This spring the family and I went to Park City. We were in Park City 2 years ago in 2020 before the pandemic. This time we stayed at Shadow Ridge which was really close to the Park City mountain area, so much so that we could walk it every day to the mountain rather than having to take a shuttle. That was definitely key this time around in enjoying the mountain and it felt like we were at Keystone as compared to being at Breckenridge or something.
This year was also different because I bought my skis this past winter and I had also bought my daughter a snowboard. Even though she’s only 10, we bought bindings and the board a little big so that she can grow into them. I bought a complete system, I have Rosignol ski’s that came with Look bindings which for only $400 with a length of about 170CM. That was a pretty good deal to me, I splurged a little bit on the poles and bought extendable poles made of carbon fiber which are really light and its easier to pack. For my daughter, my wife and I made it part of her Christmas gift and ended up getting her a GNU Ladies Choice snowboard at 139CM which reaches her eyes so its definitely bigger than her normal size board. To make her life easier on the slopes, we splurged and got her the Burton Snap In bindings. These are different from most snowboard bindings in that she just steps into the bindings and off she goes! No more having to sit on the snow and strap in the toe and the ankle area. It saved so much time that she can get ready almost at the same time I do to head on down the slope.
The conditions weren’t too bad, especially in the morning but by the end of the week, the terrain wasn’t very skiable. I think by the time we left it was around 60 degrees so that you can do real spring skiing in t-shirts and stuff. We didn’t venture too far away from the Payday lift, I went exploring at some of the other areas on the mountain but since they weren’t grooming a lot of the trails, it was like skiing on sheets of ice which wasn’t very fun at all. They were grooming the areas by Payday so we stuck to there. I was going to head over to the Canyons area but the lifts that I would have used weren’t even operating and if I got stuck there, it would have been a hassle to find my way back especially with my daughter with me. One of the busiest lifts that I encountered on the trip was the Silver Lode lift which is by the mid mountain eatery that they have right by the gondola. It was fairly busy throughout the day no matter what time I went but overall it was 10 minutes to get on there. The First Timer lift was always busy and the wait was long because thats where all the ski schools went so they get priority over everyone else. I used the 3 Kings lift in those instances but my daughter didn’t like it because the exit had a steep drop off so I would only go on those alone.
The last 2 days I ended the day early because it was just too hot to actually ski. The snow started turning really slushy so it made it hard to turn or slow down without expending a lot of effort. Also my skis would drag a lot more so my torso was going faster than my legs which could have made me fall so I called it a day at noon which is something I almost never do. That gave us an afternoon to go ahead and explore more of Main Street than I have in the past so we could go shopping and eating. I would say overall, it was a successful trip. I wish there was more grooming and snow making but it is spring skiing so I expect there to be a lot of melting. Given that we have been to Park City twice now, we are looking for a new adventure. That might be with IKON instead of Epic but we shall see. We have a few more months to decide but we want somewhere we haven’t been before so we can go exploring beyond just skiing.
Wonger's Ramblings 