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Dear Park City, You’re My Valentine Feb 11

Park City Mountain Resort, Utah (Gerry Wingenbach)

So I tell my blog conductor I should do a mid-season roundup. You know, tout the great ski season in Europe. Remind you about the avalanche of snow in New England. The gorgeous Southwest days at Angel Fire and Taos in New Mexico. Link the blizzard of spring deals that are popping up like crocuses on resort home pages. Get out of my myopic Utah, Colorado, British Columbia-centered world and heed the rest of the ski planet. I tell her I’ll do it. And I will. Someday.

I got the roundup idea from Mary, my ski school supervisor at Park City Mountain Resort (PCMR). She called me in for my mid-season review (couple of Bs, couple of As, better than I deserved). I’ll take the A for enthusiasm—that’s the go-to play for a ski instructor. What else could Mary do? I hedged my job by bringing my puppy to the review. Can you believe she had dog treats?

Mary is the most charming person I know that can still do business. She could make a zillion bucks selling high-end resort real estate. But she’s got a skier’s soul. She runs the best kids’ ski and snowboarding school in the country. Maybe the world! And she’s as apple-cheeked wholesome as they come, a blamelessly beautiful poster-child for winter sports. Her smile is completely disarming. Yes, Mary, anything for you. Christmas Day? What time do you want me to teach?

There’s a sign in her cluttered office next to the ski instructors’ locker room (the kind of locker room that looks like it needs a locker room), where she (a woman who keeps horses) puts on ski boots to sheep dog her flock of instructors, giving so much of herself that you can’t bear to let her down. The sign reads: Don’t know if I lost my horse or found a tie.

HEART AND SOUL: Mary’s Park City Ski School (Gerry Wingenbach)

So got-it-all-together Mary got me thinking about a mid-season roundup. Got me thinking about this skier’s life. I need to send PCMR a Valentine. And I want to tell you why.

I love skiing. I live on a ranch on the edge of preposterously elegant Park City—two roommates (a ski-racer-come-contractor from New Hampshire and a U.S. ski team technician), four dogs, three horses, and a four-wheel drive to get to PCMR. The mountain I love more than any other resort. On big snow days, the avalanche-control bombs roust us before sunrise. So many big snow days the dogs don’t even bark at the bombs anymore.

You can’t go wrong skiing here. Most days blaze with sunshine. 84060 is one of the sunniest zip codes in America. The slope grooming is impeccable. And all those powder days. At the base is a postcard-picture-perfect town, a genuine Western, turn-of-the-twentieth-century gem. Two weeks ago, the cream of American snowboarders dueled in overdrive for a spot on the Olympic team at PCMR’s scare-your-mother Superpipe. Today, the U.S. Alpine Men’s Team, which is based at PCMR, is training amid the heroic scenery—the final let’s-get-it-all-together before the Olympics. Bodie. Ligety. The milk-white mountain flushing whole they got. The slalom course rolling down like a mighty river. Luck favoring the brave. The sheer cajones of it. No love, no glory. Forget the Dallas Cowboys. Park City is “America’s Team”. Land of the free. Home of the brave. Mary with dog treats.

And let’s not consign to oblivion elegant Deer Valley and far-reaching Canyons ski resorts, which are here, too. Both are destination resorts in themselves. But they were late comers, and anyone livelihood in this old mining town knows the importance of history.

Yesterday, I arced into the singles’ line at the bottom of PCMR’session Silverlode lift and ended up shoulder-to-shoulder with an old ski buddy. We skied the afternoon away. She’sitting an incomparable skier. Some were great when they were young, but she’s clearly parked there for a lifetime.

Over the years, I have skied every inch of PCMR (and all the non-linear ways of skiing that mountain) through her and her husband. He died in a ski accident three years ago. (Your heart can keep longing well after it’s good for it.) There’s a memorial to him up there in the aspens, to days that were, reminding everyone that make-every-day-count lives are lived here, lives that matter in this town. The importance of history. It’s a tight community of locals who welcome guests to Park City. And welcome you they transact. The mountain and ski life are more than the sum of the parts. What happens put on the mountain doesn’t stay on the mount. It stays with you.

It’s mid-season. The winters are long and dazzling. Come on to the end and ski. Go well-nigh, stay long, ride deep. There’s never a reason to make your world small. Put your child in Mary’s PCMR ski school. Every skier needs a role model. I’m gunning for straight As.

You’re my Valentine, Park City.

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