There’s a special aura waiting in the early morning hour for first tram at Snowbird. Across the canyon, the glinting sunrise reflects off Mount Superior, creeping along the ridgeline separating Little from Big Cottonwood Canyon. Below the concrete floor of the Snowbird Center, the sound of heavy machinery sends anticipatory vibrations through your ski boots.

Soon, the morning chatter became more focused as skiers of all ages maneuvered their places in line to talk with a legend.

Junior Bounous was in the house!

Junior is, indeed, a living legend. A prodigy of the late Alf Engen himself, and a snowsports instructor who literally rewrote the book on teaching, Junior Bounous has probably taught more people to ski than anyone in the world.

Today, as you read this, he’s pushing 70 days this season at Snowbird and Alta. Oh, and he’s 98 years old!

Junior Bounous is a walking, talking history book of skiing in the Wasatch. He grew up in a fruit farming family from Provo, and Mom gave him skis at 11. He loved wandering around the mountains of Provo Canyon in the 1930s and ’40s. But it was his connection with Alf Engen that set him on his career path at Alta.

Engen’s mentorship helped Bounous learn how to convey his own love of the sport to others. In an era during the ’50s where European ski school directors each had their own way of teaching, Bounous was among those who helped standardize instruction.

But as his career took him from Alta to Sugar Bowl to Timp Haven to Snowbird, what he and his wife, Maxime, carried with them was a true love of being on snow.

As our red tram car pulled out of the station, Junior grabbed the left front corner window. His eyes remained transfixed on the runs below, peering down on the cliffs of Silver Fox where he used to initiate instructors, rumbling over Tower 3 and smoothly sailing over the fabled cirque.

This was his ski resort — the one that visionary Ted Johnson had him design in the spring and summer of 1971.

After seven minutes of memories, we stepped off the tram onto the top of Hidden Peak. Junior pointed to the narrow slot down the face of Twin Peaks in the distance. That’s where, back in the ’70s, he and Jim McConkey skied the first descent of the 700-foot vertical couloir called Pipeline.

Just for the memories, Junior did it again at age 80!

He took a minute to sit on the memorial bench to honor his wife of 67 years, Maxime. Fast Max, as she was known, had no problem keeping up with Junior. During a famous first-descent shoot for SKI Magazine on Mount Timpanogos in 1962, she’s the one leading the pack through a powder-filled bowl in the key photograph.

Blue skies were popping through the whipping clouds as a storm started coming in. Bounous surveyed the scene and led us down the ridgeline to Upper Chip’s, linking perfect turn after perfect turn. Given the option, he would tend for slightly tougher drops along Chip’s, always carefully checking surface conditions before pointing his tips into the fall line.

A day on the mountain with Junior is about more than skiing. It’s about pauses to absorb the scene, saying hello to friends, and storytelling.

Chip’s Run was Junior Bounous’ creation. As a longtime Alta skier, he and friends had often dropped through the Keyhole into Peruvian Gulch — long before Ted Johnson’s vision for Snowbird came to the fore — making big sweeping turns in the powder before finding their way back to Alta.

Being on the mountain for a morning with someone like Junior Bounous brings joy to your day. And while the skiing is great, it’s much bigger than that. It’s a sense of companionship with the outdoors and alignment with Mother Nature’s majesty.

As I linked turns down him down Who Dunnit heading back to the base, I gazed up at Mount Superior. There was a sense of quiet peace around us, punctuated by the sounds of our edges carving rhythmically into the snow, and mixed with the melodic tones of Junior’s voice as he guided us in a sing-songy manner down the mountain.

“Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump.”

Want to learn more?

You can pick up a copy of “Junior Bounous on the Joys of Skiing,” written by his daughter Ayja Bounous. And you can listen to an in-depth conversation with Junior Bounous in the latest episode of my Ski Utah “Last Chair” podcast:

The post Ridglines: Strolling down Chips with a legend appeared first on Park Record.

When you think about the Olympics or Paralympics, you think of sport stars and fanfare. To me, though, I think about the kids they influence.

Last week as Gov. Spencer Cox and sport officials gathered at the state Capitol to push the SUBMIT button on Salt Lake City-Utah’s bid to bring the Winter Games back in 2034, they were flanked by young athletes between the ages of 8 and 15. The future stars stood proudly in their sport uniforms amid the elegant furnishings and Beaux Arts-style ceiling mural of the Capitol’s Gold Room as another milestone was carved into our Utah Olympic and Paralympic history.

What began as a new concept of legacy in 2002 is manifesting itself today. Since then, sport has become part of our culture — on the slopes, ice, and trails here in Park City and across our state.

Nickolas De Bock, 12, and sister Emma, 15, are speed skaters from Farmington. They are in the early stages of learning a new sport at the Olympic Oval in Kearns with gold medalist Derek Parra. 

Catherine Raney Norman was a speed skater herself in 2002, competing in her second of four Olympics. Today, she chairs the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games.

“We have a different focus — a focus on impact this time around,” she said. “How we relate to youth and to our communities is completely different than we did in 2002.”

Maybe, just maybe, one of the five athletes gathered at the capitol will be Olympians in 2034. But one thing is for sure. Each of them will gain valuable life lessons from their experience in sport, which go much further than medals.

As the athletes lined up for photos, the youngest in the group, 8-year-old Renn Demong, calmly found his place. Renn is a relatively new athlete with the Figure Skating Club of Park City.

“I’m learning new jumps,” he proudly exclaimed. What was specifically happening may have been a bit lost on him, but it didn’t matter. It was a cool room, and when the governor said hello to him, he knew it was something special.

Renn doesn’t know much yet about his father’s own Olympic background. But Dad, Olympic champion Bill Demong, was there at his side.

“What I like about all of this (Olympic and Paralympic bid) is that it engages the people of Utah,” he said.

Sydney Ervin, 11, is a second-year U12 ski racer with Park City Ski & Snowboard.

“It was cool to meet all the people involved in getting the Olympics here,” she said. Gazing around, she marveled at all the marble and elegant ornamentation around her. Meeting the governor and mayor had a big impact. 

After a season chasing races around Utah, Ervin’s next stop will be Tamarack in Idaho for own big event — the Intermountain Championships.

Zoe Happy is a bubbly 11-year-old who loves moguls skiing, soccer, and volleyball. With a two-time Olympic medalist mom, Shannon Bahrke, Zoe’s long been comfortable bashing the bumps at Deer Valley or skiing deep powder at Snowbird. And while she kind of has her eyes set on 2034, she’s quick to point out that she would love to go to the Summer Olympics, as well.

It was her first visit to the Capitol, and she was impressed. “I kind of met the governor — he gave me a fist bump!” she said.

She was also quick to grasp the importance of the event. What was her biggest takeaway? “Probably being a part of the experience and also being a part of why Utah wants the Olympics again.”

The post Ridgelines: The kids are the story appeared first on Park Record.

FIS Rookie of the Year moguls skier Alli Macuga put down some nice lines in the inch of freshly fallen snow, zipping down the mountain on her ID One moguls skis. As we traversed down through the light snowfall to Silver Strike Express at Deer Valley, I breathed a sigh of relief that the bumps run down Champion was closed. The last thing I needed was for her to entice me into a moguls lesson.

A personable, outgoing 20-year-old, Alli Macuga clearly loves being out on the mountain. It’s an extension of growing up in a quintessential Park City family where the kids were raised skiing family-style on the ridgelines surrounding their hometown.

This week, on the perilously steep Olympic bump run Champion, Alli Macuga will replace the jitters and fears of her Deer Valley debut a year ago with the confidence of being a top contender. She’s part of what is arguably one of the deepest U.S. women’s moguls teams ever, ready to take on the best in the world coming to Utah for the favorite World Cup of the year for the freestyle tour.

The Macuga family embodies the culture of sport that pervades our community, a legacy extending out from the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. While Alli picked her pathway in freestyle moguls, sister Sam is soaring her way on the FIS Ski Jumping World Cup tour, recently competing in Zao, Japan. Her other sister, Lauren, is a rising star on the Stifel U.S. Alpine Ski Team, knocking off a top-10 World Cup finish earlier this month in Austria. Meanwhile, younger brother Daniel is coming up through the alpine NorAm Cup circuit with Park City Ski & Snowboard.

Macuga laughs about how she and her siblings ended up in different sports — three sisters on three different national teams.

“I don’t know, honestly, just luck because I think if we were in the same sport … oh, it’d be crazy,” she said, shaking her head. “I mean, we are already extremely competitive, but if we all did the same one, it would be crazy.”

The Macugas showcase the value of programs like the Youth Sports Alliance’s Get Out and Play. So, how did she land in moguls?

“We all tried different stuff. I tried basically everything — slopestyle, ski jumping, aerials, halfpipe, big air, skier cross, big mountain,” she said. “But with moguls, I think I just liked the fact that you could jump, there’s the speed aspect, there’s the turn aspect. I enjoyed that I could do everything I’d been doing in other sports in that one sport.”

When she started competing around 8 or 9 years old, she knew she had found her passion. “I was like, ‘Oh, I love this!'”

Growing up in Park City, it’s easy to rub shoulders with best in the world athletes. Olympic medalists Shannon Bahrke and Hannah Kearney were two big motivators for her — “Just how much they pushed the sport, how successful they were. It was just very inspiring for me.”

When Macuga was in fourth grade, Bahrke came to speak to her class. And she used to go to the gym with Kearney as a strength coach. “They were both very approachable.”

Like kids in any sport, she watched videos of past stars like original Olympic champion Donna Weinbrecht, who won gold in 1992 with a daffy twister spread.

“You see just how much the sport has been pushed, especially with women doing corks and cork grabs — it’s so huge,” she said.

A year ago, under the lights on Champion, in front of her hometown family and fans, Macuga got her chance.

“I had been waiting for that moment since I was 8 years old,” she reminisced. “Standing at the top of the course for finals in the dark, seeing the huge crowd at the bottom, I was just so excited for everyone to be there watching.”

This week, the two-time junior world champion will have that chance again. She’ll also have the experience of her first podium a month ago at Alpe d’Huez, France. 

“I’ve been working for that (podium) since I was 8 and finally getting to that point where I know I can compete with the best skiers,” she said of that day in France. “I just burst into tears the second I crossed the line — I worked so hard for this.”

With three daughters on three national teams, mom Amy and father Dan are known to rack up airline miles following their daughters and son around the planet.

“I just love it when they’re there,” said Alli. But this week it’s homecoming with the Macuga clan having front-row seats for the Intermountain Health Freestyle International Ski World Cup at Deer Valley.

The post Ridgelines: Keeping it in the family appeared first on Park Record.

Wow, where did the summer go? Did it actually ever arrive? Thinking back to about a year ago — our yard was already covered in snow that never left until April. 

Scrolling through messages from friends who headed out to the Morgan Maze after reading last week’s Sunday Drive, I reminisced about the many trips I made over the past five months. Some of them were long planned, ideas I’ve had in my mind for a while. Some were totally spontaneous, developed on a late Saturday night trying to figure out a new place to go the next day.

With what seemed like glacier-building snow conditions last winter, our Sunday Drives began by following the flow of Parkites to the desert last April. We decided to forego our annual trek to Easter Jeep Safari in Moab to find a bit more solitude in the redrock, visiting the spectacular Rochester Panel to learn about our ancestral neighbors, and adventured through sandy river beds in the San Rafael Swell.

It was early to rise for a sunrise hike in Draper, crossing the Bear Canyon suspension bridge, watching the sun creep up and cast its rays across the Salt Lake Valley. The sunrise part was hard that time of year. But the payoff in being on the bridge in solitude was worth it.

It wasn’t until mid-June that we could make forays into the mountains, where the forest sheltered the snowpack on hiking trails and snowmelt made for raging creeks. It was on one of those hikes, this one up Noblett’s Creek, that my iPhone fell gently onto the banks of a swollen creek, sliding quietly into a three-foot pool of water. Yes, eventually I was able to recover it.

Sunday drives are special. They are built around a spirit of exploration with a dash or two of adventure. Our summer Jeep rides took us to new places, from the high reaches of Gold Hill in the Uintas to the Rattlesnake Trail at Five Mile Pass in Utah’s west desert. Sometimes adventure comes when you least expect it. Like the time I was driving our 2010 Jeep Rubicon back from a safe trip out to the West Desert when we blew a clutch in heavy traffic on a six-lane section of I-15. Never fear, we coasted for a mile and a half, pulled off an exit ramp and parked in a mall lot to await our tow.

We sought out vegetables from roadside stands and sipped fruit wine from a Utah winery that actually does tastings on Sunday. Yes, that was a random find, but one of our most fun trips of the summer.

I was filled with emotion visiting the Topaz Museum in Delta, wondering how our own civilization could have treated other humans so poorly during World War II. 

It was a summer of reconnecting with old favorites like Spiral Jetty and discovering, by chance, new destinations of nature like the Great Salt Lake Shorelands Preserve. Sunday Drive often took you up to the north of Salt Lake. But there was a lot to discover there!

Most of all, though, my biggest enjoyment was hearing of your own Sunday Drives — trips where you followed my plan or were adventurous to map out your own. I hope that through these words I’ve instilled a little greater sense of adventure for your family!

I’ll be back in mid-November with Ridgelines, a weekly look at Park City the ski town. And its never too early to start planning next year’s Sunday Drives, so please reach out to me with your suggestions of places you would like to see featured in Sunday Drive.

See you next summer.

The post Sunday Drive: What happened to summer? appeared first on Park Record.