Hidden Gems and Silver Linings

Travel destinations can be the tried and true, or the hidden and new. Finding the places that you have never been to, or don’t necessarily think of as the standard fare.

Sometimes, quaint and charming trumps slick and commercial. Park City, Utah has the strange ability to be both charming and sometimes shines with stars. Just outside of Salt Lake City, in the Wasatch Mountains, Park City has been around since the early 1800s when it came to fame as part of the silver mining frontier days.

This pretty mountain resort town boasts more than 4000 acres of skiing, snow boarding and snowshoeing. It offers miles of mountain bike trails and some of the best fly fishing spots in the country with Provo River trout.

The former frontier town gave birth to more than a dozen millionaires during the silver heydays. Years later the town became more ghost town than boomtown. In the 1980s it got a face-lift as a recreational area with a heavy focus on the skiing tourist. It got a public nod when the newly emerging Utah/US Film Festival merged to the Sundance Film Festival and moved to the mountain resort.

In 2002, Park City rose to fame as part of Winter Olympic Games, the area remains a training location and residence for many Olympic and World Class athletes.

For two weeks every January the area explodes with the independent filmmakers, celebrities and film buffs. Other events including the International Music Festival, Celebrity Ski Events and other seasonal festivals and attractions keep Park City hotels always booked.

The Old Town area of Park City is now filled with boutiques, sporting goods and ski equipment, designer fashions, salons and day spas but more than 60 of the shops are listed on the National Register in the Victorian shop style.

There are all kinds of outdoor recreational options any time of the year here. Local adventure companies will offer up everything from dog sledding, Jeep trekking, whitewater rafting to a two day bike tour.

There are art museums, Native artisans and Old West Cultural icons as well as Ski Museums, Film classes and Sport clinics. Alpine Slides, Bobsled and Luge rides offer some unique attractions. The Silver Mine tour lets you experience the life of a miner in a living museum.

Spectacular scenery, mountain vistas, action and adventure punctuated with the occasional celebrity sighting makes Park City a gem worth hunting for.