Day 1
After a good night’s sleep, we were up bright and early to begin our time in Park City. Our first order of business was to pick up our rental skis since we had accidentally left our skis in Denver on a previous trip. Our hotel was located right on the main square which had multiple ski rental shops. We ended up booking through Park City Sports and thanks to our prepaid reservations, we were in and out in under 15 minutes.
After picking up our skis we dropped them at the ski valet and went back out to the square to get some breakfast at The Corner Store, which was located adjacent to the hotel. My fiancé had the breakfast burrito while I had eggs, sausage, hash browns and toast.
After eating, it was time to hit the slopes. We changed into our ski gear, picked up our skis from the valet and were on the mountain just after 10:30. The snow was still falling from the night before and we skied for a few hours before taking a break for lunch. To maximize our ski time, we just grabbed a quick sandwich in the room before heading back out for the afternoon.
After skiing for a few hours in the afternoon we stopped back at the hotel, showered, and changed before heading out for dinner. Park City offers a free bus service that runs to a variety of areas in town. The bus stop for the mountain village was about 1000 feet from our hotel and after making the walk over, a bus arrived to take us downtown. After getting dropped off at the downtown transit center, we took a stroll down Main Street in search of some dinner. While walking, we came across the No Name Saloon which had been recommended to us by some folks we met skiing on the mountain earlier that day.
We were fortunate enough to grab a seat as soon as we walked in as the restaurant was open seating and first come first serve. The restaurant had an eclectic vibe and was extended across three levels of an old building downtown. The top level also had an open-air rooftop deck which had some great views of Main Street. For starters, I had an old fashioned while my fiancé had a local brew accompanied by some loaded tater tots. For dinner, I had the fish and chips while she had a bison burger. After dinner, we walked around the downtown area for a bit before returning to the hotel to rest up for another day of skiing.
Day 2
For our second day, we managed to make it up and on the mountain by 10:15a. After skiing for a couple of hours we took a break for lunch and, after dropping our skis off at the valet, we headed over to Baja Cantina for some fuel. Wanting to maximize our ski time we ordered drinks and food as soon as our waiter came by. A couple of coronitas, tostadas for me and quesadillas for her and we were back on the slopes. It wasn’t as good as the food back in Texas, but for a quick mountainside meal it did the trick.
That night we didn’t want anything too fancy after skiing all day, but we wanted to find something good and settled on Buona Vita which was located just across from Town Lift on Main Street. As we ended up downtown about 30 minutes before our reservation, we headed around the corner to grab a drink at Butcher’s Chop House. The bar had a very warm and inviting atmosphere and we settled in to enjoy our beverages.
After paying our tab we headed over to Buona Vita where we had an absolutely fantastic meal. I mentioned to the waiter that I was trying to decide between the gnocchi and the carbonara and he offered to make a carbonara style gnocchi which turned out to be amazing. After dinner, we finished off with a tiramisu and Irish Coffee before calling it a night.
Day 3
For our last day in Park City, we wanted to squeeze in a few final runs on the mountain. The Marriott granted us “late” checkout at noon, so we had a chance to ski a bit before we had to be back for checkout. Thankfully, with all of the snowmaking and grooming they had done during our visit, they were able to open up a few more runs and lifts for our last day. After returning our skis and checking out, we caught the free shuttle back into town for lunch as the hotel allowed us to leave our car in the garage until around 4:00.
The bus dropped us off right in front of the High West Distillery and Restaurant and we were promptly seated. We started with the whiskey tasting but, thanks to some odd Utah liquor laws, we could only taste two at a time. After our tasting we started with a pretzel before splitting the schnitzel for lunch. After lunch, my fiancé wanted to go shopping and thankfully we managed to get out of town without too much damage being done. We took the bus back to the hotel, grabbed the car and headed back down the mountain to Salt Lake City.
With a late flight we had a few hours to kill and so we decided to check out downtown Salt Lake City. We made the 45-minute drive down from the mountain and found a parking lot on the northwest side of Temple Square. The LDS church is headquartered in Salt Lake City, but I had no idea what a massive operation it was. They have a large conference center and massive office building along with the SLC temple that was undergoing a serious renovation. Aside from some folks visiting the LDS buildings in and around Temple Square, downtown was almost void of people and most of the shops and restaurants were closed. We did manage to find a bar open downtown and stopped in for a beer and to warm up.
After three wonderful days in Utah, our trip was coming to an end. We gassed up the rental as we were leaving downtown and 15 minutes later we were pulling into the rental car return at Salt Lake City International to catch our Delta flight home.
