Early in our marriage, my husband and I made a vow: Our future offspring would not suffer from "slope shame." Let me explain: I didn't learn to ski until I was a timid, self-conscious teenager, so I suffer acutely (still) from slope shame, the fear that I will wipe out dramatically in front of total strangers, even though I've become a quasi-competent skier. Our future offspring would not be so afflicted; our future offspring would be one of those miraculous mini experiments in gravity, bulleting down black diamonds unencumbered by poles and fear. But the only way to create a fearless creature is to expose her to high-altitude terrors at an early age. So when our daughter, Dee, turned 3, we figured it was time to go skiing.
We wanted to go somewhere with reliably good snow but didn't want to invest a lot of money in a vacation that could very well be a bust. (Dee, with her odd and abiding fear of socks, might refuse to even put on the boots.) So we decided on Park City, Utah, as our base camp. It's just 45 minutes from Salt Lake City, to which one can fly direct—and cheaply—from pretty much any large U.S. airport; we got there from New York City for about $300 each. Once in Park City, you don't need a car but can get around via an efficient public-transportation system that connects the three resorts: Park City Mountain Resort (PCMR), Deer Valley Resort, and the Canyons.
We committed Dee to three days of ski school at PCMR, because we had been told the resort was "right outside the door" from the hotel we'd booked on Main Street. The biggest possible challenge was selling our daughter on our vision of her future fearlessness. The propaganda machine kicked into gear weeks before our trip: Skiing would be funfunfun! But the first morning at ski school, she didn't have so much fun. She wept. Walking in ski boots made her miserable. So the teachers, a bunch of seasoned kid wranglers, suggested we give her an incentive to get on the slope and its "magic carpet" lift (an outdoor conveyor belt). We promised Dee a ride on the Alpine Coaster—a mini roller coaster located near one of the lifts—if she cooperated. She was on her skis by the afternoon. By day two, she was skiing down the slope alone, and by day three practicing her pizza stop and proselytizing to snuffling newcomers about the wonders of the magic carpet.
The pleasantly scruffy PCMR exuded an inclusive, low-key family vibe. Families, or portions of families, milled around the lodge; it was not uncommon to see one parent in unlatched ski boots minding a baby in a stroller while, presumably, the other parent skied the trails. Additionally, PCMR permits snowboarding, and what modern-day family can't boast at least one snowboarder among its ranks? This being the West—i.e., the land of intrepid, sporty people—a number of tiny children were already free-ranging down the mountain (PCMR features long beginner-level trails, so you can take your "ski wee" pretty far uphill), while others were attached to a set of reins controlled by a parent. I clung to my city-bound, haven't-been-skiing-in-a-decade lameness like a badge of honor—but it was also heartening to realize that our daughter might escape such lameness.
Each day, my husband and I skied from 9 a.m., when we dropped off Dee, until her pickup at 3 p.m. (though we did pop by occasionally to praise her extraordinary bravery for wearing socks and boots). At lunchtime, we sunbathed on the porch of the Summit House, enjoying its vertiginous airplane-window views. The Steely Dan–Elvis Costello–Led Zeppelin lift soundtrack made me feel like I was a teen again—but in a happy way. Also, the spiritual benefits of exercising in the midst of such shocking gorgeousness cannot be overestimated; I'd wager that after a long winter, the Utahans who ski every few days are far less gloomy than the most diligent yoga practitioner in New York. I experienced exaltation withdrawal after I got home.
During the late afternoons, after picking up Dee, we rode the Alpine Coaster and walked around Main Street. (Many ski towns are built-from-the-ground-up fakes: fake western, fake Alpine. Atypically, Park City was a real town—most of Main Street's buildings are from the early 1900s—before it became a tourist-centric one.) We also stumbled upon a lively opening party with lots of young kids and a band at the Kimball Art Center, for the exhibit "Bravo! The Tortilla Paintings of Joe Bravo"—literally, these were paintings on tortillas.
My one nagging worry was that, as much as we had liked PCMR, we'd failed on some basic tourist level by sticking to just one resort when the others were within such easy reach. Shouldn't we have skied Deer Valley (more of a country club, by all accounts, with ski valets and astonishingly good lodge food) or the Canyons (for badder-ass skiing) for a day, just for comparison's sake? But a sage fellow I met on the PCMR lift calmed my anxieties. Asked which Park City resort he preferred, he said, as we glided uphill under the cloudless sky with the mountain gleaming below us, "Wherever there's snow under my skis is the perfect place to be."
Next Page: Where to Stay
