Park City began as a silver strike, not a ski town. In 1868, soldiers prospecting the high canyons of the Wasatch Back struck ore in the hills above what is now Main Street, and within a decade the camp had become one of the richest silver districts in the American West. The Ontario Mine, bought by mining magnate George Hearst in 1872, proved so productive that it helped underwrite the fortune behind a future newspaper empire. By the 1880s the boardwalks of Park City Main Street were crowded with thousands of miners — Irish, Cornish, Chinese, and Scandinavian among them — and the churches and boarding houses that served them. A catastrophic fire swept the business district in 1898, but the town rebuilt quickly in brick and stone, and many of those storefronts still line Main Street today.
Then the silver ran out. By the 1950s the mines were shutting down and Park City was sliding toward ghost-town status, its population a shadow of the boom years. Skiing brought it back. When the Treasure Mountains resort opened above town in 1963, its first skiers rode up through the mountain itself — taken in on an old mine train and lifted to the surface by an ore hoist before a proper aerial tram was built. The economy turned from ore to powder, and today two major resorts anchor the town: Park City Mountain, the largest ski resort in the United States, and Deer Valley, one of the last American resorts to ban snowboarding and stake its name on polished, ski-only luxury.
Park City sits at around 7,000 feet on the drier, eastern side of the Wasatch crest — the stretch locals call the Wasatch Back — about 35 miles east of Salt Lake City up Parley's Canyon on Interstate 80. The same storms that bury the Cottonwood Canyons spill over the ridgeline here, giving the surrounding bowls their famously light, dry snow. Below town to the south, the Heber Valley opens up around Midway and the vintage trains of the Heber Valley Railroad, while Jordanelle State Park holds its reservoir in the basin between them. Old Town clusters tight along Main Street's slope; newer development spreads north toward Kimball Junction and the Canyons side of the mountain.
Two events made the modern town's reputation. The Sundance Film Festival, founded by Robert Redford, takes over Park City every January, turning the historic core into screening rooms, press lounges, and a ten-day crush of filmmakers and crowds. Then the 2002 Winter Olympics came to Utah: Park City and Deer Valley hosted alpine and freestyle events, while neighboring Utah Olympic Park staged the ski jumping, bobsled, and luge on tracks that still run today. Between the marquee events it is a year-round resort town — the Egyptian Theatre and the galleries and restaurants of Main Street, the Town Lift that carries skiers straight up from the street, the High West distillery a few doors down, and a summer trade in mountain biking, farmers markets, and concerts.
Most visitors arrive through Salt Lake City International Airport, only a 35-to-40-minute drive away — among the shortest airport-to-slopes transfers of any major ski destination in North America. Winter is the headline season, with the resorts generally running from late November into April; midsummer draws a second crowd for hiking, an extensive lift-served bike network, and the cool air at altitude. That altitude is no small thing — visitors coming from sea level do well to hydrate and take the first day or two easy. For a quieter escape, the Mirror Lake Highway climbs east out of nearby Kamas into the Uinta Mountains, with the Samak Smokehouse a longtime last stop for jerky and provisions before the pavement reaches the high lakes.
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