Back from my Jackson Hole/Park City trip.
Park City was fun.
First day of riding was fun, the coldest day we had while I was there (Feb 22nd). Stayed in Canyons today. Light powder in most places, a bit icy in the lower elevations. BigGator - your recommendation for Hurricane Alley was spot on so we hit that spot repeatedly on Monday.
We wanted to ride again on Tuesday because it was snowing most of Monday. But having kids in the group and also some friends relatives visiting, we skipped the day to go tubing down at Gorgoza park. A lot more fun than I expected. Also... not very many rules. Want to go down face first lying on the tubes? Go for it. Want to race your buddy while he's in a different lane? Go for it. Want to take a running start and launch yourself off the top to get a ton more starting speed? Encouraged. I love this place hahaha
Wednesday (Feb 24th - stayed in Canyons again) rode with my friends kids (they're on skis and fairly new) - as a result hung out on the red pine gondola side and just took saddleback up a few times and mostly high meadow with the kids. Weather was spring skiing basically. Bluebird, up to 40s. Tried hurricane alley again but it had gotten pretty crunchy and icy and wasn't as fun as the first day. Did the high meadow run to hang out with the kids and found some shortcuts behind they eensy teensy half (quarter?) pipe they got on that run. Used the time to play with the flex on my board, buttering basics, ollies and nollies on flat-ish surface, etc... Got a late start, around 11am so it wasn't too long before the day was up. Slow day with little excitement in the way of speed, but felt super solid when I ollied off of a tiny bank and stomped the landing. Started with barely knowing how to ollie properly and ended with some decent ground work.
Thursday (Feb 25th - Canyons again) - mostly a repeat of yesterday. Repeated runs up saddleback today though. Spotted the entrance to Pine Draw and that was EVEN BETTER than Hurricane Alley!! The "drop in" is almost identical to a skate park with several linked bowls and brings you up to the section with the park features. Starts off with a simple box, another box w/ a step down (no idea what the technical terms is), then 3 jumps back to back, and two sets of double side by side rails towards the end. It was fun even though I was too chickenshit to hit any of the jumps... rode down the landing side and couldn't believe how much speed you pick up just from that hahaha. Instead I mainly played around with 50/50s, and would ollie off of the tiny ramps leading up to the boxes and land on the side instead of the box. Solid ground work on park stuff, no injuries other than a sore knee and busted pride. Still had tons of fun.
Friday was an off day (nice dinner on Thursday night at Grappa with an excellent bottle of wine). My buddy, his 3 yr old boy, and I took a walk around Main st. Spotted Wasatch up top and stopped in for a few pints and some snacks. Great food, great beer (even the 3 yr old liked the Polygame Porter).
Saturday was the last day riding (Feb 27th - Canyons to Park City to Canyons). Lines were waaaaaaaaaaayyyy longer on all lifts today, to be expected on a Saturday. Took the Gondola up, rode down to Timberline (the route there was super slushy and fecking crowded!) to get to the top of Iron Mountain, rode down to the other side to get to the connecting Gondola. Finally got to Park City after riding Quicksilver. Tried to find little kings and finally did, easiest way is to take Jonesy's off of Silverlode/Motherlode/Bonanza until you see a park. Rode by and looked a bit too big for my beginner park skills so we skipped it. Rode up a few more lifts on that side. Best run in Park City for us was going up McConkey's, riding down Georgeanna and cutting across to Powder Monkey. Powder Monkey was a predominantly blue route that weaves in and out of trees as much as you want to (you can drop down below and ride the valley side instead). SO MUCH FUN! Did that route twice before we starting working our way back to the Canyons side. In Canyons we rode through the Colony and saw some insane houses, and took the Shortcut lift so we can ride back to the base rather than gondola it.
Verdict on PCMR - Fun resort but so freaking expensive. It's justified because it's "the biggest resort with the most acreage" blah blah blah... It doesn't matter because there's no way you can explore all that terrain in one day lol.
Food options on the mountain - We ate at two different places, both on the Canyons side. Twice at the Tombstone grill (BBQ joint), and once at the Red Pine Lodge. Avoid Red Pine lodge if you can. The food is way more expensive ($10 for one slice of cheese pizza, wtf? -- oh and it was shite!), they have a pretty limited beer selection as well. Tombstone grill was tits. I had the sausage sandwich one day and opted just for a grilled chicken sandwich the other. Beer selection is still not massive but they work out of a tiny shack, so it's understandable (plus I carried a 32oz growler up with me that day sooooooo it didn't really matter). On the Park City side we had decided to not stop for lunch but we did stop to hydrate and beer-ate. We only stopped at the Summit House. The view was phenomenal!!! Beer selection was the best we've seen among the three places we stopped. Food selection seemed similar to Red Pine but we didn't really look at it much to judge quality/pricing, etc...
That about covers it. My buddy upgraded his timeshare to a 4 bedroom corner unit so it looks like we might be doing this every other year, which I won't complain much about. I'll be back next year.
Side note: The snowboard shop on the Canyons resort side (A Sweet Ride) has some pretty sweet boards on sale for great pricing. I saw the Proto HD for $329 (brand new, I think they had a 152 and a few larger sizes), a Burton Fish for the same price, and a couple other boards as well. If I hadn't just spent money on brand new boots I would have taken that Proto HD home with me.