Experience Park City Ski Resort

Park City Ski resort has two adjacent ski areas - the Mountain village and Canyon Village, and it is the largest ski and snowboard resort in United States.  The two ski areas are connected by a Gondola and a two way lift. Compared to ski resorts at Colorado, the mountains here are not tall. The resort has a base at elevation 6800 ft, the tallest peak at the resort is the Jupiter Peak at elevation of 10,026 ft, the tallest point lift can reach is 9,998 ft. The peaks are about at tree lines, as they are covered by trees as far we can see.

trail map

There are many lodging options at the resort, we stay at a rental property across the mountain village parking lot, and of course much more economical than ski in-n-out apartments, with added 5 minute walk to the slopes.

Narrow Steep trail between trees

We started our first skiing there, with Nicholas, from Crescent Express lift, which serves blue and black trails. From top of the lift, we saw an expansive rolling hills in front of us. Our first run was on a blue trail, silver queen, which is not wide, and very steep. Nicholas took off right away and disappeared from sight in seconds.  Lily was a little bit intimidated, she was hesitant at the start, and fell before she gained speed.  She got up on her own quickly and started downhill. I was a bit tight myself but had no issue to gain speed downhill.

On top of the mountain

Nicholas went on to ski on his own and Lily and I skied from Crescent Express one more time to enjoy the slope before went on to Bonanza Express which serves higher mountains and got away from beginners. Bonanza serves mostly blue trails and the longest trail in the mountain, Homerun, a green trail, 3.5 mile long. The tops of Bonanza Express, Silverlode Express, Motherlode Express converge at the same peak,  wit access to Thayanes lift, King Kong Express and SilverStar. These lifts all serve the right hand side of the Bonanza, with a mixture of green, blue and black trails. It is noted that King Kong serves only blue and green trails, and is a more crowded lift.

Trees on Park City Slopes

We stayed there for the rest of the day and enjoying the thrill of speed on the blue trails, and stopped from time to time to take pictures of the vista and ourselves! We also skied on Homerun before lunch to get a worry free, no slow-down  skiing downhill - of course the terrain will slow one down - it is a green trail after all. 

We rode the gondola to the iron mountain late in the afternoon, the area between mountain village and the canyon village, skied down white pine trail, and cascade trail. We had to take iron mountain express right away to return to Gondola - since the Gondola would be closed around 3:30 pm. However we did not get to the Gondola until 4 pm due to the pause of  running of the lift (likely due to skiers related incident). We took the last lift of Silverlode up mountain and enjoyed the high speed downhill run one last time for the day. When we returned to the base, all lifts were closed and in fact both our boys returned to our rented apartment already - a first in our skiing history. 

Another steep descend 

We intentionally did not attempt black trails, trying to minimize potential of injury. Without the stress and sweat of skiing on black trails, we were of full of energy until the end of the day.

Iron Mountains

The second day we skied, on left hand side of Bonanza first - Pioneer, McConkey's Express before going to Canyon Village. We took the Payday Express up and transferred onto Bonanza Express, and ski to the base of McConkey's. McConkey's serves the edge of mountain village ski area, the area has a totally different feel, had much fewer skiers, and the trails there are mostly black trails. There is only one blue trail GeorgeAnna going down hill. Despite clam weather at the base, it was very windy at the top of McConkey's, which is near Jupiter peak - it was almost a white-out! Braving the strong wind, we ran twice on this trail. We skied toward Canyon village, via Gondola.

Near Jupiter Peak

Braving the white-out

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The gondola

The the first stop of the Gondola is at the peak of a mountain, and the view from there was beautiful,  like the names of the lifts imply - Dreamscape, Dreamcatcher and Daybreak. A unique feature of iron mountain ski area is that there are many cabins there, and there is a road on the slope. For this reason, there are a few overpass or underpass for ski trails.

It was so beautiful, we stayed in the iron mountain area without going to the rest, and the main part of Canyon village. Again we enjoyed mountain until it was closed for the day!

Deja Vu 

on the slope

Cross the road via an underpass

Cabins on the slope - picture taken from lift

Sunset occurs early in the mountains

The third day at Park City was a gloomy day, we went straight to Canyon Village via the Gondola, Timberline two way lift and then over-and-out two way lift, the ride took us more than 30 minutes! The mountains at this side of ski resort are much lower, the slopes are shallower. The gloomy weather plus some creepy names of the lifts - like tombstone express, orange bubble, made us not feel so good. We visited these lifts, plus Sun peak, and Saddleback, skied for a couple of hours and went back to Iron mountain area via Peak 5 lift, instead of the slow two way lifts of Timberline and over-and-out, for the rest of the day, after lunch at Miner's Camp.

It started snowing, the mountain turned dark early, we could barely see the trails while going high speed downhill. We went to the base, and call it for the day around 3 pm.

Low mountain

 

Orange Bubble Lift

Park City in the Snow, January 5th, 2020 

Great snow conditions, two beautiful sunny days out of 3 days there, uncrowded mountains, great food and service of restaurants (Summit House, Cloud Dine and Miner's Camp) in the mountains, plus that we took it easy by staying on blue trails and green trail to enjoy skiing and the mountains,  it had been a great ski vacation for us. We will come back for another run!