Deer Valley Ski Trip

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Last week Alex and I took off and met his parents in Utah for a long ski weekend at Deer Valley.

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We stayed at the Red Stag Lodge which is right at the base of Deer Valley. One of the best parts of a ski vacation where you stay right at the mountain is waking up in the morning, having a leisurely breakfast and then getting ready to go inside {instead of the car!} and slowly meandering to the mountain. We loved taking advantage of that!

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Donna and Stan took a ski lesson on the first ski day. It is always nice to take advantage of the great lesson programs to get their confidence and basics boosted. We saw tremendous improvements with Stan’s skiing this trip, which was really fun to witness.

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It was at Stan’s request that we returned to Deer Valley after our first ski trip together back in 2009. Deer Valley is known for its groomers and we enjoyed skiing them all! In addition to its groomers, Deer Valley is known as a luxury ski resort and caters to a fairly fancy clientele. One of the benefits of that is the on-mountain food selection is superb {and superbly expensive!} and the area is spectacularly gorgeous. One of the downsides, though, is dealing with entitled people who lack self awareness.

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While we were at Deer Valley, the resort was hosting the World Cup moguls and aerials competitions. We didn’t realize the events were taking place through the weekend, otherwise we would have made an effort to go out and watch them. It was exciting and eye opening to see aerials jumps {they launch you literally straight up in the air – terrifying!} and so fun to see the moguls course – all we wanted to do was ski one run down it!

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Donna and Stan conquered Pearl, a ski run that we had discovered back in 2009.

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We skied a lot of runs with Donna and Stan but broke off each day to explore different parts of the mountain together. It sure is different skiing at 9,000 feet elevation while being pregnant! I got really tired skiing the bump runs and on our last day I wasn’t feeling the icy conditions so I played it safe and parked it outside in the sun and ate a cheeseburger.

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One of my favorite parts of Utah and Deer Valley is the Aspen trees mixed in with the evergreens. We were lucky enough to see the evergreens covered in snow. The sun was out each day and the views from the mountain were unbelievably expansive. It felt like you could see forever!

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In addition to the skiing, we had a lot of great food!

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Our first meal was at the St. Regis Bar. After dinner we walked around the hotel and stumbled upon a s’mores bar! We helped ourselves and made some dessert 🙂

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One of our most enjoyable dinners was at Fireside Dining. It’s a ski lodge turned restaurant that features four fireplaces that serve different courses – raclette, stew, leg of lamb and dessert! The food and service were spot on, making this a really memorable meal.

20160207_041235206_iOSWe also went into Park City one night for dinner at High West, which is a bourbon distillery and saloon. Our meal was fantastic there, as well. The food was wonderful!

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We returned to the St. Regis Bar for apres ski on sunny Saturday afternoon and sadly did not have the five star experience we had expected. The weather and the view was about the only nice part of our time there.

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Before our dinner at Fireside Dining we took a little sleigh ride around the property.

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It’s nearly impossible for me to take a good photo of the town of Park City. It’s one of the cutest, quaintest ski towns I’ve been to and I’ve never managed to capture a photo to do it any sort of justice. In any case, we spent a couple hours on our last day touring the town before heading back to the airport. We had a great lunch at the Park City Delicatessen and I bought a new mid-warmth jacket from Marmot that will carry me nicely through the rest of the winter, I think, as my belly grows…

20160207_142356580_iOSAll in all, it was a wonderful time in Utah with Alex’s parents. We are very fortunate that they are willing to travel and meet us somewhere in the middle of the country and partake in a winter sport they know we love. Until next time, Utah…

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