43 / 92
intervalworld.com
INTERVAL WORLD
■
Issue 2, 2019
41
Take a break from all
the action and stroll
Historic Park City,
where more than 100
shops and 50 bars and
restaurants line the
snow-capped streets.
Erik Isakson/Getty Images; Don Miller/Getty Images
Skis are on the roof, Johnny Cash is walking the line
on the radio, and there’s hot coffee in the console.
The drive to Park City Mountain’s first entrance is 25 minutes from my
garage door in Salt Lake City, and today I’m counting every second.
Last night, a monster winter storm passed through and left a 12-inch
carpet of fluffy, dry Utah powder: the Greatest Snow on Earth, as pro-
claimed by my license plates. Like so many Wasatch storms, it quickly
cleared out, and I’m racing to a perfect-powder day under a bluebird sky.
I crank the engine, step on the gas, and start plotting my pow-
der plan. It’s essential to have strategy on a powder day at Park City
Mountain ski resort — or on any day, really. It’s the largest ski and
snowboarding area in the U.S. With 7,300 acres of skiable ter-
rain, its only rival on the continent is its Canadian cousin, Whistler
Blackcomb, which boasts more than 8,000 acres.
Park City Mountain has four base areas, one high-speed gondola
connecting its two halves, and 41 lifts accessing more than 300 trails—
and that’s just counting those that are labeled on the trail map. Today, I
choose Town Lift. It’s a back-pocket trick I deploy sometimes, but it is
a gamble. It’s farther up the road (the last of the four base areas as you
travel up the resort from Interstate 80), requires a throwaway-run ski to
get to the good stuff, and is a slow lift. Yet all these drawbacks mean
nobody will think of it.