Games in the French Alps.

This marks the first time the sport will not be included in the Winter Olympics since 1924. Nordic Combined has traditionally been a sport largely dominated by Scandinavian countries.

In a press release, the IOC cited low TV viewership, spectator attendance and participation across competing countries.

“Across most of the popularity indicators, Nordic combined ranked lowest among all Olympic Winter Games disciplines at Sochi 2014, PyeongChang 2018, Beijing 2022 and Milano Cortina 2026,” the IOC said. “At the most recent Olympic Winter Games, it was the lowest-ranked discipline in 11 of the 14 popularity indicators assessed.”

The last time the IOC removed a sport was bobsled in the 1960 Winter Games in Squaw Valley, California, when organizers decided not to build the sliding track due to financial concerns.

The IOC also announced Tuesday that it will add three new disciplines to the 2030 Games: Freeride skiing, freeride snowboarding and Synchro9, a fast-paced version of synchronized skating created by the International Skating Union, will each debut at the 2030 Games.

The U.S. Ski & Snowboard website describes Freeride ski and boarding as “a discipline in which skiers and snowboarders descend natural, ungroomed terrain rather than a set course, choosing their own line through features like cliffs, chutes and powder fields. Athletes are judged on a combination of line choice, control, fluidity, technique and style, rather than on time.”

Synchro9 skating is a team of nine skaters on the ice skating together in a coordinated team fashion similar to synchronized swimming.

The IOC said the 2030 Winter Games will be the most gender-equal Games in Olympic history. Fifty percent of the 3,046 athletes will be women. Luge, skiing, bobsled and ice hockey will all have increased female participation slots in the Alps of France.

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Alpine Infrastructure crews were installing towers and detonation chambers on Thursday for a new remote control avalanche system near the top of Limelight Bowl on the Canons Village side of Park City Mountain.

The system will be operational for the 2026-27 ski season. It allows Park City Mountain Ski Patrol to remotely detonate an explosion that could trigger a controlled slide to the west of the Quick Silver gondola.

Ski patrol snow safety manager Toph White explained that this system will allow the resort’s team to mitigate avalanche risk without placing patrollers in dangerous situations along Pinecone Ridge. The system could also potentially allow the Quick Silver gondola to run sooner on a powder day.

This is the first remote control system in the Wasatch Back, though similar systems are in use at Snowbasin Resort as well as Alta Ski Area in the Little Cottonwood Canyon.

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Park City’s Ted Ligety, Picabo Street and Tom Wallisch will bring decades of experience to NBC’s on-site coverage in Italy during the 2026 Olympic Games.

Ligety, a four-time Olympian and two-time gold medalist, will report from the men’s alpine start gates in Bormio. Street, a three-time Olympian and Olympic gold medalist, is the network’s women’s alpine on-hill reporter. Wallisch, an X Games gold medalist and freeskiing pioneer, will analyze freestyle events in Livigno.

Ted Ligety

It’s been a minute since Ted Ligety last charged the gates at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. For the Milano Cortina Winter Games, he’ll be a sideline reporter for NBC Olympics, hanging out at the start of each of the men’s alpine events in Bormio. He will be inspecting the Stelvio Ski Centre course and reporting to viewers what it will be like for the Olympians to ski the legendary tracks.

Ligety grew up in Park City, attending The Winter Sports School, and in 2002, at 18, he was an inspired spectator at the Games in his hometown. That inspiration took him to four Olympics as an alpine skier: 2006 in Turin, Italy, where he won gold in the combined; 2010 in Vancouver, Canada, where he did not medal; 2014 in Sochi, Russia, where he struck gold in the giant slalom; and his last Olympics in 2018 in PyeongChang, South Korea.

These days, he can be seen ripping the slopes along the Wasatch Back and up the Cottonwoods with his trademark, high-speed, low slung carving turns.

Ligety described the Bormio Stelvio course, where all of the men’s alpine events will be competed, as one of the scariest downhills on the tour.

“It is a very, very challenging hill. The most challenging hill in the World Cup. So that will be pretty cool to watch in that sense. The Super G is also a class of Super G hill, one of the better Super G hills in the World Cup,” Ligety said. “The last time they raced giant slalom there was 2008. I won that race, and that sealed my first giant slalom globe (trophy). So I have good memories from that.”

This will be Ligety’s second Olympics working for NBC. However, this will be a very different experience, since he’ll be on-site interacting in the cold air of the Italian Dolomites with athletes and coaches as they prepare to compete.

At the Beijing Winter Games during the tail end of the pandemic in 2022, NBC Sports kept most of its announcing staff at its headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut. Ligety and other analysts watched the events unfold on a video feed from China while sitting in a booth in the basement of the sprawling headquarters.

“Being an ex-racer, I’m still so tight with so many of the athletes and coaches, it’s really easy to kind of get immersed in what’s going on and get all the information,” he said. “Having that direct perspective is really cool and valuable, and being there in person really allows you to kind of bring it all to light and share those kinds of little tidbits, more intimately than if you’re sitting in the booth or elsewhere.”

Swiss skier Marco Odermatt is at the top of the World Cup standings this season by a wide margin. Ligety sees him as the sport’s breakout star.

“He is someone who could really be a three-event threat, highly likely to be the favorite to win gold in the downhill, Super G and the giant Slalom,” Ligety said.

As for the U.S. squad, Ligety pointed to Ryan Cochran-Siegle, who was on the podium in Beaver Creek, Colorado.

“His only World Cup win came in Bormio. So it’s a hill he likes. I think he could have a real chance of getting a medal,” Ligety said.

The men’s alpine events begin on Saturday with downhill and then wrap up with the slalom on Monday, Feb. 16.

Picabo Street

Picabo Street returns to alpine skiing’s biggest stage in a new role, making her debut as NBC’s women’s on-hill reporter. Skis on at the start gate, the three-time Olympian will break down course design, snow conditions and athlete preparation ahead of each race.

Her job is to translate what’s happening on the mountain into insight that helps viewers better understand the race — particularly those who may only watch alpine skiing during the Olympic Games, she said.

“All the while keeping in mind that the majority of my audience doesn’t watch alpine skiing very often. So I can’t be getting too far in the weeds and leaving anybody in the dust — and those diehards might be patronized a little bit, but oh well, it’s only two weeks,” she joked. 

Cortina d’Ampezzo is among the venues Street knows best from her years of experience. It’s a fast course that rewards commitment and confidence from top to bottom, she said.

“You get going faster and faster and faster and faster as you go down the course. There’s nowhere where it really cranks you down and dumps your speed for you to pick it up again. And that is what is exhilarating. It just keeps building and going,” said Street.

Early in her career, she earned her first World Cup top 10 finish there — a moment she remembers as a career breakthrough, where she knew she really belonged among the sport’s elite. Decades later, the pull of the course remains.

“If I could trade my 54-year-old body in right now for a younger version for a hot second, I’d probably cut my pinky finger off actually, just to have one run at it. Run it one more time,” said Street.

That kind of connection still shapes how Street approaches her current role. Being on skis during inspection keeps her attuned to the sensory details racers feel, from the sound of snow underfoot to the way light changes across the course.

“The best part of the job for me is being close to it,” she said. “Feeling it, hearing it, smelling it — there’s a certain sound snow makes as it goes under your skis.”

Street is equally energized by the state of the U.S. women’s alpine team, which she views as one of the strongest in American history. With a roster of consistently strong athletes, Street said the team’s depth has raised the level of competition and confidence within the group.

“When one person does well, the others start thinking, ‘If she can do it, I can do it,’” Street said. “There’s a lot of camaraderie and support, and that really matters.”

Away from the Olympic broadcast, Street continues to influence the sport through the Picabo Street Academy, where she works directly with young skiers in Park City. The academy reflects her belief that access and mentorship are essential to developing future athletes, much like the lasting model she sees in the 2002 Olympic legacy facilities.

Tom Wallisch

Park City freeskier Tom Wallisch will be a freestyle skiing analyst on the courses in Livigno. 

Wallisch was also a commentator for the freestyle skiing competitions at the 2022 Beijing Games. 

The University of Utah graduate became famous in the late 2000s in the freeskiing world, helping pioneer the popular ski video-to-fame route, complete with baggy ski clothes and the “afterbang” jump landing, in which skiers make sticking their tricks appear effortless. Wallisch won the 2012 X Games slopestyle gold medal and the 2012 FIS slopestyle Crystal Globe — given to the top year-end finisher in each World Cup ski and snowboard discipline. 

With the 2022 Games hampered by COVID-19 restrictions, Wallisch is ready to get his boots on the ground in the Italian Alps. He said he’s ready to showcase his knowledge and passion and for the sport alongside Todd Harris (play-by-play), Todd Richards (snowboard analyst), Lindsey Jacobellis (snowboard cross analyst) and Tina Dixon (reporter), who make up the NBC Sports freestyle skiing and snowboarding commentary team. 

“I’m so excited,” Wallisch said. “For 2022, we were in Stamford, Connecticut, at NBC headquarters. So, to be onsite in Livigno, feel the vibe, the atmosphere and see some of the athletes and the course in person, I’m ecstatic to be out there.”

Wallisch just wrapped up commentary for the Aspen X Games from Jan. 23 to 25 for ESPN and the Roku Sports Channel on many of the same athletes who will compete in these Olympics. 

“I’ve been to Livigno before,” he said. “There’s just something different about watching on a screen compared to watching practice in person, being on site and to the feel of being at an Olympics. Seeing the course in person gives me a way better judge of scale and difficulty, and I can explain that to the viewers on TV way better.”

Wallisch skis with many of the Park City freeskiers, including Mac Forehand, who won the Aspen X Games big air gold medal this year, sometimes at Park City Mountain. He believes this helps his commentary as well. 

Wallisch got into commentary eight years ago because he wanted to relay the action better to the fans of freeskiing. He hopes he’s helping grow the sport with fans, as well. 

“I think we’ve got an amazing team for freeski and snowboard,” Wallisch said about the NBC Sports commentators. “Pretty much the same team (as 2022). … Todd Harris is also a Utah local, lives in Ogden, where his whole family has grown up.”

Wallisch said Dixon is also from Park City. He said the team’s experience as competitors and commentators will provide a strong breakdown of the events for the fans at home. 

“NBC is picking the best American talent they can to commentate on these events,” Wallisch said. “The odds of them all being based in the same town, it’s not that crazy. We all come and live here for the mountains, access and community. Knowing Ted and Picabo throughout the years, from different ski team functions, it’s really cool. All of them have such good insights into the sport, and having athletes more involved is so cool. NBC really brings not just somebody with the deep baritone voice to talk about the sport, but the actual info of what it feels like to be at the top of that start gate and competing under the pressure.”

Reigning Olympic slopestyle silver medalist and two-time 2026 Aspen X Games silver medalist Colby Stevenson said there’s nobody better to commentate on the freeskiing competitions at the Olympics than Wallisch because he knows the sport “like the back of his hand.” Stevenson said Wallisch delivers accurate commentary for beginners to professional skiers.

“He speaks with precision and accuracy,” Stevenson said. “Having him as a commentator and translator for our ever-progressing sport is a necessity.” 

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Deer Valley Resort’s giant expansion is going at full throttle this summer on the East Village side. There’s not much time to spare.

An estimated 1,958 new skiable acres with 81 new runs are scheduled to open this next ski season. The resort opened three lifts and 316 acres last season.

The construction project numbers are bit overwhelming: 140,000 feet of new snowmaking water pipes, 1,100 new snow guns, a 60,000-square-foot day lodge and gondola cabin garage, an 8,000-square-foot temporary skier services building at the East Village base, and a 24,000 square-foot maintenance and pump-house building, known as the Hail Peak operations building.

Five new chair lifts are under construction this summer. Among those is the Pinyon Express, which will be a six-pack bubble chair, along with a two-part gondola with a mid-station allowing skiers to exit or continue on to Park Peak and ski the 9,350-foot peak just south of Bald Mountain. Neptune Express will serve terrain between the base of the Jordanelle Gondola and the East Village base.

When all of the expansion is complete, the total acreage of skiable terrain at Deer Valley is projected to be 5,726 acres, making Deer Valley among the largest ski resorts in America.

“I think this will be single handedly the biggest summer execution operation that Alterra has ever done. And I can’t think of another in the ski industry,” Senior Construction Manager Mike Walker said.

“We have a lot of challenges and a lot of work to do between now and then to get all of that accomplished,” Director of Mountain Operations Garrett Lang said. “But it is our goal and our intent to have seven lifts operational and all of the corresponding terrain available in the 2025-26 season” in the expanded area.

They have about six months before the next opening day.

Deer Valley is working with Doppelmayr, whose U.S. headquarters is in Salt Lake City, on the aerial system in the expansion.

The keystone is the East Village gondola. Riders will board one of 140 cabins with a capacity of 10 passengers at the base of East Village, ride to the mid-mountain angle station at Dutch Peak, at 8,170 feet. There skiers will have a choice of exiting or stay in the cabin, which will automatically detach from one haul cable to another and climb to the top terminal at Parks Peak, at 9,100 feet. That’s a vertical climb of 2,570 feet above the East Village base.

Lang said the two-cable system, each with separate bottom and top terminal buildings, will give his operations team the ability to shut down the upper portion in high winds and keep the lower portion running.

Another high-profile lift will be the Pinyon Express lift, a six-pack bubble that starts at the backside of Flagstaff and Bald mountains. It will ferry skiers to the top of Park Peak for access to easier high-elevation, open-glade skiing. This lift will likely be the primary way for skiers who ski the existing or front side of Deer Valley to access the expanded terrain. The design team at Deer Valley expects that terrain off the top of Park Peak will be skiable late into the season because of its 9,350-foot elevation.

Allison Palmintere, director of communications for Ski Utah, said this is largest ski resort expansion in Utah’s history, and one of the largest in North America.

“It’s a massive undertaking,” she said.

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Shortly after noon Thursday, there was a pause in the regular routine at each elementary school in the Park City School District.

Then, doors opened, and in walked Park City High seniors, visiting their old schools once more before graduating.

At McPolin Elementary, all the elementary students were lined up and ready for the big kids, who gave low fives while the smaller ones looked up in admiration at the 40 graduates dressed in their bright red cap and gowns.

Teachers reminisced and said they enjoyed the chance to see kids they once taught at the threshold of adulthood.

One administrator said to the group, “Once a Moose always a Moose.”

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An adult bald eagle landed at a pond just east of the S.R. 248/U.S. 40 interchange Monday morning.

A rare sighting for June, the raptor was likely looking for a seafood breakfast, according to Utah Division of Wildlife Resources Biologist Adam Brewerton, who added that there are at least 12-15 nesting pairs in northern Utah. Over 500 bald eagles spend February through March in the Beehive State before heading back to western Canada for summer and fall, he said.

Brewerton also explained that the bald eagle population across North America has rebounded quite successfully after the ban of certain harmful pesticides. The country’s national bird appears to be quite tolerant of human activity and land development, happy to fish in lakes and streams.

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Utah Department of Transportation crews will finish snow clearing along S.R. 150 Thursday, and the road from Kamas to Evanston, Wyoming, will be open Friday morning.

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The Miners boys lacrosse squad kept it rolling Saturday in their final game of the season on Dozier Field, taking down Northridge 9-1 to reach the state semifinals.

Park City will now face archrival Olympus Wednesday at 4 p.m. at Westminster University. The Miners have sent Olympus packing each of the last three postseasons, including in the 2022 and 2023 title games.

While Saturday’s game never got wildly out of hand, the Miners jumped on Northridge from the start. Park City scored three first-quarter goals, two in the second quarter and three more in the third to put things on ice. The Miners defense, spearheaded by goalkeeper Max Gordon, were too much for the Knights.

The Alnwick siblings continued their stellar week of play, each scoring two goals once more. 10 different Park City players recorded goals or assists. Billy Alnwick and Sam Gould each had two assists.

“We still have more to give,” said Miners head coach Michael Persky even after the dominant win. “We can play better than we played today.”

Persky added that the Olympus game will require a higher level from his boys. Park City did take the Titans down May 2, 11-2 at home. Persky said one thing he’d like to see against Olympus and if the team advances to the title game is heightened intensity from the opening whistle.

“Olympus is tough,” Persky added. “They’re well coached, they’re a good team. We had a nice victory over them in the middle of the season, but that doesn’t matter.”

Persky is counting on Olympus’ best game of the season at Westminster. The Titans haven’t lost since.

The Miners dominated possession and in the net against Northridge and Olympus last time they played them. Look for Park City bring their trademark defensive intensity from jump this time.

“Max (Gordon) had a great game,” said Persky about Saturday’s win. “He really came through and kept the door closed.”

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