Park City and Deer Valley questions

B

berkshireskier

Active member
I'm going to be skiing in Park City and Deer Valley the week of February 16th (the President's Holiday and school vacation week) with my wife and 11-year old daughter. We'll be staying right in Park City, on Main Street, and plan to ski at PCMR and Deer Valley. My quesion is: What are the best options for getting discounted lift tickets that week. Our reservation company can get us about 10% off on tickets to PC and a smaller discount to DV. Are there any better deals available elsewhere (and I realize this is a popular and busy ski week for the resorts). Also, is it worth it to try to ski The Canyons while we're there? We're all fairly strong skiers with limited powder skiing ability. I've heard mixed things about The Canyons. Also, does anyone have any helpful hints on transportation options from the airport to PC?? We're are not planning to rent a car or SUV.
 
The Canyon Sports discounts (only available in SLC, not the Park City region) are a bit better than that 10% I think.

I've done this rant many times before, but anyone who can afford to stay in Park City can afford a car rental. If you are truly "fairly strong skiers" it borders upon negligence to fly to Utah and not ski a day or two at least in the Cottonwood resorts. Chances are you would enjoy Snowbasin as well. And if crowds become an issue during President's week, the car gives you an easy way to escape them.
 
berkshireskier":2cwih8s7 said:
Our reservation company can get us about 10% off on tickets to PC and a smaller discount to DV. Are there any better deals available elsewhere (and I realize this is a popular and busy ski week for the resorts).
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Any of the ski shops in Salt Lake City have these standard discounts:
Area / Resort price / Discount Price
The Canyons / $76 / $58

Deer Valley /$79 /$72

PCMR /$79 / $61
$158 (2 out of 7 days) $110 (2 out of 7 days)

These discounts are not available in Park City. So, if you're going to rely on hired transportation (there are several at the airport) to get to PC, it will be hard/impossible for you to stop at an SLC ski shop. At one time there was a ski shop in the airport right in the baggage claim area that both rented equipment and sold discounted lift tix. I don't know if they're still there as the airport has seen quite a bit of renovation recently.

You might also want to check into the Park City Silver Passport.

berkshireskier":2cwih8s7 said:
Also, is it worth it to try to ski The Canyons while we're there? We're all fairly strong skiers with limited powder skiing ability. I've heard mixed things about The Canyons.
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Yes, it has something for everyone.

berkshireskier":2cwih8s7 said:
Also, does anyone have any helpful hints on transportation options from the airport to PC?? We're are not planning to rent a car or SUV.
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See above. However, not having your own vehicle limits you if you want to sample one or more of the Cottonwood resorts, Snowbasin or Powder Mountain.

Here's the link to the transportation page on Parkcityinfo.com
 
Deer Valley is $47 for children and Park City is $52. If your daughter is in the 5th grade in school, or the right age to qualify, you can get a Ski Utah Fifth Grade Ski and Snowboard Passport for $15. We had the one from Utah and the one from CA when our son was in 5th grade. Free tickets may be blacked out at some resorts during President's week.

See http://www.skiutah.com/grade_school/fifth/

There are also free Deer Valley tickets available if you have a free day to go on Timeshare tour at The Canyons. There are people on Main St. in Park City who will arrange your tour. But if you buy a timeshare or lose a day you plan to ski, those free tickets are very expensive.
 
Thanks everyone for the advice on the lift tickets. I'm still not sure, Tony, whether to rent a car yet when in Park City. I was sort of shocked at how expensive a 6-day rental was for a 4-wheel drive vehicle in SLC (although you have a valid point about the car rental costs being a relatively small percentage of the overall cost of a ski trip). I would like to ski either Alta and/or Snowbird while I am there, but I'm not sure if my daughter (age 11) is going to up to skiing those tougher mountains. We may just end up skiing PC, Deer Valley, and maybe The Canyons for the week. Thanks again for the info.
 
The need for a 4WD while vacationing here is highly overrated. A FWD will serve just fine, and should you encounter a day when LCC and BCC have 4x4 restrictions simply park at the mouth of the canyon and ride the UTA bus up. You can find that kind of vehicle for rent around here for ~$140/week, which is probably cheaper than shuttling your whole family from the airport to Park City.

And FYI Alta has a ton of green and easy blue terrain, so you should probably reconsider your thinking on skiing Alta. Snowbird, on the other hand, has a distinct dearth of easy green and blue stuff and thus can be very intimidating to those with lesser skills.
 
Berkshire - if you do end up going over to Alta for a couple of days, then the Salt Lake Super Pass might work for you as well - $106 for adults for two days.

Hey tseeb - thanks for the heads-up on the 5th Grade Passport. My son is in 5th grade and we are heading out there for 4 days in March. That is a sweet deal. But why 5th grade only, I wonder? - I guess to get them (and their parents) to try a few different areas at a time when opinions are being formed about where they want to ski. Anyway, nice deal - thanks.
 
Many state ski area associations offer 5th Grade Passports, although they're not really intended for vacationers - Utah just happens to not restrict theirs to residents. They're a way to introduce youngsters to the sport, and typically encourage and/or require a paying adult to visit at the same time so it's a win-win proposition for all involved.
 
Thanks, Admin, and everyone else. I've called a few car rental places at the SLC airport and I didn't see any rentals as cheap as $140 per week. A full size car (really a mid-size car) would cost about $350 per week and a standard SUV rents for about $650 to $750 per week. I am going to look into the 5th Grade program in Utah. It seems like a good deal, if the ski areas honor it during the holiday week.
 
Check Enterprise or Hertz Neighborhood (off-airport) - we rented in a pinch at that rate for a few weeks in early December.
 
Try hotwire.com. I always manage to get an economy-size car for $15-18/day. I agree that renting an SUV is a waste of money.
 
Admin":1yhdhkuv said:
You can find that kind of vehicle for rent around here for ~$140/week, ...
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From who? At the airport?* Without using insurance company rates? :wink:
$350 / week is about right for a full-size car. Sure, the Hertz site and the others will quote $269, but that's without tax (16.30% - major ouch, since our sales tax is 6.25%) and without the "Airport concession fee recovery" (an additional 9.25% insult - ouch).

The lowest I found on an Expedia search was Advantage, at $275. However, I prefer to use real rental companies.

Don't forget that car rental coupons and discount codes are easy to find. Of course there are sites other than FatWallet.

*: Back in the day, as an east coast just out of college poor climbing bum , we'd scrap money together for the airfare and car rental, but we'd go for the off-site rental companies to save some money. After schlepping climbing and camping gear through multiple airports, we very early on decided the upcharge for renting at the airport far offset the hassle factor.
 
The full size car should be fine. During a big storm day just ski one of the Park City areas and do the ski commutes when the roads are clean.

While I agree that Alta has a suitable mix of low end terrain, I'd also recommend checking out Brighton, Solitude and/or Snowbasin especially if you're trying to avoid crowds.
 
Crowds? What crowds? Throughout the entire holiday period I never waited more than 5 minutes for a chair at Alta, and 90% of the time the lifts were ski-on.
 
Crowds? What crowds? Throughout the entire holiday period I never waited more than 5 minutes for a chair at Alta, and 90% of the time the lifts were ski-on.
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Feb break last year i never waited more than 5-10min at PC or DV.. The 6pack at the PC was the only lift that had a longish line.. Alta had no real lines to speak of that week too
 
We ended up at PCMR last week (intended to go to DV, but they were sold out by the time we got there), which is I presume the peakest of peak periods. We were advised by the staff to use the Eagle lift instead of Payday, which had a huge line. We waited about 15- 20 minutes in line at the Eagle, and when we finally got on, I was vowing never to come to PC again. But the line was only about 5 minutes on the next lift up the mountain (I forget the name), and after we got further up-mountain, we skied on the McKonkey, Pioneer, and Silverlode (or Motherlode) lifts the rest of the day with no lines at all. By the end of the day, I had a much more positive attitude towards PC, especially since the skiing was really excellent.
 
Ski Free the Day you Arrive:
Program called the Park City Quick START (Ski Today and Ride Today) Vacation. Visitors can take a morning flight from most airports in the US into Salt Lake City and ski for free at Park City Mountain Resort, Deer Valley Resort or the Canyons Resort the same afternoon. Here is a link with more info -
http://www.traverseridge.com/Ski_or_Ride_Free.html

Discounted lift tickets are at REI in Salt Lake City.

Good Luck
Deer Valley Condo Rental
 
I will be coming up on Tuesday, the 29th of January, and I am planning on using the Park City deal. Any recommendations on what mountain to ski on - PC, DV, or The Canyons?
We usually just ski the Canyon areas. We are all advance skiers and looking for something similar to Alta.
 
We are all advance skiers and looking for something similar to Alta.
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Jupiter chair at Park City has the most of that type terrain, plus the most snow by far as it's equidistant from Great Northern at Brighton and Park City's Summit House.
 
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