Park City Skids » park city skids

Truckstop Slackcountry Ski Tour

admin — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 17:31:15 +0000

Well, the crowds arrived for Dead Presidents’ Week, which made it a perfect time to go for a little slackcountry tour. Slackcountry is like backcountry touring, only the goal is to expend as little energy as possible to get to the goods. This video goes out to Chad and Ed, who must have been driving by this shot on the highway one day, and decided it would be a good place to ski. I had to add some Megadeth to spice it up a little. Shot with a GoPro Hero HD, and edited in less than 20 minutes using iMovie.

Snow Chicken in the House!

Snow Chicken — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 02:50:16 +0000

Ahhh yes, what the hell is a Snow Chicken anyway. So I started this marketing advising company, one-man shop, back in July. I was having trouble coming up with a name, I’m out on a mountain bike ride and get accosted by a strange bird. I go home and research said bird to find it is a Ptarmigan, often called Snow Chickens in Europe. The feisty little thing was about as intimidating as a kitten, but its persistence was truly inspiring. All things come together in this story to create Snow Chicken Stategic Mktg Communications. Anyone knowing me and my affinity for snowsports would know I immediately fell for the slang name of the Ptarmigan, and the tenacity the little bird displayed stayed with me for days. And so…Snow Chicken was born with a desire to create big brand voices (the Ptarmigan’s attitude) for company’s not packing huge budgets (the Ptarmigan’s physical stature).

So why do I fall into the “skid” classification? Paramount, I’ve not paid full retail for a mountain toy since I started living in Jackson Hole back in the day, and back in the day was 1993. Additionally, and I feel most importantly, I’ve always put lifestyle in front of career. I mean really, we are only here for a short time, why spend everyday tied to a chair all in the name of a few more bucks? Get out and play for crying out loud, the work will come.

In the name of getting out to play in the snow, I’ve been switching gears to winter sports the last few weeks. Just hung up the cyclocross bike after a cleaning last weekend and then threw a coat of wax on all the skate skis. So here is a piece of “Skid” advice for all Nordic skiers I’d like to give – ski in Round Valley this year. My wife and I deliberated over buying Whitepine Nordic passes this year for quite some time, and please – I’m not trying to take anything away from the Whitepine Nordic Center, they do a great job. Here are three reasons why Round Valley is a solid choice. First of all…it’s free. Second, you can take your dogs (don’t be a poop, pick up your dogs shit). Last, a new Piston-Bully grooming machine was purchased this year – with a little more snow we should see it out on the trails soon. Did I mention Round Valley is a very peaceful place in the winter?

See you in Round Valley.

Happy Mothers Day to Skids Moms

Mon, 11 May 2009 08:32:23 +0000

What a great Mothers’ Day in Park City: my wife got out for a morning road bike ride with another neighborhood mom, then family brunch at Windy Ridge, then the neighborhood dads went for a Round Valley mountain bike ride in the afternoon and saw lots of moms out there riding bikes today. Speaking of Windy Ridge: they have $2 Taco Tuesdays with a whole menu of $2 items, including $2 cervezas. We’re going to give it a try and if it passes the test, I’ll post more info on Skid$ Deal$.

Parkcityskids is a New Media Institution

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:45:19 +0000

So I am attending a conference in San Francisco, the Inbound Marketing Summit. There are great speakers here, mostly riffing on the changes that are happening in the media world. Right now I am listening to Chris Brogan talk about the power that bloggers hold in the new media world where everyone can be a publisher. Many predictions from many speakers that daily newspapers won’t even be around in five years. People are struggle with accepting that our news and information will come from blogs, such as this one, because there is this issue of journalistic quality and trust. Even printed media institutions are now printing things that point to their eventual demise. Here’s a bit of irony for you: Barry Diller was quoted in today’s printed USAToday (hey, I didn’t buy it, it was left outside my hotel room door. Oh wait. I did buy it. Marriott built it into my rate, and I didn’t notice the opt-out tiny print on my keycard packet until I was checking out) as saying if you have ink on your hands, meaning you are in the print advertising business, you are finished. Here’s a link to the article and more with Barry Diller. So, what does this have to do with Park City? I think the point is, it comes back to two A’s: authority and authenticity. I think authority can be faked, and authenticity cannot. Newsmedia journalists get the authority just for showing up. That doesn’t make them authentic. What do you think?

Missing Park City Bigtime

admin — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 01:49:00 +0000

I’m out here is Keystone, Colorado attending the MTS conference. Our posse skied Keystone Resort today, producing a very different vibe from what we are used to back home in Utah. We ate lunch in a local coffee shop/sandwich shop/full bar. Killer selection of single-malt whiskeys. This provided me with a sense of mountain culture shock, since you wouldn’t see a bar like that in Utah. The skiing at Keystone was pretty good, and once you got up into the upper reaches of the resort, you felt like you were really in the mountains. I’d say the base depth here is about half of what we currently have in Park City. The resorts here along the I-70 corridor rise up from the freeway like roadside attractions. I had an argument about this with a Utah native. On the one hand, it’s kind of lame when you see a sign for a resort town that says “Vail: next 3 exits.” Exits and onramps don’t really drive home the mountain town feeling. Slopeside lodging here means you are at the base, but you are a stone’s throw from the freeway. Good thing or bad thing? It certainly is impressive when driving by to see lifts and runs right there, whereas in Utah, at least the Cottonwood resorts are tucked away, up long and windy canyons. No eye candy. Meanwhile, back home in PC, it’s dumping lions and wolves, and all of my Skids correspondents are killing me with reports of 9″ here, 10″ there. We’ll ski Breck tomorrow and maybe Copper on Friday, then we’ll be Utah bound.