Always working on my “Portuguese...”

Since I have “defected” Park City for other nearby ski areas, the only pair of runs that I truly miss are, the one that's under the Thaynes Chair, and "Portuguese Gap," a steep, gnarly gully that sits between “Land of the Giants” and “Rhino Bowl” in Jupiter.

I skied it once more on a wet, rainy, snowy and closing day, this past Sunday, after having skied it several times last November at the opening of the ski season. Portuguese Gap is a narrow chute offering a steep 613 feet (187 m) vertical that comes out out of the wood with a drastically flat section, meeting the Scott's Bowl run off and that is best skied in powder snow and mid-season, when the cover is sufficient on a terrain that is quite rocky at the top and is peppered with all kinds of stumps and small trees down below.

Also, the bottom of that run gets a really bad rap because it's generally populated with with huge, destabilizing "Volkswagen” bumps. Even though snow conditions were just awful this past Sunday, there's almost no run that gets me as excited at “Portuguese!”