Your Guide to a Park City Ski Trip

How We Got There

If you follow along with me on Instagram, then you know Michael and I spent Presidents’ Day weekend in Park City, Utah! Neither of us had ever been to Utah, so it was fun to check a new state off of our list.

Michael and I used our Southwest Companion Pass to hop on the easy, direct flight to Salt Lake City from DC (technically, BWI). We headed over Thursday afternoon, stayed Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and took a morning flight out on Monday.

Park City is an easy 45 minute (ish) drive from the Salt Lake City airport. On our way back to the airport, we had to battle 14 inches of snow that had fallen the night before so it took us about 1.5 hours. We used Lyft/Uber both ways. I’d say this is one of the major perks to choosing Park City for a ski weekend since it’s relatively close to the airport (as compared to a lot of Colorado ski towns).

Where We Stayed

We opted to stay at an Airbnb since we were traveling with another couple and wanted to stay in the same condo. I’m a big fan of using Airbnb while traveling (check out this post for my full thoughts on Airbnb + $40 off your first stay!). The Airbnb was perfect for our stay. It was within walking distance of the base of the mountain (about a .5 mile walk), it was directly on the free Park City transit bus line that takes you straight to Main Street, where all of the fun restaurants, bars, and shops are located, and it had a hot tub (a must for a ski weekend!).

I’d say the two most important things to consider when looking for a place to stay in Park City are the property’s proximity to the base of the mountain and to a bus stop. We skied everyday and headed to Main Street every night so convenient access to both the mountain and Main Street were super important.

What to Do

Like I mentioned, we skied (technically, I snowboarded) every day that we were there. We woke up bright and early and were on the slopes by about 9:00 am every day. Check out Michael’s review on Park City to see the VLOG he made of our trip – you’ll get a real sense of the mountain!

A few tips to make your skiing experience go smoothly:

• Purchase your ski lift ticket ahead of time. We purchased ours here and it saved loads of time (and you receive a discount for purchasing online).
• Don’t worry about reserving your all-mountain skis/boots/helmets etc. until you get there. We headed to the rental shop the first morning that we were there, and it was a pretty seamless process.

If you’re not into skiing everyday, Main Street has lots of neat shops and coffee shops to occupy an afternoon. There are also numerous spas around Park City if you’re looking for a #treatyoself afternoon.

My number one suggestion of a MUST DO is to head over to Deer Valley (it’s a short 15-ish minute bus ride on the free Park City transit bus) and visit the St. Regis hotel, the Mountain Terrace in particular. When you arrive at the hotel, you have to take a funicular (a hybrid roller coaster/gondola) up to access the rest of the hotel. The Mountain Terrace bar has spectacular views and amazing cocktails. Every night during the winter at 5:30 pm they have a traditional champagne sabering to celebrate the sunset. It’s a fun experience all around!

Where to Eat

Right when we arrived on Thursday afternoon, we hit up the Freshmarket grocery store on Park Ave to stock up on breakfast food and a few local beers for the weekend. Having breakfast at our Airbnb before heading out each morning was a huge time (and money) saver!

For lunch, we opted to take quick breaks at the base of the mountain each day. We sat outside at Corner Store Pub & Grill one day and enjoyed a great local beer and delicious nachos, and we hit up the cafeteria style restaurant the other two days, which actually had pretty decent options!

My number one tip when planning a trip to Park City is to make dinner reservations ahead of time! We did this, but ended up canceling one of ours because we weren’t sure of our plans and it ended in a near disaster.

We had dinner at Tupelo (get the steak!), 710 Bodega (really good, casual tapas spot), Red Banjo Pizza Parlor (this was the night our reservation fell through – I wouldn’t recommend this spot), and Grappa (highly recommend)! All are located on Main Street.

For drinks, I highly recommend checking out the local distillery, High West Distillery (they have a cool patio if it’s not too cold) and Wasatch Brewery, a local brewery (get the apricot brew!). High West is near Main Street, on Park Ave, while Wasatch is actually on Main Street.

I’d go back to Park City in a heartbeat. We had a great time. It was super convenient to get to from the airport, the mountain was awesome, and the convenience of having Main Street just a free shuttle ride away was amazing.

Have you been to Park City?! Feel free to add any other recommendations below in the comments! And let me know if you have any questions while planning your trip to the ski town!

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