Spring Break Weekend in Park City

The evenings are growing longer and the Cache Valley is thawing out after a tough winter. I’m hesitant to claim victory over the cold weather quite yet, but the conditions have gotten much nicer in the past few weeks…I have even been able to ride my bike outside (once).

Thawing of Cache Valley

With spring in a college town comes spring break, and with spring break and a wife that works for the University comes vacation time. Unfortunately I did not receive time off work, but that didn’t keep Susan and me from taking a short weekend getaway down to Park City. The ski season is still on in Utah until April and we have not taken full advantage of our proximity to the mountains. This weekend would provide the opportunity to hit up the ski resorts while still in season before we move back to the Midwest. A co-worker of Susan (and friend of ours) splits her time between Park City and Logan and is plugged in to the tourism industry via her husband. She helped us plan our trip and was able to hook us up for the weekend with hotels, ski passes, ski gear and be my mountain escort on my day of skiing. We were very thankful for all of it.

Saturday morning we made our way down to Park City from Logan, only a 2 hour drive (a mere stone’s throw in the West) and arrived in town just before lunch time. We parked off Main Street, the historic and shopping hub of the city, and then walked to the lower end of main doing some light shopping along the way. I restocked on Mountain Town olive oil and balsamic vinegar (Delicious!) before we stopped for lunch at The Bridge. This was a small café that sits next to the Town Lift for the Park City Ski Resort (the resort that is pretty much right in town). The name the Bridge is in reference to the snow covered bridge that the skiers come across at the base of the runs to get to the Town Lift. The weather was around 50 and sunny and sitting outside next to the building we were protected from the chilly wind. It was nice to enjoy lunch in the sunshine with skiers coming and going around us.

Down Main Street – Park City

After lunch we worked our way back up main pretty much to the top of the commercial district before heading back to the car. We explored the areas above town (away from the highway) via car and got some good views of the city from above before making our way back to the main thoroughfare to check into our hotel. For Susan it was nap time, but I wasn’t ready to get out of the sun so I went for a walk to check out some of the bike trails and neighborhoods that surround the city. I sort of lost track of time / distance while taking in the scenery and ended up walking over 3 miles before getting back to the room.

Once Susan was ready to get going again, we drove down toward the interstate to some of the shopping developments and outlet malls down that way. An afternoon ice cream stop soothed Susan’s chocolate craving, which was the highlight of the venture. As the sun started to go down, it started to cool off significantly and so we moved back toward the hotel before stopping for dinner at Squatter’s Roadhouse, a brew pub for one of the main Utah breweries. It was crowded and didn’t have much of a waiting area so we chilled in the car until our table was ready. The food was standard pub fare…nothing spectacular, but tasty. We left satisfied and with a refilled growler for me, so no complaints. Since we had driven up to town in the morning and toured most of the day we were pretty beat and called it an early evening after dinner.

Sunday morning I arose before dawn to a completely different climate than the previous day. There was a light covering of snow down already and it was windy and cloudy out. It was just the type of weather that makes it difficult to convince yourself to run in. However, I ventured out anyways, but cut my run short after meandering around different parts of Park City and the outlying neighborhoods. I wanted to save some leg energy for the slopes.

Susan and I leisurely got packed and checked out of the hotel before meeting up with Trish, her aforementioned co-worker, in the parking lot of the Canyons Resort. She let me borrow skis and poles so all I had to rent were boots and a helmet (at her “family” discount) and was set to ski. Then we grabbed a non-skier lift ticket for Susan so she could ride to the Red Pine Lodge in mid-mountain and we could have easier access to her when it came time to take breaks.

Let’s Go Skiing

From there, I just basically followed Trish as she navigated us around the south side of the resort, stopping to wait for me (I’m slow) periodically. We stuck mostly to medium (blue) runs and skied in the vicinity of the Colony, the upscale housing community with ski in/out access to the Canyons. One of the longest runs we took was nearly 3 miles…these were no Perfect North slopes. After covering nearly 10 miles according to Trish’s ski iPhone app, we got back to the lodge for a snack break with Susan.

Back on the slopes, we headed to the North side but only skied a couple more runs before calling it a day. Susan and I wanted to get on the road to have plenty of time to get settled back in (and pick up Derby) Sunday evening so we weren’t planning on staying out too much longer. What hastened the end of the ski day was a tumble I took on the first run back out that spooked me a little and got my hands wet…speeding up their numbing. With the marathon I’m training for in the back of my mind the fall got me thinking about possible injury and I just couldn’t get back into the groove of skiing after it. The north side was much more exposed to the elements (it was windy with gusts up to 40+ mph) and was far icier than the slopes we skied in the morning so they weren’t as pleasant anyways.

Heading Back Down the Mountain

By mid-afternoon we were back at the car and driving back to Logan with clearing skies. The next event we are looking forward to (other than more thawing hopefully) is a visit from my parents just after my birthday.