2010 Ski for Light International Week

Soldier Hollow trails. Photo courtesy of Ski For Light

The 2010 Ski for Light International Week will be held from Sunday evening, January 31 through Sunday morning, February 7, 2010. First- and second-year guides will need to arrive one day early, by Saturday afternoon, January 30th, for guide orientation and training.

The Location

The 2010 Ski for Light event will be based in Provo, Utah. Provo is located in the middle of Utah, about 45 miles south of the Salt Lake City airport. It is a clean, pleasant city of about 100,000 people, and is the home of Brigham Young University.

Provo is situated along the western base of the Wasatch Mountains, which form a rugged divider spanning the center of the state for 160 miles from north to south. The rugged terrain of the Wasatch, coupled with the lightest, driest and deepest powder anywhere, result in some of the finest skiing anywhere in the country, if not the world. If you plan to arrive early or stay late at SFL to downhill ski, you will be pleased to learn that within 30 to 45 minutes of Provo are the world-class ski resorts of Sundance, Park City, Alta, Snowbird, the Canyons, Brighton and Solitude.

For more information about the Provo area, visit the Provo area information and maps website.

Getting to Provo

Unless you are driving to Provo, you will want to fly into and out of Salt Lake City. The Salt Lake City airport is about 45 miles from the event hotel.

The Event Hotel

The event hotel will be the Marriott Hotel & Conference Center in Provo. It is a modern full-service business and convention hotel, with all of the amenities you could ask for. the 330 guest rooms are large, airy and well-appointed. The Marriott has a large indoor heated pool and hot-tub, a state of the art work-out facility, a restaurant and bar, and more than enough meeting and banquet space to meet our needs. The hotel is located right in the middle of downtown Provo, so restaurants and shops of all kinds will be just a short walk away.

View the Provo Marriott Photo Tour

The Ski Area

We will ski at the Soldier Hollow cross-country ski area. Soldier Hollow is in the town of Midway, about 27 miles from the Marriott. The route to Soldier Hollow will take us through Provo Canyon, passing the Sundance Resort on the way.

While the dry powder of the Wasatch has long been a magnet for downhill skiers, it has not been of much interest to cross-country skiers until recent times. The major ski resorts in the area are generally too rugged for good cross-country skiing, and there was no economic reason to develop good cross-country venues since the area already attracted so many downhill skiers.

This all changed starting in about 2000, with the approach of the 2002 Winter Olympics. Park City was the Olympic venue for downhill skiing but it was not suitable for cross- country competitions. The Olympic Organizing Committee and state of Utah solved the problem by carving good cross-country trails into Wasatch State Park. They added a beautiful two-story ski lodge and built roads into the area, named it all Soldier Hollow, and the rest is history. The 2002 events that were held there were described by all who attended as among the best ever held.

Within the past three years Soldier Hollow has expanded their trail system to include more beginner and intermediate terrain. The 35k system now has trails for all abilities. Trails are wide and wonderfully well-groomed. There is snow making capability at the site should it ever be needed, but the probability of good natural skiing conditions is quite high.

Soldier Hollow contains, in addition to the cross-country trail system, a popular and large tubing hill operation. While tubing is not part of the SFL program, some attendees may want to give it a try on their own.

For more information, visit Ski For Light’s Web site.

Skiing. Sharing. Learning. Ski for Light enhances the quality of life and independence of visually or mobility-impaired adults through a program of cross-country skiing.

Source: Ski for Light