By Amanda Schwarz
Traveling with skis is no small feat. Obnoxiously long wooden sticks, awkwardly heavy plastic boots, and heaps of large clothing make up a skier or snowboarder’s inconvenient luggage.
However, if traveling toward a dream destination, I would say it’s absolutely worth it.
Over the appropriately nicknamed ski week, my family and I packed up our collective mountain of gear to travel to Park City, Utah. It had snowed decently before we arrived, and several inches followed during the four days I was on the slopes, so if you knew where to look, the conditions were excellent.
Mountain vs Canyon Side
As far as resorts go, Park City is pretty big. It’s split into two sections bridged by the Quicksilver Gondola, but in my head I think of it more as three, which I visualize as drawn below.
Aside from one ride up the fan-favorite “Orange Bubble” lift, I spent my time split between 1 and 2. I find the Quicksilver gondola to be pretty convenient, and I thought all of the signs were pretty helpful, so I would say it’s little trouble to get around from section to section. I actually think it’s nice to try to traverse from one to the other because it gives the opportunity to ride many different lifts and find new terrain.
Just based on where I went the Canyon side had better snow and significantly smaller lift lines, but as long as I stayed away from Silverlode, I never had to wait long.
Lodges & Food
One of the best parts of this trip was the food. I say this mostly because I had the best black bean burger of my life at Clouddine, but overall all the options were a step up from the resorts I’ve been to in Tahoe. Summit Lodge is my favorite in terms of convenience, but everywhere I ate had a plentiful amount of options. Ranging from elaborate salads to soups, burgers, baked potatoes, and mac & cheese, I really do think there was something for everyone.
Lifts
On skis, I surprised myself, and my favorite lift was Jupiter, where I skied the main bowl. I’m no expert skier, so the descents were a bit of a challenge, but the overall peacefulness of the area made up for it. My sister and dad gave me good reviews about some of the other terrain off the lift (though my sister complained about the hike to get to said terrain). And the lift is also a two-seater, which I love. Overall, this was definitely my favorite lift to ski on this trip.
On my snowboard, I spent plenty of time adventuring off the lifts Dreamscape and Daybreak. They service mostly intermediate terrain, and due to the way the conditions panned out there were exceptional powder moguls off both. However, I must point out the atrocious downside to these lifts (and also Park City as a whole), which is the unavoidable ever-present span of cattracks required to get back to the lifts. I cannot snowboard on cattracks with any morsel of elegance, and I spent what I remember to be a majority of the trip face planting in the snow in ungraceful attempts to traverse across the nightmare terrain.
Ultimately, with its variety of terrain, delicious consumables, and beautiful scenery, I consider Park City to be an excellent destination for any skier or snowboarder willing to make the trip.
key
(1) snow meadow off of Dreamscape
(2) Jupiter lift with Sophie Schwarz
(3) Jupiter bowl
(4) TNT adventure park off of Silverlode