1.
Park City, Utah
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Park City is a city in Summit County, Utah, United States. It is considered to be part of the Wasatch Back, the city is 32 miles southeast of downtown Salt Lake City and 19.88 miles from Salt Lake Citys east edge of Sugar House along Interstate 80. The population was 7,558 at the 2010 census, on average, the tourist population greatly exceeds the number of permanent residents. After a population decline following the shutdown of the mining industry. The city currently brings in an average of $529,800,000 to the Utah Economy as a tourist hot spot. The city has two ski resorts, Deer Valley Resort and Park City Mountain Resort. Both ski resorts were the locations for ski and snowboarding events at the 2002 Winter Olympics. Although they receive less snow and have a ski season than do their counterparts in Salt Lake County, such as Snowbird resort. Some scenes from 1994s Dumb and Dumber were shot in the city, outdoor-oriented businesses such as backcountry. com, Rossignol USA, and Skullcandy have their headquarters in Park City. The city has many retailers, clubs, bars, and restaurants, and has nearby reservoirs, hot springs, forests, in the summertime many valley residents of the Wasatch Front visit the town to escape high temperatures. Park City is usually 20 °F cooler than Salt Lake City, as it lies mostly above 7,000 feet above sea level, in 2008, Park City was named by Forbes Traveler Magazine among one of the 20 prettiest towns in the United States. In 2011, the town was awarded a Gold-level Ride Center designation from the International Mountain Bicycling Association for its mountain trails, amenities. The area was traveled by the early Mormon pioneers on their journey to where they settled, one of their leaders, Parley P. Pratt, explored the canyon in 1848. He was given a charter the following year to build a road through it. The basin at the top of the canyon was good for grazing, early on, the area was deeded to Samuel Snyder, Heber C. The settlers named it Parleys Park City, which was shortened to Park City in the early 1900s, the first known discovery of ore in this area was by Colonel Patrick E. Connor, who instigated his men to search the area in bringing non-Mormons to the Utah region. The finding of silver, gold and lead sparked the first silver mines in Park City in the 1860s, Park City’s large mining boom brought large crowds of prospectors setting up camps around the mountain terrain, marking the first mining settlements. Although it was not the first find, the Ontario mine, discovered by Herman Buden in 1872, by 1892 the Silver King Mine and its owners Thomas Kearns and David Keith took the spotlight as one of the most famous silver mines in the world
2.
Utah
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Utah is a state in the western United States. It became the 45th state admitted to the U. S. on January 4,1896, Utah is the 13th-largest by area, 31st-most-populous, and 10th-least-densely populated of the 50 United States. Utah has a population of more than 3 million, approximately 80% of whom live along the Wasatch Front, Utah is bordered by Colorado to the east, Wyoming to the northeast, Idaho to the north, Arizona to the south, and Nevada to the west. It also touches a corner of New Mexico in the southeast, approximately 62% of Utahns are reported to be members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or LDS, which greatly influences Utahn culture and daily life. The LDS Churchs world headquarters is located in Salt Lake City, Utah is the only state with a majority population belonging to a single church. The state is a center of transportation, education, information technology and research, government services, mining, in 2013, the U. S. Census Bureau estimated that Utah had the second fastest-growing population of any state. St. George was the metropolitan area in the United States from 2000 to 2005. Utah also has the 14th highest median income and the least income inequality of any U. S. state. A2012 Gallup national survey found Utah overall to be the best state to live in based on 13 forward-looking measurements including various economic, lifestyle, the name Utah is derived from the name of the Ute tribe. It means people of the mountains in the Ute language, according to other sources Utah is derived from the Apache name Yudah which means Tall. These Native American tribes are subgroups of the Ute-Aztec Native American ethnicity and were sedentary, the Ancestral Pueblo people built their homes through excavations in mountains, and the Fremont people built houses of straw before disappearing from the region around the 15th century. Another group of Native Americans, the Navajo, settled in the region around the 18th century, in the mid-18th century, other Uto-Aztecan tribes, including the Goshute, the Paiute, the Shoshone, and the Ute people, also settled in the region. These five groups were present when the first European explorers arrived, the southern Utah region was explored by the Spanish in 1540, led by Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, while looking for the legendary Cíbola. A group led by two Catholic priests—sometimes called the Dominguez-Escalante Expedition—left Santa Fe in 1776, hoping to find a route to the coast of California, the expedition traveled as far north as Utah Lake and encountered the native residents. The Spanish made further explorations in the region, but were not interested in colonizing the area because of its desert nature, in 1821, the year Mexico achieved its independence from Spain, the region became known as part of its territory of Alta California. European trappers and fur traders explored some areas of Utah in the early 19th century from Canada, the city of Provo, Utah was named for one, Étienne Provost, who visited the area in 1825. The city of Ogden, Utah was named after Peter Skene Ogden, in late 1824, Jim Bridger became the first known English-speaking person to sight the Great Salt Lake. Due to the salinity of its waters, Bridger thought he had found the Pacific Ocean
3.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
4.
Ski lift
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A ski lift is a mechanism for transporting skiers up a hill. Ski lifts are typically a paid service at ski resorts, the first ski lift was built in 1908 by German Robert Winterhalder in Schollach/Eisenbach, Hochschwarzwald. Types of lifts are, Aerial lifts transport skiers while suspended off the ground, cable railways, including funiculars Helicopters are used for heliskiing and snowcats for snowcat skiing. This is backcountry skiing or boarding accessed by a snowcat or helicopter instead of a lift, cat skiing is less than half the cost of heliskiing, more expensive than a lift ticket but is easier than ski touring. Skiing at select, extreme resorts, like Silverton Mountain, is also guided, even when skiing just off the lift
5.
Gondola lift
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A gondola lift, as opposed to a cable car, is a means of cable transport and type of aerial lift which is supported and propelled by cables from above. It consists of a loop of cable that is strung between two stations, sometimes over intermediate supporting towers. The cable is driven by a bullwheel in a terminal, which is connected to an engine or electric motor. They are often considered continuous systems since they feature a haul rope which moves and circulates around two terminal stations. Depending on the combination of cables used for support and/or haulage and the type of grip, the capacity, cost, because of the proliferation of such systems in the Alpine regions of Europe, the French language name of Télécabine is also used in an English language context. Gondola lifts should not be confused with cable cars or the US aerial tramways as the latter solely operates with fixed grips and simply shuttles back and forth between two end terminals. In some systems the passenger cabins, which can hold between two and 8 people, are connected to the cable by means of spring-loaded grips. These grips allow the cabin to be detached from the cable and slowed down in the terminals, to allow passengers to board. Doors are almost always automatic and controlled by a lever on the roof or on the undercarriage that is pushed up or down, cabins are driven through the terminals either by rotating tires, or by a chain system. To be accelerated to and decelerated from line speed, cabins are driven along by progressively swifter rotating tires until they reach line or terminal speed, on older installations, gondolas are accelerated manually by an operator. Gondola lifts can have intermediate stops that allow for uploading and downloading on the lift, examples of a lift with three stops instead of the standard two are the Village Gondola and the Excalibur Gondolas at Whistler Blackcomb. In 1986, Doppelmayr built the worlds first eight-passenger gondola at Steamboat Ski Resort, such a system is called Pulse Cabin because usually more than one cabin are loaded at a time before the trip begins. Another type of lift is the bi-cable gondola, which has one other stationary cable, besides the main haul rope. One of the famous examples of this type of lift include the Ngong Ping Cable Car in Hong Kong, the Singapore Cable Car. This system has the advantage that the stationary cables strength and properties can be tailored to each span, there are also tri-cable gondolas that have two stationary cables that support the cabins. They differ from cable cars in that the latter consist only of one or two usually larger cabins, moving up and down, not circulating, bi and tri cable systems provide greater lateral stability allowing the system to operate in higher cross-winds. Open-air gondolas, or cabriolet as commonly called, are uncommon and are quite primitive because they are exposed to the elements. Their cabins are usually hollow cylinder, open from chest height up, with a floor and they are usually used as village gondolas and for short distances
6.
Chairlift
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They are the primary onhill transport at most ski areas, but are also found at amusement parks, various tourist attractions, and increasingly in urban transport. Depending on carrier size and loading efficiency, a passenger ropeway can move up to 4000 people per hour, and the fastest lifts achieve operating speeds of up to 12 m/s or 43.2 km/h. The two-person double chair, which for years was the workhorse of the ski industry. The four person detachable chairlift can transport 2400 people per hour with an average speed of 5 m/s. Some bi and tri cable elevated ropeways and reversible tramways achieve much greater operating speeds, a chairlift consists of numerous components to provide safe efficient transport. Especially at ski areas, chairlifts are referred to with a ski industry vernacular, a one-person lift is a single, a two-person lift is a double, a three-person lift a “triple”, four-person lifts are “quads”, and a six-person lift is a six pack. If the lift is a chairlift, it is typically referred to as a “high-speed” lift. Because fixed grip lifts move faster than detachables at load and unload, misloads are more frequent on fixed grips, detachable grips allow a greater rope speed to be used, usually twice that of a fixed grip chair, while simultaneously having slower loading and unloading sections. The capacity of a lift is constrained by the power, the rope speed, the carrier spacing, the vertical displacement. Human passengers can load only so quickly until loading efficiency decreases, the rope is the defining characteristic of an elevated passenger ropeway. The rope stretches and contracts as the tension exerted upon it increases and decreases, the fibre core contains a lubricant which protects the rope from corrosion and also allows for smooth flexing operation. The rope must be lubricated to ensure safe operation and long life. Various techniques are used for constructing the rope, dozens of wires are wound into a strand. Several strands are wound around a core, their twist is oriented in the same or opposite direction as the individual wires. Rope is constructed in a fashion, and must be spliced together before carriers are affixed. Splicing involves unwinding long sections of either end of the rope, sections of rope must be removed, as the strands overlap during the splicing process. Every lift involves at least two terminals and may also have intermediate supporting towers, a bullwheel in each terminal redirects the rope, while sheaves on the towers support the rope well above the ground. The number of towers is engineered based on the length and strength of the rope, worst case environmental conditions, the bullwheel with the prime mover is called the drive bullwheel, the other is the return bullwheel
7.
Detachable chairlift
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They are now commonplace at all but the smallest of ski resorts. Some are installed at tourist attractions as well as for urban transportation, the significance of detachable chairlift technology is primarily the speed and capacity. Detachable chairlifts move far faster than their brethren, averaging 1,000 feet per minute versus a typical fixed-grip speed of 500 ft/min. Some detachables move 900 feet per minute, some other detachables go even slower at 800 feet per minute. Detachable chairlifts can sometimes move at 1,100 feet per minute, usually, the longer the chairlift is, the faster it goes. Another advantage of detaching chairs is the ability to remove chairs during severe weather in order to stress on the rope. Furthermore, operating the unladen rope during extreme weather is effective at preventing—or greatly reducing—ice and snow accumulation on the sheaves and rope. This saves considerable time, expense and hazard when opening the chair for operation, chairlifts are made in a variety of sizes, carrying from 2 to 8 passengers. All chairs on a given chairlift usually have the same capacity, slang terms for the different sizes include doubles, triples, quads, and six packs. Detachable chairlifts may also be described as speed or express. Some detachable chairlifts have so-called bubble chairs, which add a retractable acrylic glass dome to protect passengers from weather, an alternative system for reconciling slow boarding speeds with fast rope speeds is the carpet lift, the chairs move at full speed even through the terminal. Boarding passengers are progressively accelerated on a system of belts of carpet-like material until nearly matching the chair speed. Another advantage about a modern chair is that it can run on an auxiliary diesel motor instead of an electric motor in a power fail. Most detachables have this option, but it makes the drive louder, Von Roll Habegger built the first detachable lift named at Gore Mountain, NY in 1984. Then Poma built the first chairlift that went 1,100 feet per minute named at Sugarbush Resort, VT in 1990. Doppelmayr built the first detachable quad chair in the named in 1981 at Breckenridge, CO which has now been replaced with the. The detachable chairlift didnt start with a chairlift, rather, it started with the Platter lift in 1908, as the left the cable. A detachable two person chairlift called White Lady was installed in Cairngorm Mountain, Scotland in 1961, in 1981, the first ever high speed detachable quad in the world was installed, the Doppelmayr-built Quicksilver SuperChair at Breckenridge Ski Resort in Colorado, in 1981
8.
Surface lift
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A surface lift is a means of cable transport and is a transportation system used to transport skiers and snowboarders where riders remain on the ground as they are pulled uphill. Once prevalent, they have gradually been overtaken in popularity by higher capacity aerial lifts like chairlifts, today, surface lifts are most often found on beginner slopes and very small ski areas. Surface lifts have many disadvantages compared to aerial lifts, they require more passenger skills, surface must be continuous, they impede skiable terrain, slow speed, with the increase in snowboarding, surface lifts are replaced by chairlifts. They are often utilized at glacier skiing resorts because their supports can be anchored in glacier ice due to the lower forces, the first surface lift was built in 1908 by German Robert Winterhalder in Schollach/Eisenbach, Hochschwarzwald. A steam-powered toboggan tow,950 feet in length, was built in Truckee, California, the first skier-specific tow in North America was apparently installed in 1933 by Alec Foster at Shawbridge in the Laurentians outside Montreal, Quebec. The Shawbridge tow was quickly copied at Woodstock, Vermont in New England in 1934 by Bob and Betty Royce and their tow was driven by the rear wheel of a Ford Model A. Their relative simplicity made tows widespread and contributed to an explosion of the sport in the United States, before tows, only people willing to walk uphill could ski. Suddenly relatively unathletic people could participate, greatly increasing the appeal of the sport, within five years, more than 100 tow ropes were operating in North America. A rope tow consists of a cable or rope running through a bullwheel at the bottom and one at the top, in the simplest case, passengers grab hold of the rope and are pulled along while standing on their skis or snowboards and sliding up the hill. The grade of this style of rope tow is limited by passenger grip strength, metal handles can be attached to the rope to help grip. Steeper, faster and longer rope tows require the use of a nutcracker, the rider wears a harness around the hips. To this is attached a clamp, much like the nutcracker from which it derives its name and this eliminates the need to hold on and allows the rope to be supported at waist height by pulleys. This ssystem was used on many fields worldwide from the 1940s, a T-bar or J-bar lift is employed for low-capacity slopes in large resorts and small local areas. It consists of a cable loop running over a series of wheels. Hanging from the rope are a series of vertical recoiling cables, the horizontal bar is placed behind the skiers buttocks or between the snowboarders legs, and pushes the passengers uphill while they slide across the ground. The first T-bar lift in the United States was installed in 1940 at the Pico Mountain ski area and it was considered a great improvement over the rope tow. An earlier, potentially home-grown, T-bar was installed at Rib Mountain, Wisconsin, in 1937, invented in the 1930s, J-Bars were installed in the 1930s in North America and Australia, with the Ski Hoist at Charlotte Pass in Australia dating from 1938. J-bars have been superseded by T-bars which have twice the capacity, a J-bar closely resembles a T-bar, except that each carrier holds only one passenger
9.
Terrain park
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A terrain park is an outdoor recreation area containing terrain that allows skiers, snowboarders and snowbikers to perform tricks. Terrain parks have their roots in skateparks and many of the features are common to both, from their inception to as recently as the 1980s, ski areas generally banned jumping and any kind of aerial maneuvers, usually under penalty of revoking the offenders lift ticket. By the 1990s, most areas provided snow features specifically catering to aerial snowsports, one of the first in-bounds terrain parks was the snowboard park built in 1990 at Vails resort. The park was copied soon in other resorts, today most resorts have terrain parks, with many having multiple parks of various difficulty. Some resorts are almost exclusively terrain parks such as Echo Mountain Park in Idaho Springs, Colorado and Snow Park in Wanaka, in Colorado there has been a recent trend for defunct resorts such as Squaw Pass to be reopened, catering to terrain park users. The first known terrain park was built at Bear Valley Ski Area in the 1989-90 season and it was the brainchild of Bear Valleys Marketing Director Sean McMahon and California snowboarder and contest organizer Mike McDaniel. He enlisted the help of McDaniel, who had experience building snowboard-specific terrain features such as halfpipes and jumps, through his work organizing early snowboard events. McDaniel in turn, brought in snowboard pioneers Mike Chantry and Keith Kimmel to consult on the design and construction of the park, to be located on the front side of Bear Valley’s upper mountain. A surface lift was installed to bring snowboarders from the bottom of the back to the top. Kim Krause, who had run lifts in other areas of the resort, was brought on as the parks first lift operator. It became apparent that the park would need ongoing construction, grooming, and maintenance, and McDaniel was hired by Bear Valley in the fall of 1989 to be Snowboard Park Manager. The new mountain attraction was dubbed the “Polar Park. ”Opening day in late November 1989 featured a demonstration by professional snowboarders Damian Sanders, Terry Kidwell, Noah Salasnek, Mike and Tina Basich, the event was covered by Thrasher Magazine, International Snowboard Magazine and local media. Terrain parks have designations with respect to safety similar to standard alpine slopes and they differ in their designation and degrees of difficulty. They are identified with orange ovals to differentiate them from standard slopes, large features include 30-to-90-foot jumps along with complex jibs and large vertical pipes. Progression parks are easier terrain parks, meant for those just starting to ride these features. Jibs are any type of fixture which can be ridden with the board/skis either parallel or perpendicular to the surface, ridden while spinning around on, or ridden. Many jib features resemble outdoor items used when snowboarding in urban areas, such as handrails, benches, tables. In the park these feature consist of, Rail A metal feature, either rounded or with a flat surface, many people confuse rails with wider surfaces with boxes, however these are not, and are just rails with a little UHMWPE on top
10.
Snow
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Snowstorms organize and develop by feeding on sources of atmospheric moisture and cold air. Snowflakes nucleate around particles in the atmosphere by attracting supercooled water droplets, snowflakes take on a variety of shapes, basic among these are platelets, needles, columns and rime. As snow accumulates into a snowpack, it may blow into drifts, over time, accumulated snow metamorphoses, by sintering, sublimation and freeze-thaw. Where the climate is cold enough for year-to-year accumulation, a glacier may form, otherwise, snow typically melts seasonally, causing runoff into streams and rivers and recharging groundwater. Major snow-prone areas include the regions, the upper half of the Northern Hemisphere and mountainous regions worldwide with sufficient moisture. In the Southern Hemisphere, snow is confined primarily to mountainous areas, Snow affects ecosystems, as well, by providing an insulating layer during winter under which plants and animals are able to survive the cold. Snow develops in clouds that themselves are part of a weather system. The physics of snow crystal development in clouds results from a set of variables that include moisture content. The resulting shapes of the falling and fallen crystals can be classified into a number of shapes and combinations. Occasionally, some plate-like, dendritic and stellar-shaped snowflakes can form under clear sky with a cold temperature inversion present. Two additional and locally productive sources of snow are lake-effect storms and elevation effects, miid-latitude cyclones are low pressure areas which are capable of producing anything from cloudiness and mild snow storms to heavy blizzards. During a hemispheres fall, winter, and spring, the atmosphere over continents can be cold enough through the depth of the troposphere to cause snowfall, in the Northern Hemisphere, the northern side of the low pressure area produces the most snow. For the southern mid-latitudes, the side of a cyclone that produces the most snow is the southern side, a cold front, the leading edge of a cooler mass of air, can produce frontal snowsqualls—an intense frontal convective line, when temperature is near freezing at the surface. The strong convection that develops has enough moisture to produce whiteout conditions at places which line passes over as the wind causes intense blowing snow. This type of snowsquall generally lasts less than 30 minutes at any point along its path, in cases where there is a large amount of vertical growth and mixing the squall may develop embedded cumulonimbus clouds resulting in lightning and thunder which is dubbed thundersnow. A warm front can produce snow for a period, as warm, moist air overrides below-freezing air, often, snow transitions to rain in the warm sector behind the front. The same effect occurs over bodies of salt water, when it is termed ocean-effect or bay-effect snow. The effect is enhanced when the air mass is uplifted by the orographic influence of higher elevations on the downwind shores
7% easiest 
49% more difficult 
44% most difficult
