Park City perfect for skiing families

A quick swipe of the credit card, click into our skis and we board the Payday hi-speed six-pack lift. Six minutes and 1,200 vertical feet higher we board the Bonanza, another hi-speed six-pack for another 1,100’ vertical, that deposits us high above the legendary miner’s town of Park City. Fresh powder tracks by 1pm. No jet lag, no Olympic size crowds, just 3,300 vast acres of skiing.

 

Welcome to the reality of Utah skiing, the west’s most accessible slopes. We happen to have chosen Park City as our first ski stop, but we could have been at the summit of Snowbird, Alta, Deer Valley, The Canyons, Solitude, Brighton or Snowbasin on our first day – all within an hour’s drive of Salt Lake City airport.

 

Park City is big, more than twice the size of Sugarloaf. Lift pods (a dozen of them) head every which way, to the point of confusion to the newcomer. Guided tours are recommended, but my husband absorbs trail map content through osmosis.

 

Of the 100 trails, Park City has everything from perfectly buffed blue-square cruisers to extreme terrain. We do not even scratch the surface of the six upper bowls including hair-raising Jupiter or McConkey’s. From a glance, we determine those ominous double black diamond chutes and steeps are best saved for when our kids are in ski camp.

 

We ski the fall line of “Picabo,” where the trail’s namesake will competed in the women’s GS in the 2002 Utah Olympics. “Having the Olympics come to my hometown was a dream come true,” said Picabo Street.

 

Park City hosted all of the Olympic snowboard events and the alpine Giant Slalom. At the time, lifts were  replaced with speedy 6 passenger detachable chair lifts – four of them. These lifts are highly social, comfortably seating our entire family, a ski patroller and a local powder hound. The patroller reflected that when this area opened 1964 as Treasure Mountain, high winds would shut down mountain lifts, but intrepid skiers would make their way through the underground mining shafts to reach the fresh “pow.”

 

We make infinite turns on a dozen superb cruisers our first day. We already logged more miles on our skis than our rented SUV.

 

Day two, an attentive Deer Valley host unloads our skis as we arrive at the immense Snow Park Lodge. This is no standard base lodge. I gawk at the massive beams, gleaming brass fixtures and elegant appointments. This is home to Bogner wearing clientele. No wooly ski pants or grungy snowboard attire here (Deer Valley is one of four ski resorts still banning boarders). 

 

Our inaugural ride up the Silver Lake Express shows perfectly manicured corduroy in all directions. The comfy quad gives us a bird’s eye view of next month’s Olympic freestyle aerial jumps, the mogul and slalom courses.

 

Our son longs to ski “Champion,” the mogul run where Jonny Moseley bumped and jumped for gold. My husband, the trail map man, leads us past Stein Erickson’s impressive lodge, and up the Quincy Mountain lift, toward Empire Canyon, the highest elevation of Deer Valley at 9,570-feet.

 

From the Empire summit, my mate drops into steep chutes while I lead the kids down the sparkling snow-covered “Superior” trail which saunters down this impressive peak. Empire Canyon, added a few years ago, ended Deer Valley’s reputation as “Bambi Basin” by rounding out their immense intermediate offerings with steep, deep, bowl skiing that other Utah areas have long been famous for.

 

Day three, we are very comfortable in the lap of luxury, exploring more of Deer Valley’s extensive seven mountains of terrain. We ski silky smooth snow, ride spiffy lifts and sip “the most chocolaty hot cocoa” my daughter has ever tasted.

 

Everything you hear about Deer Valley is a true, chef created gourmet buffets in posh lodges, supple leather seating in the heated gondola. My son returned from his jaunt to the men’s room wide-eyed, “These definitely are not Sunday River’s bathrooms,” referring to the marble and shining gold plated fixtures one would expect to find at a Ritz Carlton but never a ski area base lodge.

 

Deer Valley is upscale, exclusive (example -the snowboard prohibition) and pricey. But you get what you pay for - pampered service, superb conditions, cushy lifts, and magnificent lodges in an enchanting mountain setting.

 

Day four, we drive a scenic 8 miles through Park City to yet another immense resort, The Canyons, formerly Park West Wolf Mountain ski area.

 

A transformation of 17 new lifts and the creation of a base village in the past decade has allowed the Canyons to claim  “Utah’s largest ski area.”

 

From the Canyon’s Grand Summit Hotel, and the resort plaza, the mountain doesn’t look like much but my trusty trail map spouse promises there is more to this place than meets the eye.

 

We head for the Gondola, no leather, but we were the first eight-passengers to launch out of the base this morning. Sure enough, as we crest the hill, more lifts (16 all-tolled) and eight mountains peaks come in to focus. 

 

The Tombstone Express services superb cruisers among magnificent aspen groves. Peak Ninety Nine 90, symbolizing the actual summit elevation, is black diamond wildness via hi-speed quad. It’s all expert powder shots and steeps, but no easy way out.

 

Peak 5 offers fun, twisty glades or a mellow cruise down “Harmony” back to the resort base. On the western most flank, Dreamscape was added last season with intermediates in mind.

 

The Canyon’s eastern-most Condor Express can keep upper-end skiers and riders grinning all day in Chutes 1 through 7. The luge-like “Canis Lupis,” trail is the site of that notorious James Bond ski scene, you’ll feel like “007” as you shoot from one blind banked turn to the next.

 

From this eastern boundary of the Canyons, if you have backcountry training and avalanche equipment (peeps, electronic locater devices and shovels), you can hike another 600’ to access the wide-open bowl off Murdock Peak. We found the speedy lifts served us ample vertical.

 

The Canyons, like nearby Park City and Deer Valley, warrants at least two days to master. Unlike its neighbors, The Canyons will not be hosting any Olympic venues but that is no reason to skip this new mega resort.

 

Last but not least for us, we discover Snowbasin, host to the Winter Olympics showcase events, the Downhill and Super G. This vast 1939 ski area, 33 miles east of Salt Lake City, has been a humble powder spot for Ogden locals.

 

In 1984, Earl Holding, oil tycoon and owner of glitzy Sun Valley ski resort, purchased the area. He saw the mountain’s enormous potential but his ambitious expansion plans were stymied in National Forest red tape until Utah garnered the Games in 1995.

 

Suddenly things freed up. Permits in hand, Holding proceeded to pump millions into this 3,200-acre ski resort, including two high-speed 8-passenger gondolas, three quads and a tram, plus palatial mountain lodges.

 

Today, “The Basin” is comprised of five gorgeous mountain peaks jutting up to heights of 10,000’. Snowbasin is an alpine paradise with 2,940’ of lift-accessed vertical and more wide-open spaces, deep bowls and steep chutes than you can poach in a week.

 

The only shame is this “powder stash” is about to be discovered by the world.

 

The Olympic downhill course is considered one of the most challenging in the world. Bernard Russi, the “crazy Swiss” FIS course designer and ’72 Downhill gold medallist, laid out this harrowing “Grizzly” course with 70-degree pitches and reverse fall line turns plummeting a dizzying 2,770 vertical feet.

 

It took me a little longer than the Olympic standard minute plus to ski this spine-tingling run. I stopped a few times to contemplate the sheer madness of the world’s fastest racers flying down this course at 80 m.p.h. for Gold.

 

Snowbasin's four magnificent on mountain log and rock lodges are of the same classy caliber as sister resort Sun Valley, Idaho.

 

With 500 inches of dry fluffy powder which they have patented “the greatest snow on Earth,” convenient flights, and ten ski resorts within an hour’s drive from Salt Lake Airport, Utah is hard to beat. 

 

After the athletes’ Gold rush in February, Utah skiing is on everyone’s list. This ideal ski destination has gone from hosting the best in the world to attracting the rest of the world.