2 Best Sights in Park City and the Wasatch Back, Park City and the Southern Wasatch

Background Illustration for Sights

Park City and the surrounding area hosted the lion's share of skiing and sliding events during the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, and the excited spirit of the Games is still evident around town. Visitors often enjoy activities at the Utah Olympic Park or simply taking candid photos at various memorable sports venues.

The city also serves as an excellent base camp for summer activities. Hiking trails are plentiful. A scenic drive over Guardsman Pass is now mostly paved and passable for most vehicles, providing incredible mountain vistas. There are top-rated golf courses, hot-air ballooning is popular, and mountain bikers find the ski slopes and old mining roads truly exceptional pedaling. With so much to offer both summer and winter visitors, dozens of hotels of all levels have sprung up to complement the three resorts, each with its own scene.

Both Park City ski resorts consistently earn high skier-snowboarder rankings. Whereas Park City Mountain Resort is known for its central location, superb family amenities, and gnarly parks and pipes for snowboarders and free skiers, Deer Valley is in a peaceful spot at the edge of town and is renowned for its creature comforts—and its prohibition on snowboarding. A city-run free shuttle-bus system serves the resorts.

Park City Mountain Resort

Fodor's Choice

In the warmer months, the resort transforms itself into a mountain amusement park, with attractions such as the Alpine Slide and the Alpine Coaster, ziplines, and a climbing wall. Visitors take a chairlift up the mountain to the Alpine Slide, then hop aboard special sleds that carry them down 3,000 feet of winding concrete and fiberglass track at speeds controlled by each rider. The gravity-propelled Alpine Coaster (which operates year-round) zooms through aspen-lined twists and turns at speeds up to 35 mph. Two ziplines offer a high-flying adrenaline rush as riders strap into a harness suspended from a cable. In addition to the climbing wall, there's a miniature golf course, trampolines, an adventure zone for younger children, and some of the West's best lift-served mountain biking and hiking.

Park City Museum

A must-see for history buffs, this museum is housed in the former library, city hall, and whistle tower on Main Street. With a two-story scale model of the 19th-century Ontario Mine, a 20th-century gondola hanging overhead, and the old jail below, this is an authentic tribute to Park City's mining and skiing past. Climb aboard a re-created Union Pacific train car, hold on to a quivering and noisy jack drill for a feel of the mining experience, and, if you dare, step inside a jail cell. Tours of historic Main Street also depart from here.