Any advanced or expert skier who has spent a few day at Park City Mountain Resort has likely found their way up to McConkey's Bowl at some point during their stay. There are some great runs up here as well as access to Puma Bowl and even Jupiter Peak, a 20 minute or so hike away. This bowl and namesake lift are named after Jim McConkey, considered one of the pioneers of extreme skiing.
Jim's son Shane followed in his father's footsteps and grew up to be one of the best mogul skiers in the world before turning exclusively to the more extreme side of the sport.
Shane was instrumental in many revolutionary designs including skis with reverse sidecut and skis with reverse camber (rocker). Later in his career he introduced Ski-Base Jumping into the world of extreme sport. Effectively skiing off a cliff with a parachute, releasing your skis in midair and deploying your parachute before floating gently down to the earth thousands of feet below.
On March 26, 2009 while performing a stunt in the Dolomites of Italy which was a variation of Ski-Base Jumping with a winged suit he flew off a cliff, performing a double back flip but had trouble releasing his skis. By the time he got them off he had been free falling for 12 seconds and neither the winged suit or the parachute that he was never able to deploy could save him.
The sport of skiing and extreme sport in general lost one of its guiding lights that day in the Italian Dolomites.
This Friday, Saturday and Sunday the Jim Santy Auditorium will screen a brand new feature length film celebrating the life of Shane McConkey. It is rated PG and will show at 8 pm on Friday and Saturday and 6 pm on Sunday.
You can visit the web site at http://www.parkcityfilmseries.com/ or call the directly at 435-615-8291 for more information.
Scott Larson
Keller Williams Park City Real Estate
435-513-2324
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