For those who truly love to ski, there’s a trio of requirements that are most important when choosing a downhill destination: convenience, variety and conditions. Park City, Utah, scores top grades on all three, and offers luxury accommodations to boot.
More often than not, the best ski locations are hard to get to. They require a long flight, and then usually a car rental and a two-hour drive to finally access the mountain. But not Park City. From Phoenix, a 120-minute direct flight will whisk you up to Salt Lake City and then convenient shuttles take you the remaining half-hour drive to Park City. Once in town, there is really no need for a vehicle because the city transit buses are skier-friendly and the hotels always have a shuttle to the lifts. Plus, taxis are cheap and plentiful in this ski town. Not having a car rids you of having to find a spot in busy ski-resort parking lots, and also allows for a little more après-ski Champagne, if you get my drift.
With easy mountain access as one of Park City’s selling points, the next thing (and probably the best thing going) is the ski town’s variety of ski resorts, suitable for every level of skier. There are three full mountain parks within five miles (Park City Mountain Resort, Deer Valley Resort and The Canyons), offering visitors the chance to tackle a different mountain every day. For a serious snow bunny, being able to cover a large variety of terrain is the ultimate goal. But for beginners, the many choices of runs means that there is always a place to learn.
Park City Mountain Resort might be the best known of the three, due to the fact that it hosted the 2002 Winter Olympics. With 108 runs (both ski- and snowboard-friendly) across 3,300 acres, extreme powder hounds will love the four terrain parks and the nine snow bowls, while newbies can join a variety of classes, from private lessons to specialty programs. If you want to see the majority of the resort in just one day, guests can hire a private mountain guide who will head out with you and your family and show you the best spots to suit your needs.
