Park City has been headlining US ski news for a few years now. It was, of course, already one of the world’s most famous ski towns and was the main venue for ski and snowboarding events at the Salt Lake City Olympics in Utah in 2002.
But it hit the headlines as, after a bitter legal fight and a few hundred million dollars spent, Vail Resorts managed to wrestle control of two of the city’s three ski areas and create the largest ski area in the USA as a result.
All this publicity has rather overshadowed Park City’s ‘other’ ski area, Deer Valley, which could be quite a good thing for people wanting to find a different bit of the resort town. Because until Park City got known for being the biggest area, Deer Valley had rather dominated the city’s reputation, famous for three things in particular: 1. Incredibly high service standards (for which it keeps winning ‘Best in North America’ awards from North Americans); 2. Being one of only three ski areas left in North America to ban snowboarders; and 3. Where Britain won our first-ever Olympic medal – a slalom bronze for Alain Baxter in those 2002 Olympics – only to have it unfairly taken from us in a drug abuse storm so serious it centres on a Vicks Sinex. Sadly no one with authority seems to have spotted the gross stupidity of this and given Alain the medal he won back.
But now with everyone obsessed with Park City Mountain (that’s the “new” big ski area, if you’re getting confused) you can enjoy Deer Valley (unless you’re a snowboarder of course) and avoid the crowds.
And enjoy it you will. Deer Valley is all about quality of experience at every level and in every aspect of the resort. Smiling staff greet you and carry your skis for you as you arrive, and they’ll happily provide any help or advice you need. Lift queues are rare, as are lunchtime queues for the restaurants which, by the way, serve spectacularly good food from the most basic food bar item to full gourmet lunches. The pistes are perfectly groomed, the lifts well-spaced on the mountain, and everyone is friendly and happy to talk.
There are ski runs perfectly suited to all abilities, even one called Trump, although I was told that even though the biggest vote in Utah was for the new president, this particular Trump was the name of an old mining claim.
When I first visited, as a younger man a few decades ago, I found this niceness all a bit annoying. The man who kept opening the door I needed to walk through wound me up. “Let me open my own door!” I thought, and I’m sure if I’d said that the answer would have been, “No problem, sir!” but he’d still have resisted the temptation to let it slam in my face. Now as an older man, I just like having the door opened for me.
I did ski Park City Mountain during my stay, but I enjoyed Deer Valley more. I just wish the IOC would give Alain his medal back. DeerValley.com
