Day 2: Park City and a Need for Speed

The most common follow-up question people asked when we told them we were flying to Utah for Spring Break was whether we ski. Alas, Dear Husband and I have gone a handful of times each in our lives, most recently at Seven Springs in the Laurel Highlands, PA. That day ended with near catastrophe, and since we both value having intact knee ligaments, we have decided not to ski again. However, my research uncovered a unique experience of speed on ice that would be easier on our joints: a bobsled ride!

In 2002 Salt Lake City and Park City hosted the Winter Olympics, and they will do so again in 2034. Utah Olympic Park in Park City now has two small museums and both free and paid outdoor activities year-round.

The Alf Engen Ski Museum on the first floor requires some patience to get into, because many of the initial displays feel very "insider"--a who's-who of famous skiers, trainers, and organizers unknown to non-skiers. However, the Barbara Alley Simon Collection of ski fashions over the decades was eye-catching; check out the brown ski outfit from the 1930s above right with a bare midriff (?!). It is next to what look like ski-scrubs, while the two on the upper left date from the 1980s, natch.

The museum is named for a Norwegian-American who immigrated to the United States in 1929 and is famous for ski jumping (below) and for setting up skiing areas around the US West. Other displays explain how Utah's "greatest snow on earth" is attributable to a deeper layer of heavy, wet snow made at warmer temps followed by lighter snow created at colder temps. As the climate warms, less of this famous powder will fall on top.

Park City's silver and other ore mines attracted Norwegian workers, who used to go about on "miner flip-flops"--simple skis 14-16' long. They would entertain each other with ski jumping. The mining dried up early in the 1900s, and commercial skiing took off in the 1960s. Snowboarding was invented in the 1980s and was initially banned at some resorts due to the young rowdies.

Upstairs is the Eccles Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Winter Games Museum, which has artefacts and photographs. Below left is a puppet buffalo head and below right is a Child of the Light costume, both from the opening ceremonies.

Below left is one of Bode Miller's skiing costumes; below right is a signed buffalo sculpture.

We also watched a video about the extensive process of designing and manufacturing the Olympic medals (O.C. Tanner). The exhibit closed with a wall display of some of the hundreds of pins that attendees collected and swapped with each other.

It took 30-40 minutes to see each of the "museums," so after we checked in for our bobsled ride, we still had half an hour to wait for our orientation to the bobsled ride. We sat in the theater to watch the Para-Olympics medal ceremony live stream; among other things, we learned how people with low vision ski with sighted guides.

After promising that we did not have musculoskeletal or medical problems and weren't pregnant, we were divvied up into sleds of 3 guests + 1 driver. A shuttle bus ferried us up the hill to the foot of the track, where we got another orientation and were fitted with balaclavas and helmets. Otherwise, we could wear whatever we wanted as long as we finished the outfit with closed-toed shoes. I had brought our snow pants in case we wanted a wind-break layer, but the temps were warm enough that we didn't use them. Each sled team was loaded into a truck with the bobsled and carried to the put-in point (star on the left).

For safety reasons, guests don't do a running start. Instead, we loaded into the sled from tallest to shortest, except the pilot, who sits before the second person. Then the crew pushed us down a ramp!

The video (from their livestream on YouTube) should start at minute 23, and we're done by minute 28. It was a bumpy, uncomfortable ride--I can't imagine doing it 1/4 of the distance longer and 30 miles per hour faster like the pros do--but I'm glad we did it! We reached speeds over 60 miles per hour and 3-4 Gs on the turns.

Afterwards we drove into Park City for a nice dinner at Kaneo and then patronized a woman-owned souvenir shop before driving home under the direction of the Star Trek Voyager Doctor (Robert Picardo), whose voice is now available on Waze. The temperature was dropping, but I wrapped up in a comforter to watch the sun set over the mountains.

Did you miss our visit to downtown Salt Lake City on Day 1? Up next: real and historical adventures on Day 3.