We finally had the car all packed
and we started to pull out of the driveway on our way to Park City, Utah for
our 3rd annual Folan Family Ski Vacation. One house away and on
sounds the obnoxious iPhone ringtone. “Hello this is U.S. Airways, your flight
has been…cancelled.” Cancelled! Are you
kidding me?!? We have ski passes for the mountain tomorrow! This trip can’t be cancelled!
We were all speechless as we turned around immediately and headed back to the
driveway. Without even getting out of the car, dad called U.S. Air over his
Bluetooth in the car and we all listened in as the woman tried to help us find
an alternative to our winter wonderland destination. After much arguing, we were able to find a
flight that was leaving one hour ahead of our scheduled departure through
American Airlines. If you travel with the Folan’s, you will know one major
thing about family vacations – we are usually always running late to the
airport. So to tell us we are going to board a flight in one hour while still
driving 45 minutes to the Philadelphia airport and parking, checking luggage,
and going through security, I would say you were nuts. But we did it. We had to
ditch our direct flight for a layover in Arizona, but it did not matter. We
were on our way to one of my favorite surreal destinations where you feel like
you’re on top of the world.
Patrick and I had gotten GoPros for
Christmas and had not had time before New Year’s to use them. This was going to
be the moment – getting unbelievable footage on the mountain. But here’s the catch, I had no clue how to
work the fragile device. I could wing it, but who knows how that will turn out.
Unfortunately, that’s all I had time to do. We arrived to Park City, jumped in
a shuttle at 11:30pm local time (2:30am ET) and our bodies felt numb. But like
I said before, it did not matter because we were going skiing!
We were
staying in town where there is a lift right up to the mountain, but we didn’t
have our skis yet and we found out in the process that you cannot ride the town
lift if you are not strapped into skis or a snowboard, so we quickly caught the
next city bus to the ski lodge, grabbed our fitted skis, and FINALLY hit the
slopes much later than expected. But like I keep saying, it did not matter
because we were skiing! Because of the
commotion with our flight, I was not able to set up the GoPro for that first
day of skiing at Park City, but I made it a mission to get that thing ready for
filming when we went to The Canyons the next day. The next dilemma I encountered – only 16
minutes of memory available on my memory card, but we ski for at least 4 to 6
hours a day. Oh boy this is going to be a nightmare picking which runs to film
and which to ignore.
One of the greatest things about
Park City is its accessibility and public transportation. Like I said, we
stayed in town where all the restaurants and shops are located, so we could walk
to all our dinners, and leisurely stroll through the town and people watch at
night. It was great. Also, you can get to at least three major mountains just
by jumping on the free city bus, with your ski gear already on, even your ski
boots. It’s the most ideal way to travel to a ski mountain. Door-to-door
service. And finally, I whipped out the GoPro.
One of the cool things that’s
unique to the Canyons is their Orange Bubble. It’s a temperature controlled
cover that shields the people on the lift chair from any snow without having to
take off your skis and jump on a Gondola. It also goes super fast. Needless to say, this had to make the cut in
my GoPro footage. Our Orange Bubble ride was great. The four Folans sitting
together, ready to finally begin our first full day (second actual day) of Utah
skiing. The Canyons is known for its size. An amazing quality is that there can
be 20,000 people on the mountain at one time, yet you still barely have to wait
in a lift line more than a minute. If you don’t think that’s amazing, then you
have never experienced the horror of ski lift lines. We had such an amazing time, ate the Cloud 9
Dinner all the way at the top of the mountain, and skied all day long. We wore
ourselves out, and by the time we made it home, we all could not get to bed to
take a nap quick enough.
On our third ski day, we went to
the exclusive Deer Valley resort. The
neat thing about Deer Valley is that it only allows skiers on the mountain. No
snowboards are allowed. It feels discriminatory, but it makes your experience
pretty awesome. The key is to get on the mountain RIGHT when it opens, because
they uniquely groom the trails specifically for skiers. Riding up that lift at
9:30am all I could see was that beautiful corduroy snow that makes a skier the
happiest person alive. We saw some beautiful houses along the trails, and had
another perfect ski day. It was not as sunny as the day before at The Canyons,
but again I got some fun footage on the GoPro.
Finally, on our last day, we
decided to head back to Park City, because it was accessible to us from the
Town Lift, which was right outside our apartment, and we did not have to jump
on a city bus. We ate breakfast at the café right under the lift, having our
fix of substantial ham and jalapeno omelets and big mugs of coffee. And we got
to hit the slopes for a final day. We
had been to Park City the year before, and these double black diamond bowl runs
where there is just powder and a steep hill that you have to carve your own
trail day were closed both years. My brother and I had wanted to try one so
badly. Today was our lucky day. One of
them was finally open for 2 whole hours today, and we were there. We took the
old two-seater lift up the mountain, glancing down at the fresh untouched powder
beneath us. It looked heavenly. I turned on the GoPro to start filming, it
didn’t matter if I used all 16 minutes of video on this run, I needed to
document this. It was an amazing run and we were exhausted by the time we made
it back to the lift. But we had to go again. As we were going up I asked my
brother, Patrick if my GoPro was blinking red (meaning it was filming) and he
said no. “No, no!” That means I missed that whole run. Even worse, the camera
was dead. So much for unforgettable footage! But we lived in the moment and
finished our amazing final day of skiing, savoring every moment on that
mountain before we had to let reality sink in again.
You might be asking yourself, “Only
four days of skiing, that does not seem like a long vacation.” Trust me when I
tell you, four days is plenty for your quads to feel like they are going to
explode off your leg! I enjoyed every minute of that final day of skiing, but
my legs thanked me when it was over. Like always, it was bittersweet to say
goodbye to Park City. My body was dead, but my adventurous self wanted to keep
exploring the vastness of the mountains with my partners in crime. Until next
time, Park City. There is no doubt I will be back to relive this amazing
fantasy vacation. But for now, I will piece together my GoPro film to relive
the memories until that time comes.
