Bear with me on this one all will become clear.
A little ramble about the pleasures of Ski UTAH
My advice has no more basis than my own meandering experience, WEARSUNSCREEN – I know this is the title of my blog, but it’s a lesson I learned on my first ever trip to Utah in the early 90’s. A morning skiing with thick cloud cover. By 10 my face felt a bit warm, by 11 I had blisters from chin to forehead! I forgot to WEARSUNSCREEN. P20 is my fave!
Powder! The best in the world? Possibly! There’s some pretty decent resorts too, none quite as big as the linked European resorts but all with their own unique character. Park City-Canyons is the biggest and comes right down into the town. Deer valley is close by. Snowbird and Alta are nice little resorts with great powder bowls. All easy access from Salt Lake City. Sundance is close to Provo and used to be owned by Robert Redford…. “Used to be” is important. When we first skied here the resorts were independently owned and we got lift tickets in Costco – it was pretty cheap…. Through the covid thing corporations have started hoovering up the resorts and really racking up the prices. Vail are the most aggressive have bought up many ski resorts worldwide, notably Park City and Canyons but also Breckenridge, Whistler in Canada and Perisher in Australia. The locals in Park City complain about the prices and the quality of food, but as a visitor there are a few more bear traps waiting for you. The great thing about Utah used to be that you could mix and match where you ski, do a day here and a day there. Day passes being fairly cheap and you could buy a book of passes and use them non consecutively. Now if you want a day pass at Park City and buy it at the ticket window it’s TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN DOLLARS FOR THE DAY! Thats not a typo, TWO HUNDRED AND FUCKING FIFTEEN DOLLARS!!! 200 if you book in advance on the world wide information superhighway. This led me to develop a new index, similar to my wold acclaimed IICPI (international ice cream price index) the International Ski Price Index (ISPI). A simple metric which takes the day pass price in euro and divides by the number of lifts in the area.
So the preliminary results are in….. drum roll….. Park City weighs in at 4.6, not too bad when compared with big brother, Vail at a hefty 7.2 and Whistler at 6.8. So Park City, not too bad eh? So let’s extend the analysis – Paradiski in France comes in at a measley 0.41, Espace Killy at 0.88 and the champagne resort of Klosters (the fave of our new King) at 1.4! Deer Valley, which has also been recently snapped up vail comes in a whopping 11.8!!!! So Vail are properly taking the piss. And this doesn’t even factor in the cost of parking at 25 bucks a day, a $28 burger n chips and a $10 beer (even though there is a zero tolerance alcohol policy 🤷). So… a few strategies, the credit for which goes to Auntie Lynne who we stayed with in Heber City:
Firstly, Vail do a thing called a Epic pass which if you buy in advance before the start of the season brings the price down by a significant amount, just under a hundred euros a day, which is a slightly more respectable ISPI OF 2.3. If you were to buy their season pass, they throw a week in the Three Valleys, which makes it really start to motor… but it needs commitment and serious forward planning! Not really my strong point. Cut off date for this was sometime in October, if you tried to buy one now, you can’t..they’re no longer available. There is a similar “Icon” pass for other resorts but not sure what will happen to that after Vail bought the owners of Deer Valley. If you fail to book ahead, snowbird comes in a bit cheaper at $511 for a 4 day pass if you book on the inter web but with only 12 lifts it’s ISPI IS 9.6…. Alta is the same price (🤔 cartel?) but gets absolutely mullah’ed on the ISPI with only six lifts (19.6!!!!), but I would forgive it that for the quality of the snow and the big bowl that means you can make your own runs down.
Parking for four days In Park City is $100 which has to be pre-booked! However, there is the “carpool” option which, with a car full (4 or more), is $0.00/day. Now, we happened to find out by accident that nobody is really bothered how many are in the car, they only check the booking. So if you feel cheeky, give it a go.
Food – the mountain restaurants are truly shite and really expensive, even after the 20% discount you get with the epic pass. So my advice is to ski in Canyons (which has better runs) and eat in one of the independent restaurants. No cheaper but much better food, better service and toilets that aren’t swimming in piss.
Equipment rental, one day top of the line ski rental in Park City will set you back the same as six days in Les Arcs…. We found a small shop in Midway (midwayadventuresports.com) that do good kit for a flat $32 a day. Still not cheap, but much better value and supporting the small business men stroke women, not the private equity houses that own Vail resorts!
A few things I have learned:
I Always thought that Double Diamond was a 1970’s beer! Apparently not!
I found – I can do bumps. I can do powder. I can do steep. I can do any combination of the above (all be it not very dignified). However, when trees are introduced, I am a blubbering mess!
My children demonstrate no empathy – I have tought them well!
American runs are much softer than the French, luckily because my face spent quite a long time in them.
A DIN setting of 7 is no good for a fatty!
Americans are very polite, especially in lift queues, unless they are protecting a table at a busy lunchtime eatery.
Advice dispensed by people from ski lifts to people like me struggling below is neither welcome or helpful.
The singles line is not for picking up nice ladies, it’s organised queue jumping… which is way better than the French free for all!
All this said – skiing in Utah is genuinely great, and I would definitely recommend it. But don’t just come for the skiing. Utah is a beautiful state with some fantastic natural wonders. Arches, Bryce, Canyon-lands and Zion Canyon are spectacular, an absolute must. We managed 3 of them in a 2 day trip from Heber. Stretch to 3 days and you can do the lot plus more. Going in the winter means there are literally no fucking tourists and you get the magical impact of a bit of snow in the canyons and the added bonus of not having to use the shuttle busses. 80 bucks gets you a year ticket for the lot in a car for up to fourteen people!
And now the piece de la resistance…. The ice castles of Soldier Hollow, just outside Midway. Midway is a lovely little town set up in the 1800’s by Swiss settlers. Just outside is the Olympic cross country facility, where for $50 you can rent some kit and give the stupid looking skis a go. Great fun till I had a little tumble and strained my big toe muscle! It’s funny how much you use that little sucker… any way I digress. Next-door to Soldier Hollow an enterprising local with a hose pipe has set up a massive ice adventure in his back garden. Sculptures, caves, slides, deer, icicles…. You name it, it’s there, made of ice. A magical winter wonderland for a tidy twenty five bucks each. Well? On the way in, you have to agree to “no climbing, no touching, no licking”, which sounds like the rules for a lap dancing bar, not a tourist attraction. Anyway, it’s just about as classy, with hundreds of people crammed in, touching, climbing and, yes, licking! Save your hundred and go to the canyons.
Anyhow… I said it would be a ramble, hope it’s useful…. Utah definitely worth it, beautiful in the winter, but plan ahead!
P.S. just bought a 5 day pass for Les arcs for less than a deer valley one day pass, just sayin!
