Park City Doesn't Have a Ski Week — Here's What We Do Instead

The setup: why this matters more for ski-team families

Charlie's on Park City Ski Team. She's nine, she races, and February-March is the meat of the U10 GS schedule. Wyatt's on the same club but in the freestyle/jumping track because he is six and physically incapable of choosing the safer line. So when President's Day rolls around with no ski week wrapped around it, what we lose isn't beach time. It's training time. Race-prep time. New-mountain time.

And, frankly, the kind of long-weekend rhythm that makes a ski-racing kid actually rest. Three days isn't a real reset.

The hack: pull two days the week before

Here's what we do, and it works. We take Charlie and Wyatt out of Weilenmann the Thursday and Friday before President's Day weekend. That gives us a five-day stretch (Thu-Mon) and we leave town. Weilenmann is, blessedly, fine with this. I email both teachers in early January. The kids bring workbooks. Wyatt mostly draws snow gondolas in his and gets a check minus on math fluency, but it's fine.

Some years we go to Sun Valley. Some years Big Sky. The choice depends on where Charlie's regional qualifier is — sometimes the trip doubles as a race weekend, which is a financial cheat code I'm not above using.

Why Sun Valley keeps winning

I am loyal to Sun Valley in a way that some of my friends find weird. Here's why:

• It's quiet. The crowds in February are not what they are in Park City. Lift lines are a fraction of what we deal with at home. Charlie can ski Bald all day and not stop in a chute.
• The Roundhouse. Lunch at Roundhouse on Bald Mountain is a non-negotiable for me. Tomato soup, a glass of something Alpine, the kids splitting a fondue, the windows fogging up with sweater steam — it's the lunch I think about all year. Sean rolls his eyes but he orders the same thing every time.
• It feels old. Sun Valley is the original. There's a quietness to its luxury that PC has lost (and I say that with love for our home mountain). Hemingway was here, the Harriman family built the lodge, and the place still smells like wood smoke in February.
• Direct flights from SLC are short. Hour and ten minutes. We can leave PC after carpool drop-off on Wednesday and be on Bald by Thursday lunch.

Why we sometimes pick Big Sky instead

Big Sky is a different animal. It's enormous — bigger acreage than even the Park City + Canyons combined — and that means new terrain. Charlie has been to PC's bowls a thousand times. The first time we put her on Lone Peak's tram, the look on her face was the look I want to bottle. Wyatt finds the terrain park there and is happy for three straight days. The lodging is more expensive than Sun Valley but the powder math is more reliable in February.

If Charlie has a regional qualifier in Bozeman, we pivot to Big Sky and turn the trip into a training-plus-race week. The hotel breakfast routine becomes a ritual: oatmeal for Charlie (race food), waffles for Wyatt (chaos food), my husband on his laptop for an hour while the kids and I go warm up.

The President's Day weekend at home

By the time we get back from the early trip, Park City's actual President's Day weekend is upon us — and we ski PC. We host a few of Charlie's teammates' families on Saturday. Sean does his pulled pork. We open something solid (last year was a 2017 Saxum from the cellar I've been hauling around since Palo Alto). It's the perfect cap to a long ski stretch, and the contrast — five days at Sun Valley or Big Sky followed by two days on home snow with home people — actually feels better than seven straight days at one mountain would.

The math the budget moms ask me about

People assume the early-trip approach is more expensive than just sitting tight for a week. It isn't, actually, because:

1. You're traveling in shoulder week, not President's Day week itself, so airfare and lodging both drop.
2. You're using two school days, not five — so you're not feeling the guilt of a full week of missed school.
3. If it's a race trip, you're already paying for the travel and lodging anyway. The vacation rides on top of the racing budget.

What the Bay Area moms do, for contrast

My Palo Alto friends with school-age kids do something called "Ski Week" because their districts give them a real one. They pile into Tahoe houses and overlap with each other and the kids race down the same Northstar runs in matching helmets. It's chaotic and lovely and I'm a little jealous. They will text me pictures of their group at the High Camp pool and I will respond with a picture of the Lone Peak tram queue, and we are both winning, but in different ways.