If you ride terrain parks, Park City Mountain Resort is the place to be. The other ski areas in Utah simply can’t compare in terms of volume, variety and technical difficulty of features.
After the area hosted the first Olympic superpipe event, this mountain caught the world’s attention. Its reputation has done nothing but continue to grow since then. It is almost unusual to see a ski or snowboarding film these days that doesn’t have a short session from there. This mountain is not a professionals-only playground, though. It has elements for everyone.
Pick ‘n’ Shovel is the mountain’s beginner and intermediate park, and access to it is easiest off the Three Kings Lift. Like the rest of the mountain, the features change. But on any given day, the top low-angle section will have about six to eight different boxes that are pretty easy and range from 4 inches to 2 feet wide.
In general, the lower you go, the harder it gets, but it is still pretty mellow compared to other parks.
If you’ve honed your skills and are ready to step it up a bit, Jonesy’s off the Bonanza Hi-Speed Six-Pack Lift is a logical next move. Be wary of the first two jumps, and bypass them if you don’t feel comfortable. The first is a 40-foot gap, and the second is a massive 50-foot step-up that requires immense speed.
Below these are some more boxes and rails that are more complicated than Pick ‘n’ Shovel. This park finishes out with a set of three doubles with 20- to 30-foot gaps.
If you have these dialed, then it’s time to break out the big guns. Payday Jib and King’s Crown comprise the gnarliest hits on the mountain. Halfway down, the name changes, but if you start at the top, you would never know the difference. The boxes are sick, the jumps are huge and it’s simply a blast.
The top starts with a rainbow box that is about 10 feet high. Although it’s pretty easy to slide, this is not really something you want to fall off of. As you keep dropping, the features keep coming. They alternate from kickers to rails then back to kickers, but the smallest jump around is a 40-foot gap, and all the booters have steep lips that pop like mad.
If you have no interest in air time, there are trees, standard groomers and some boot-pack accessible inbound steeps, but they are not the mountain’s high point.
Like any other mountain in the Wasatch range, this place is packed on Saturdays. The rest of the week is pretty reasonable and the Six-Pack lifts are quick.
I’ll be honest — this area has more than 3,000 acres of accessible terrain, but the No. 1 reason to ski or board here is the parks. Hype can disappoint sometimes, but this mountain lives up to its reputation.