Monthly Archives: February 2015

A couple of weeks ago I went on the second of my two annual ski weeks, this time to Park City, Utah. There are three major resorts in the Park City area: Park City Mountain Resort (PCMR), Deer Valley and Canyons. Both Canyons and PCMR are owned by Vail Corporation and thus have an interchangeable lift ticket, which is very convenient.

While the town of Park City is not very big, PCMR and Deer Valley are located much closer to the center of town than is Canyons – but Canyons is Utah’s largest single ski resort. By next ski season a new lift will be installed that will combine the two resorts making over 7300 acres available for skiing!

For this trip my ski group arranged for us to stay at the Grand Summit at Canyons Resort. If you’re mostly planning to stay at Canyons – or if you have a car – this is a terrific facility. Our group all had 2-bedroom units where at least one of the bedrooms could have been used as a stand-alone hotel room. The bedrooms were generally large enough to let us move around without stepping on each other and there were lots of closets that let us set our luggage out of the way.

The bathrooms had nice high, large counters that gave us plenty of room to set our stuff down. As high as the counters were, I’d have liked to have seen a shelf underneath or at least a series of small shelves against the far wall as our counter did get crowded over the course of the week. (Hey, with two women sharing a bath, what do you expect?!)

Grand Summit Bedroom #2 Bathroom Sink & Vanity

Grand Summit Bedroom #2 Bathroom Tub & Shower

The shower/tub in our bathroom had an adjustable showerhead though as usual it did not allow for a setting powerful enough for me. Someday I’ll find a showerhead like that! I did like the curved shower rod which kept the shower curtain from fluttering. Toiletries were Modern Apothecary branded and I actually really liked the shampoo and conditioner.

The bathroom in the master bedroom of our particular condo strangely did not have a shower. It had a nice large dual tub but we found it odd there was no shower. We did have a third full bathroom off our entryway (presumably for use by people sleeping on the pull-out sofa) and our condo-mates ended up using the shower in this bathroom.

Grand Summit Master Bath Dual Tub

Grand Summit Master Bathroom Sink & Vanity

Both bedrooms had a large chest that contained the mini-bar and the TV was mounted over it. There were only three small drawers per person which would have been more annoying if we didn’t have so much shelf space in so many closets. My roommate was rather short and had a hard time reaching the shelf (and the large safe on it) so I think more drawers would have been welcome.

Grand Summit Bedroom #2 Bedding

Grand Summit Bedroom #2 TV & Storage

Grand Summit Master BR Storage

Grand Summit Master BR Bedding

The desk was terrific in that it had plugs-a-plenty on top of it. I loved not having to dig under the desk to plug in a power strip. My roommate would have like to have had more outlets on her side of the room as she ended up borrowing my extension cord to use beside her bed. Builders everywhere need to plan on everyone having a minimum of two electronic devices that need to be plugged in near the bed each night!

Grand Summit Kitchen

The kitchen was small but covered our needs as we did not cook in the condo. It had a bar with three stools and the dining table could seat 6 adults. The living area had both the sofa (with pull-out bed) and a love seat as well as two window seats. All in all there was lots of room and we didn’t feel cramped.

Grand Summit Dining Area

Grand Summit Entry Hall

Grand Summit Living Area Seating

Grand Summit TV & Fireplace

As for location, if you’re primarily skiing Canyons resort you can’t beat this property. Take the elevator to the 2nd floor and head toward the lobby – which can be quite a walk if your room number is a low one for your floor (e.g. 200, 300, 400, etc.) – pick up your skis from the ski valet, down some stairs and you’re at the snow. A short distance to your right is the Orange Bubble Express chair and a little further to your left is the gondola. Whether you ski down or ride the gondola back down at the end of the day, it’s an easy trip home.

View of the slopes from the Grand Summit

View of Grand Summit from the slopes

If you’re planning to ski PCMR or Deer Valley and have a car, it’s an easy drive to either of those places. Parking at the Grand Summit is in an underground garage or you can opt for valet service.

But if you don’t have a car, plan on it taking 20 minutes to get to PCMR or 30 minutes to Deer Valley. You’ll either need to catch the free bus (Lime line) up near the entrance of the Grand Summit or walk over to the cabriolet (open air lift) that will take you down to the parking lot and the Canyons transit center. From there you can catch the Pink line bus which will go to PCMR (after a couple of stops) and then to the Downtown Transit Center where you can catch one of several buses to Deer Valley.

Personally, I don’t love the mountains at Canyons and only skied there one day out of five, so I spent a fair amount of time transiting back and forth. When I signed up for this trip I knew what I was getting into but that didn’t make all the commuting fun.

But back to the condos…they have a fairly large pool and three hot tubs, none of which were overly hot but felt good at the end of the day. It was also unseasonably warm while we were there so it’s possible that they were actually quite hot but didn’t feel like they were. We were concerned when we saw a lady bring her two small children – one under a year old – into the hot tubs. We really wished that management would have said something to them as many places we stay require a child to be 12 or older before allowing them hot tub access.

There’s also a small gym on the ground floor. I’m not one to do a full workout while on a ski trip but I do like to walk on the treadmill for a few minutes each morning before I ski just to help loosen my legs up. This gym had three treadmills and several bikes available as well as universal weight sets and some hand weights.

There’s a restaurant called The Cabin on the ground floor and it has a full buffet breakfast available for about $25 as well as a less-publicized continental version for about $13. The continental buffet is only the cold food but there’s enough fruit, cereal, pastries and yogurt to keep most of us quite full until lunch time. That was my go-to breakfast each day.

Would I stay here again? I really liked the property. The staff members were all friendly even if housekeeping could be hit-n-miss some days. My only beef is its location at Canyons and not closer to town. So I would almost certainly look for another property but it’s not due anything wrong with the Grand Summit other than its location.