The Utah Olympic Park finally opened to uphill traffic for the first time ever on Monday, and Ryan Petersen couldn’t be happier.“I’m really excited about this,” he said. “I’ve been touring for about 10 years, and I do some backcountry skiing, or I go up Home Run at Park City Mountain, so I’m pretty excited to have this as an option.” With limited snowfall, the Utah Olympic Park delayed the opening that had been planned for New Year’s Day.Now with 22 inches of snowfall since Jan. 1, the park opened one uphill route, the south side, to passholders on Monday. The uphill program is a pilot effort to increase public involvement with the park while maintaining focus and emphasis on training and athletes. The maximum 400 passes were sold out within five minutes of going on sale in mid-December. Uphill access is available from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. every day. The park features two routes, on the north side and south side, accessible from the overflow parking lot. For many uphill enthusiasts, the park’s first-ever public access routes are more than an exciting novelty. These uphill routes offer a daytime option. Park City Mountain permits uphilling from 6 p.m. to 8 a.m., after and before the chairlifts open.Petersen lives in the area, making the drive to the Utah Olympic Park much more convenient than sitting through traffic into town, he said.“My daughter skis here, so I figured it would be convenient to take a trip up the mountain while she’s at race practice,” said Petersen. Brian Grober feels similarly living in Kimball Junction. The new park access allows him to take a few laps before work. Skiers make their way up and down the hill on Tuesday during the second day of uphill skiing at the Utah Olympic Park. Credit: Clayton Steward/Park Record“Especially with the strike, it’s nice to have a new option here. I will go to the Cottonwoods to tour, but there’s not much backcountry touring if you live in Park City,” said Grober. As one of the lucky 400 passholders, Grober said he was prepared to win the bidding war when the tickets went live in December. “I set a reminder to get a pass and kept reloading the website,” Grober joked. “I’m glad. I got lucky.”The uphill route is also an added resource for skimo teams looking for more space to train. The skimo masters team, among others, has early access to the route before its public opening at 8 a.m. Adam Loomis is the skimo director at Park City Ski and Snowboard and was at the park at 7 a.m. Tuesday with the masters team in preparation for this week’s Wasatch Powderkeg race. “People are psyched,” said Loomis. “We had a pretty full turnout of our group, and it was great seeing people getting out here with us bright and early. There will be more terrain as we get more snow, but for now just having something you can do during the day is great. It’s a pretty good pitch, and getting away from Park City Mountain and away from downtown is pretty nice.” Loomis said this provides a great space to get out on the hill during the day and in the early season. “Between having this and using some other (Utah Olympic Park) terrain as a team, in Park City, our only other option is Park City Mountain, and if that’s all we had then we wouldn’t really be on snow until mid-December when everything opens up,” said Loomis. Dustin Moring joined the skimo masters team for his first season this year. “Old folks trying to stay in shape,” joked Moring. “We started around 7 a.m. today, and did four laps today before 8.” “People are moving out here for this from New York,” said one masters racer from the side. Artificial snow catches morning light on Tuesday while uphill skiers make their way up and down the mountain. Credit: Clayton Steward/Park RecordWith the added traffic of uphillers on the mountain, Kole Nordmann, marketing manager for the Utah Olympic Park, said that their mountain operations crew has been on top of things, from trail planning to snowmaking. “I think adding this part to the mountain hasn’t been a detriment to our staff at all. I think they handle it really well. Our mountain ops crew is really awesome,” said Nordmann. “We don’t have enough snow right now to have anything open other than the lower mountain bypass. Lions Den is still closed because we need some more snow coverage up there, because we don’t have snowmaking in these off areas, so we have to wait for that natural snow to come in to be able to utilize those other spots,” said Nordmann. As weather permits, the park plans to open the north side and other training routes as quickly as possible. Openings will be announced on the park’s mountain conditions page. “Our mountain conditions page is the best thing to check just to see if anything new has opened up, but for right now, the plan is to keep that lower mountain bypass open until we can get some more snow,” said Nordmann.The post Utah Olympic Park opens uphill route appeared first on Park Record.