Snowboarding in Park City

We took a long weekend and went snowboarding in Park City.

My brother was on Spring break and after he stayed in Seattle for a few days, the three of us went to SLC and met his GF who flew in from NY. You with me?

Brody in First Class

We stayed in a ski condo in Park City. It had all the comforts of home, plus a hot tub. We ate out two nights, but made breakfast and dinner one day.

Lauren Making Dinner

B and I went snowboarding the whole time, but Brody and Lauren dabbled in both boarding and tried the new, shaped skis. We all took lessons to work on our technique. Sometimes when I do something the same way for a long time, I get lazy. I wanted to improve and after we took lessons, I felt much more confident.

The snow was great. Not like what our instructor called "concrete snow" which is what he called our Seattle snow at Stevens or Snowqualmi pass. That comment actually made me feel self- conscious about our slushy frozen rain.

We went to Park City Resort to snowboard on the first day. There were no crowds and the runs were perfect for what we wanted. Brody had rented a board, so we stuck to "blue" runs. Lauren shot like a rocket down the mountain, B was faster than me and I just had fun. I worked on my turns and balance. Some of the runs flattened out between hills and we had to do what I call "cross-country snowboarding" when you haul-ass from one hill and just ride as far as you can on the flats. When you have to unclip one boot and push, that's when things get ugly.

We went to Canyons for the last two days. They had great runs as well. Our last run of the day took us 45 minutes to get from the top of the mountain to the base. I was so tired, I almost needed help getting my boots off.

Happy at Canyons

We all have racoon eyes from the windburn. My chin is peeling like I have a sunburn.

We hit the local Starbucks a couple times to refuel and connect with the outside world.

We had some good meals out. Everyone who works in Park City is a major ski bum. Our waiters all had goggle tan lines, flaky skin from being out in the wind and cold. Almost all the ski and snowboard instructors are from Australia. They come to North America for the winter and then go home to surf all summer... but now that I think of it, our winter is their summer, so I guess the go home and snowboard too.

Between the four of us, we discovered that while we paid about $100 per hour, our instructors only made $8 per hour. The best way to find and employ a happy instructor is to walk into any snowboard or sport shop and ask one of the "dudes" working there if they know of someone who can give you a lesson. You would need to offer them lift ($65 per day) plus whatever you wanted to pay them. If you offer them $10 per hour, for example, and they teach you for 2 hours, they get a free lift ticket for the entire day and make $20. If you buy the instructor lunch, you're still ahead by over $100!

The end of our story is that our plane from SLC to Denver left 2+ hours late and we missed our connection to Seattle. Everything was overbooked because of Spring Break, so the airline put us up in a hotel and gave us meal vouchers. I called my sister, who lives in Denver and we all had dinner together. It was great! This morning we caught our flight on time, despite the 6 inches of snow that had fallen the night before.

The trip successfully made me stop obsessing about my Japanese Garden. The snow was great and I got to see both my siblings.