by Karen Soo, Trip Director
While 11 NSC members jetted out to Breckenridge for a week of skiing, another 10 NSC members planned a week trip to Park City, Utah. February 4th to 11th.
The last time I skied Park City, Canyons was called Park West. Geez, what year was that? The XIX (19th) Winter Olympics was held in 2002. Park City and Canyons merged in 2015, making its mark as the largest ski area in the United States.
One nice thing about Park City is that you really don’t need a car for the week unless you’re skiing Alta, Snowbird and Solitude. You probably need another week for those resorts. Amy arranged the pickup shuttle from Salt Lake International and took us to our respective condos.
During the week, we used the Park City Transit as our means of transportation. Assigned numbers and color shuttle buses are free and they came often during peak times. I don’t where my head is at, but I always end up on the wrong bus going the wrong direction. Almost all the shuttles go to Main Street and Deer Valley. My 5-minute ride turned into a 45-minute ride. By the time Friday arrived, I finally understood the bus system. OYE.
Janice and Jim Sanchez, Curtis and I stayed together at the Silvertown condo which was a 5-minute bus ride to the Park City Village. Amy, David, David Tom and sister Carolyn stayed at the Marriot Mountainside, a Ski in, Ski out accommodation. David Tom flew in from Denver and joined us for a 2nd week of skiing. What a stud, back-to-back ski trips. His skiing legs were still going strong.
We skied the first 2 days at Park City. We met at the Payday lift chair in the morning between the 9:00-9:00am
Carol and Lennie Kwok drove from Folsom with their pup Dewey and stayed at a doggy friendly Airbnb in Salt Lake City. They joined us during the week. We explored the mountains, taking the blue runs and took pictures and videos along the way. David, Curtis, Jim and Lennie tried the Black Diamond mogul runs and met us at the bottom of lift chair. This was pretty much the way we skied together as a group.
If anyone got separated, there was always a lunch plan in place to meet. First one there grabs the largest table for 10. Being Epic pass members, we were able to get 20% off of lodging, rentals and food at the resort.
On Tuesday, blues skies came out and we decided to try out the runs at the Canyons Resorts.
We all met in the morning at Park City and took the connecting Quicksilver Gondola. The ride was scenic and relaxing. After a hour and 10 minutes ride, we finally took our first run of the day.
After trying this once, our condo mates decided to take the 5-minute shuttle ride to the Crayons base. We met up with Amy’s crew at the bottom lift chairs Tombstone or Saddle back Express.
There was more skiing terrain at the Canyons. The Canyons is about 2/3 in size and Park City was 1/3 of the entire resort. We skied 3 days there. We didn’t get the 2 feet powder but we did have the blue skies and great weather.
No ski trip is complete without planning the meals. Instead of the traditional pot luck and shlepping the food from condo to condo, Amy and I decided to do a host dinner. Amy hosted dinner one night and my condo hosted the next night.
You know what that means. One less meal planned for the week. Hooray.
On Sunday night, we went over to Amy’s condo at the Marriot. The theme of her dinner was Greek OMPA. As always, there was so much food. Greek Pastitsios and mezzes ranging from Greek kamata olives, Greek eggplant dip, dolmas. tzatziki, hummus and walnuts. David Tom made the flan with caramel sauce. I was impressed. He said he made this at Breckenridge. The secret recipe came in a box from Royal. Ha ha. I’m going to bring this on my next ski trip.
The next night Amy and her crew came over to our place for dinner.
Thanks to Jim for his special dried rubbed, St Louis ribs. It was so good that you didn’t need any BBQ Sauce. Don’t tell Jim, but a few of us did dip the ribs into the BBQ sauce. To accompany the ribs, we made Supreme nachos, Chinese chicken salad, rice and garlic bread. Janet made a Cherry pie from home and we served it warm with vanilla ice cream.
It was nice to sit together for dinner and chatted about our ski day, with the fire place warming up the room.
On our day off on Wednesday, we walked around the Canyons Village and Park City Main Street. We stopped off at Tina’s Bakery for their Argentinean Empanadas. I think we all agreed we like the Empanadas from Spain.
We did our restaurant research and came across Sammy’s Bistro which was featured on
Diner, Drive-in and Dives. Amy and her crew went there at 6:00 pm and the wait was 2 hours. Sammy’s does not take reservations.
Bummers, they left the restaurant and ended up at The Boneyard Saloon. The chicken wings appetizer got great reviews from Jim and Janice who went there for lunch.
We went to Sammy’s after our hot tub dip. We hopped on the wrong bus (again) and got to Sammy’s Bistro at 8:00pm. By that time, there was no wait and we were seated and they took our order.
We had the Cioppino and the Mahi Mahi Tacos that was feature on an episode on Diner, Drive in and Dives. We were not disappointed.
For the remaining rest of the week, we had enough leftover ribs and salad to keep us satisfied.
We had an early departure on Saturday morning (6:00am), so staying in on a Friday night to pack was nice.
Overall, we had a fun time skiing and eating with good company. No accident reports.
See you all next year at Jackson Hole with NSC in 2024!
