Last weekend I had the opportunity to test our new Ski and Ride School product at Park City, the Guided Mountain Experience, and let me rave to you about it for a moment! At the end of the day, I skied away with more confidence in my ability to conquer terrain, as well as a better understanding of how impressively huge this mountain is. Essentially this guided mountain experience lets a ski instructor take you all over the mountain, giving you a tour of the vast, diverse terrain while they watch your ski technique and offer professional tips and tricks to enhance your experience. Let me explain to you why I wanted to take this tour, and how easy it was to sign up:
I consider myself an “expert” level skier. I frequent the double blacks, though I do really enjoy all levels of terrain. This is, in part, thanks to my childhood growing up in a ski town with a father whose livelihood revolved around the mountain as a ski instructor. To this day, he says to me “you should take advantage of all your mountain’s ski school has to offer, and take a class with one of their instructors”.
Up until now, that always bruised my ego. I thought: If I can ski on double black diamond trails, then my skiing is perfectly fine! And besides, isn’t Ski School just for beginners? But skiing and snowboarding are very technical sports. To really get the most out of these action sports, it’s those tips and tricks that a certified instructor has that will really make the difference in your skiing ability at ANY level, from beginners to experts. And while the Mountain Guide Experience is a program housed through the mountain’s Ski School department, it is far from your average ski lesson. In fact, I wouldn’t classify it as a lesson at all. More like a mountain tour, with someone who knows the trails blindfolded and can make you feel like the next Ted Ligety, Shawn White, Kelly Clark, or Picabo Street (minus the racing gates and Superpipe).
Let me also digress for a moment; visiting a new mountain is an overwhelming experience. When you are unfamiliar with the terrain, it can be frustrating to have no idea where to even begin! It can be mentally exhausting to feel the need to map out every single run. So here is an opportunity to have someone take you around all 7,300 skiable acres, up all 3,200 vertical feet, through the trees, down the bowls, on freshly groomed runs, into secret powder stashes… you get the idea. It is catered to YOUR skiing ability and likes.
My guide really gave me the most out of the experience by asking what kind of skiing I typically enjoyed. Personally, I do enjoy a bit of everything but do struggle on moguls. I confessed my weakness, and said I would love him to give me advice if that was possible. He said to me, “anything is possible!” and off we went. My guide and I started on the Park City Base Area side, starting with a warm-up run, and then getting down to business. He took me on Willy’s Run, a steep black diamond that is occasionally groomed and we started out with some slow, controlled turns. On a steep pitch like that, that is harder to do than it sounds! But right away, the guide noticed that I struggle to make my turns flow and transition smoothly. With a minor comment and demonstration, he showed me how to dig into my edges at an appropriate time, and ever since then I have noticed an improvement!
Next we shot up McConkey’s Express, clicked our skis off, and hiked up Pinyon Ridge so that we could drop into O-Zone, a fun bowl that is full of fresh snow on a powder day, and a bump skier’s paradise on the days that follow. My instructor was very high-spirited along the way, and told me this was where I would perfect my bump skiing. Thanks so his observation and critiquing, I did just that! He really helped me develop my turns through the mounds. I was impressed by the way he chose to give me this experience of hiking up the mountain, as this is something I have never known a ski instructor to be able to do. And I should mention here that I was all for it- the instructor was careful to give me foresight into our route traversing the mountain, and if there was anything I was uncomfortable with, he had a backup plan for other options. Similarly to this experience on O-Zone, we also went up Ninety-Nine 90 Express over on the Canyons Village side and slowly worked our way through the buildup of moguls on 94 Turns.
By the end of the day, I had been all over the mountain. This place is incredible, let me tell you. I saw views like I had never seen before, and think I rode up the majority of Park City’s 41 lifts. This experience was incredibly beneficial to me, the “stubborn expert skier”, because skiing with someone who knows the mountain so well, and knows how to observe ski techniques, was really a dynamic duo. I highly recommend this to anyone, of any skiing/riding ability. Though I asked my guide to show me the fun, difficult terrain, I know they also gear their tours to beginner levels as well. Park City has some awesome green and blue trails, let me tell you!
You can find information on the Guided Mountain Experience on Park City’s website here. In short, here is some information on the tour options:
- The Guided Mountain Experience can accommodate multiple students
- Full Day 9:00 a.m. 4:00 p.m.: can have up to 6 guests.
- Half Day Morning 9:00 a.m. to noon: can have up to 6 guests
- Half Day Afternoon 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.: can have up to 6 guests
I had an experience of a lifetime out there on the slopes. My guide did an amazing job to ensure I was seeing everything this mountain has to offer, and helping me improve my skiing along the way. Do yourself a favor and book an experience!
By: Rachel Buhler
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