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Page 2: From Miners to Movie Stars in Park City, Utah
By Tim Leffel

Pampering is a Growth Industry
Now Canyons has a heated chairlift you can ride to the top, with an orange bubble cover you pull down to keep you extra toasty. When I exit it with my PR host for the day at the resort, she's off in a flash and once again I have to haul ass down the mountain at full speed just to keep my ski companion in sight. Even on the mogul slope, which seemed like a good idea when I said yes, she bounces down the mountain like a pro. "Were you a ski racer before you took this job?" I ask her.

"No, I just had a lot of years of trying to keep up with my brothers."

When it's lunchtime we pop off our skis and enter a restaurant that is far fancier than I'm expecting at an elevation of 7,500 feet. Despite the humble name of Lookout Cabin, I dine on goat cheese and baby spinich rellenos with hominy succotash and move on to a beef shortrib ragout with winter vegetables and shaved parmesan. I see people with watches worth more than my car back home ordering with the carefree attitude of people who never really have to look at menu prices.

In the early 1980s, three things happened that transformed this part of the Rockies from a sleepy ski village to gathering place for the elite. The remaining mines shut down, a third ski resort opened (Deer Valley), and a little independent film festival chaired by Robert Redford had its first showings in Park City. Now the Sundance Film Festival is one of the premier movie launching pads of its kind in the world. Being a short flight from Hollywood, it's also the one drawing an outsized number of big-name directors, producers, and stars.

The stars and their entourages have just rolled out of town when I roll in and check into the chic 14-room Washington School House Hotel. "You can tell when Sundance is over because all the fur coats are gone," cracks one fellow guest. The whiff of big money is still strong though, from the Rolex clock and jewelry stores on the main street to the restaurant prices that are surely the highest in Utah.

I remark to Heidi about how ridiculously large some of the homes are as we look down from the chairlift at Deer Valley—I assume one of them is a condo complex until she corrects me that it's a single-family home. As part of her job she often takes out some of the owners and guests for a guided VIP experience on the slopes. "These aren't even second homes," she says. "A lot of times this huge thing is their fourth or fifth house. They use it once a year for a week."

Quiet Woods and Whiskey
I'm itching to see the real Rocky Mountains away from the excess for a while, to be in a place where trees outnumber $1,500 pairs of skis. So I head into the backcountry with a few other people on a snowshoeing trek with All Seasons Adventures. I've never lived far north enough to have a reason to strap on snowshoes and I feel more than a little awkward at first taking big steps with my feet far apart. After getting the hang of the extra appendages though it becomes second nature—just a walk in the woods, but on snow.

It's quiet out here in the forest, with just the crunching underfoot and a few birds singing. Not so long ago, this is what these mountains used to look and feel like for anyone intrepid enough to explore them. We still run into some mining equipment and storage buildings here and there in our circuit though, a reminder of the past before the fortunes were found above the ground instead of below. Our guide keeps trying out the steepest, most treacherous looking trail options "just for fun," but after days of testing my older muscles on miles-long steep ski slopes, I'm fine with taking the longer, more meandering routes to get where we're going.

Prohibition started early in Utah—thanks to the Mormons—so from 1917 to 1933 aspiring distillers got plenty of practice making their own booze. Utah still has some of the strangest alcohol laws in the country, enough to generate their own how-to guides for convention attendees in Salt Lake City, but they've relaxed enough to allow local microbrewers and whiskey makers to set up shop. One of the bestselling local beers is Wasatch's Polygamy Porter, with the slogan "Why have just one?"

I'm especially excited to check out High West Distillery and Saloon, a place that's in Park City proper, but can be reached at the end of the Quittin' Time ski trail coming down into town. It's billed as "the only ski-in gastro-distillery in the world." People pop off their skis and come inside to sample different batches or order cocktails like Dead Man's Boots or Spaghetti Western.

Before diving into dinner, I get a flight of whiskey to drink neat. The highlight is Double Rye, one that's won over spirits reviewers with its range of spicy notes from the rye and caramel finish from the rye and corn whiskey blended in. Others mix in bourbon or bourbon and Scotch, creating outcomes that are strange, but never boring. Sipping them under a wall of lights made out of mason jars, the whiskey taking the edge off my aching calves and hamstrings, all seems right here in the high west.

IF YOU GO
Park City is 36 miles from Salt Lake City airport, which has more than 600 daily flights from 94 cities. Ski resorts Park City Mountain, Deer Valley, and Canyons are all frequently in the top-10 favorite ski resorts in ski magazine readers' polls. Have rental gear delivered to your hotel via Ski Butlers to avoid crowds at the lodge bases. Visit the Park City History Museum to get background on the area and the Olympic Park visitors center to learn about the 2002 Olympics held here and see the still-operating training center. See more on the region at the Visit Park City website.

Editor Tim Leffel has won dozens of travel writing awards and is the author of multiple books, including the 5th edition of The World's Cheapest Destinations. See more at his Cheapest Destinations Blog or at his portfolio site TimLeffel.com.

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Related Features:
Western Canada Through the Eyes of a Child by Tim Leffel
A Different State of Mine in Canada's Yukon Territory by Bruce Northam
Nome and the Speed of Sound Through Materials by Edward Readicker-Henderson
Where is the Where? Hiking to the Horizon in Iceland by Lea Aschkenas

See more stories on USA travel destinations in the archives.