# The New Park City/Canyons



## biggator (Dec 29, 2015)

Anyone else ride the new combined resort yet?

I rode there last weekend. My take:
They still don't QUITE have their act together. Lots of 'I don't know' from the staff.

Pretty much ALL terrain parks moved to PCMR - only one left at Canyons (the big one). Was looking for the small one (10yo kid and old, busted guy) and the staff couldn't tell us which one.

It's a bit of a pain in the ass to get back and forth riding.. and there is no resort shuttle, you have to take city buses (free). Pink or Lime line will get you back and forth.

Food is way more expensive this year. The new Miner's Camp lodge (by the connecting gondola) is good, but REALLY expensive. It was about $50 for 3 of us to eat a small lunch.

Ski/Snowboard school is just stupid expensive now. Lift/rental/lesson for a 5yo was about $260/day. That's nuts.

Lift tickets, if you're not staying there, are $122/day - with no break for multiple days. ouch.

The new gondola is beautiful.

They still take great care of everything - super nice resort.. but it's getting crazy expensive.

--
Just thought I'd report back here - in case anyone cares.


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## bghozali (Feb 9, 2016)

Man I came here just looking for this.

Going to Park City for the first time this year. I've always only gone for powder or groomers while snowboarding before and I'd classify myself as an intermediate snowboarder. Took about a 7 year break and rode for a day last year, surprised and how fast I picked it back up.

Long story short, heading to Park City/Canyons in Feb with a friend and now I want to start picking up easy step up jumps, go over flat boxes, etc... Just fun stuff that is a tad less risky than big air. It's a bummer to know that there's no small park anymore (or if there is one, that it's hard to find).

I managed to get lift tickets for ~$380 (4 day out of 7). Trick is to book ahead of time online and don't start on a weekend if you can help it. The same ticket from Sunday to Sunday was $440, and Monday to Monday was $380. Ridiculous.

Food, I sort of expected to be pricey... Vail and what not. As long as I can get a beer and burger/sandwich in for ~$25 I'll be okay. 

Was it a pain getting across from the Park City to Canyons side at all? This is my first time riding a resort with two boundaries. Usually I head over to Jackson hole and just ride the massive tram all the way to the top. 

Which one is the new gondola you mentioned, is it the connecting one (Quicksilver)?

Thanks for the post btw!


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## biggator (Dec 29, 2015)

Where are you staying over there? Canyons or PCMR side?

Yes - the new gondola is the Quicksilver which connects the two. We did Canyons->PCMR but took the bus back. The problem with the way back (and this was a problem from that side of Canyons before) is that there's really only two runs that will get you back to Red Pine.. one is a nasty/icy double blue and the other is a REALLY flat cat track which is no fun on a board.

We found out later that the beginner park is 'little kings' which I think is over by the Bonanza lift. Neff Land is a fair bit bigger which is off of King Con or Eagle lifts. My 10yo saw it and went 'nope'... but there was some stuff in there that didn't look too scary and I probably would have hit it if I was alone. FYI - the trail map still shows Pine Draw over at Canyons - it's not there.

If you're over on the Canyons side - we found a fun little run that I'd recommend.. over off the Saddleback lift - there's a trail off Kokopelli called 'Hurricane Alley'. It's on the trail map, but it's NOT marked by signs.. you have to go off the side of Kokopelli to get to it (depending on where you go, it's about 30' down the embankment off the right side.. usually deep powder). Once you're there, it's like riding an old-school skatepark through the woods. Not a particularly hard run, but a TON of fun.


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## jjb7733 (Feb 1, 2014)

Just went last weekend, got stuck on tombstone for about 30 min while they struggled to get the generator going


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## biggator (Dec 29, 2015)

jjb7733 said:


> Just went last weekend, got stuck on tombstone for about 30 min while they struggled to get the generator going


On a windy/cold day, that would really suck. Well, 30min on a lift sucks anyway.


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## jjb7733 (Feb 1, 2014)

biggator said:


> On a windy/cold day, that would really suck. Well, 30min on a lift sucks anyway.


Luckily it was warm & sunny and fun people to talk to on our chair


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## bghozali (Feb 9, 2016)

I see the 3 kings terrain park near the base of PCMR, but I can't spot little kings on it, and I see Neff Land off of Eaglet lift. Need to check that out on day 2 probably. Day 1 will be an accelerated learning curve day, and probably to explore the mountains at slower speed and find good runs.

Thanks for the tip on Kokopeli, sounds like a blast. Trail map shows it to be in a cluster of trees too so that should be nice. I don't go looking for hard runs in general. I like surfy/skatey runs, so what you described sounds like the best thing ever. That being said, I am looking for a bit more of a "thrill" without the "I might kill myself or break my hip bone" aspect... hence getting into jibbing and what not. I'm super excited. First season riding my own board too!


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## biggator (Dec 29, 2015)

bghozali said:


> I see the 3 kings terrain park near the base of PCMR, but I can't spot little kings on it, and I see Neff Land off of Eaglet lift. Need to check that out on day 2 probably. Day 1 will be an accelerated learning curve day, and probably to explore the mountains at slower speed and find good runs.
> 
> Thanks for the tip on Kokopeli, sounds like a blast. Trail map shows it to be in a cluster of trees too so that should be nice. I don't go looking for hard runs in general. I like surfy/skatey runs, so what you described sounds like the best thing ever. That being said, I am looking for a bit more of a "thrill" without the "I might kill myself or break my hip bone" aspect... hence getting into jibbing and what not. I'm super excited. First season riding my own board too!


Sounds like you have to hit Hurricane Alley - my 10yo and I hit it 5 or 6 times (she found it first).. it's definitely surf/skate.. like a natural halfpipe through the woods but nothing that's going to get you in trouble at all. It then dumps you out on to a cat track that takes you over to High Meadow (the big green beginner run) which actually has a little fun tree section on the left heading down (labeled 'woodchuck' on the map), or a really mini halfpipe to play in on the right.

Little kings is ALL the way left on the trail map - look for the bonanza lift and follow down to the left.


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## bghozali (Feb 9, 2016)

biggator said:


> Sounds like you have to hit Hurricane Alley - my 10yo and I hit it 5 or 6 times (she found it first).. it's definitely surf/skate.. like a natural halfpipe through the woods but nothing that's going to get you in trouble at all. It then dumps you out on to a cat track that takes you over to High Meadow (the big green beginner run) which actually has a little fun tree section on the left heading down (labeled 'woodchuck' on the map), or a really mini halfpipe to play in on the right.
> 
> Little kings is ALL the way left on the trail map - look for the bonanza lift and follow down to the left.


Found it. Will keep both in mind when I'm there last week of Feb. 

Oh, and I have a friend hooking me up with his timeshare in Canyons Resort, ski in ski out I believe. This will be the fanciest boarding trip I'll ever have been on hahahaha. Supposedly they'll also store your board and dry boots for you, swanky.


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## biggator (Dec 29, 2015)

bghozali said:


> Found it. Will keep both in mind when I'm there last week of Feb.
> 
> Oh, and I have a friend hooking me up with his timeshare in Canyons Resort, ski in ski out I believe. This will be the fanciest boarding trip I'll ever have been on hahahaha. Supposedly they'll also store your board and dry boots for you, swanky.


You'll love it. I've been there a bunch of times.. have stayed in 3 of the hotels at the Canyons base area. I like the Sundial (walk out, get coffee, get on lift). 

Oh, PCMR has some stuff lit up at night, too.. worth going over there for some night fun.


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## bghozali (Feb 9, 2016)

Any places that I need to hit in town? Does Park City have any good breweries?


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## biggator (Dec 29, 2015)

I'm always there with kids.. so typically hitting kid-friendly places.

I've been told that High West Distillery is good - haven't been myself.

For good, cheap mexican - Loco Lizard Cantina is a favorite (out towards the highway.. kimball junction)

There's a TON of stuff in town... and a lot out at kimball (though less cool/trendy)


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## kirbster (Jan 25, 2012)

Wasatch Brewery is at the top end of Main Street. Good food and good beers. Draft beer in Utah is still 4%, but bottles are full strength. Polygamy Porter on Nitro is delicious even at 4%. 
If you like IPA the Squatter Hop Rising is a great DIPA. They have a brew pub by Prospector Square, but we never made it over there.


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## BarrettDSP (May 10, 2009)

biggator said:


> I'm always there with kids.. so typically hitting kid-friendly places.
> 
> I've been told that High West Distillery is good - haven't been myself.
> 
> ...


I did a solo trip out last year and taking the family(wife, kids 3 and 6 and in laws) this year for Spring Break. The 6 year old is a good skier for his age so he is set skiing all day and is really looking forward to night skiing. Trying to find some stuff for the 3 year old to do in town, got any suggestions? I know what is at the base and I saw a tubing hill(Gorgoza park I think) close that also has some mini-snow mobiles that the 6 year old would like but looking for a few more things. I know downtown SLC has some good stuff for kids but if there is anything closer that would be better.

Also, some of us would like to do a snowmobile tour, got any recs on a good company to go with? Seems like Thousand Peaks is the best per Trip Advisor.


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## biggator (Dec 29, 2015)

BarrettDSP said:


> I did a solo trip out last year and taking the family(wife, kids 3 and 6 and in laws) this year for Spring Break. The 6 year old is a good skier for his age so he is set skiing all day and is really looking forward to night skiing. Trying to find some stuff for the 3 year old to do in town, got any suggestions? I know what is at the base and I saw a tubing hill(Gorgoza park I think) close that also has some mini-snow mobiles that the 6 year old would like but looking for a few more things. I know downtown SLC has some good stuff for kids but if there is anything closer that would be better.
> 
> Also, some of us would like to do a snowmobile tour, got any recs on a good company to go with? Seems like Thousand Peaks is the best per Trip Advisor.


Canyons has a great daycare w/ ski lessons.. my youngest (now 5) did it when she was just shy of 3.. LOVED it. It's basically regular fun daycare.. and they take them out one by one to do a private 1-hr lesson. Not cheap, but the kids have a blast.

I've heard about the tubing place.. supposed to be fun. Not sure about the snowmobile tours. They used to do sleigh rides from the Canyons base area.. probably still do.


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## bghozali (Feb 9, 2016)

Sweet! Thanks for all the recommendations.


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## bghozali (Feb 9, 2016)

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.


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## biggator (Dec 29, 2015)

Thanks for the update.. glad you liked Hurricane Alley.. when the snow is good, that's a blast.

I wish Pine Draw had been open when I was there.. no idea why it wasn't. I'm still just a park beginner.. but I'm trying (probably stupid at my age, but I'll never stop).


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## BarrettDSP (May 10, 2009)

Thanks for the reviews. I'll be out there last week of march with my wife and kids and we plan to hit Gorgoza Park on our rest day. I have a 6 and a 3 year old. Did any of your kids to the mini-snowbiles there and if so did they enjoy it? On the tubing, would they let an adult go down with a kid in there lap? I don't think my 3 year old will be willing to go by himself.


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## bghozali (Feb 9, 2016)

BarrettDSP said:


> Thanks for the reviews. I'll be out there last week of march with my wife and kids and we plan to hit Gorgoza Park on our rest day. I have a 6 and a 3 year old. Did any of your kids to the mini-snowbiles there and if so did they enjoy it? On the tubing, would they let an adult go down with a kid in there lap? I don't think my 3 year old will be willing to go by himself.


I'm the uncle... the kids are my best friends  (also happen to be 3 and 6)

Neither of his kids did the mini snowmobiles, so can't comment on that. As far as I know, everybody needs to have their own tubes. They have smaller tubes for kids shorter than 42" and it fits pretty well. You are allowed to go down as a group and the leash on the tubes make it pretty easy to stay as close as you want to each others tubes.

The kids did end up hanging around the tube merry go round though and they enjoyed that, but the 6 year old got bored and started joining us back on the top hill. Oh yeah, not sure if you saw - they have 2 hills/ramps/chutes. The lower set is open to everybody, the higher set is only open to people 42" or taller.


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## BarrettDSP (May 10, 2009)

Thanks for responding back, that helps with our planning.


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## bghozali (Feb 9, 2016)

You're welcome


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