The Lodge at Blue Sky

Driving from Salt Lake City to Wanship, Utah, 19 miles outside of Park City proper, doesn’t sound like an adventure. But the day I made the journey was momentous. First off, my trip coincided with the local Gwyneth Paltrow bunny-hill, ski-and-run trial that had a stranglehold on my social media feeds and my group texts. And then there was the fact that I was driving toward not just a media storm but an actual one. 

Given that this was the snowiest season the area had seen in at least 49 years, I was ready for flakes. But perhaps the natives were knee-deep in the courthouse drama just like I was because the snow squall that swept across the canyons seemed to surprise everyone, and the flurry of activity, literal and figurative, made arriving at the Lodge at Blue Sky even more of a respite.

As we pulled into the circle drive after creeping along I-80, you could probably see my shoulders relax. While Mr Smith and I checked in, the staff whisked our bags upstairs and parked our (blessedly four-wheel-drive) car without a word and greeted us with steamy teas in handmade ceramic mugs. The thought of not leaving for the rest of the weekend absolutely crossed my mind, and that was before we made it up to our room.

With a bed piled with the greatest pillows my head had encountered in a long while, the Sky Suite had a wall of windows framing the sort of mountain views that hotels’ websites often promise but rarely deliver. 

The walls were covered in pale wood and stone, and a bouclé couch was so inviting that it upended our plans to eat breakfast at Yuta, the downstairs restaurant run by Chef Jason Franey, previously of Eleven Madison Park in NYC and Canlis in Seattle. It was too hard to pass up room service (the ricotta pancakes and English muffin sandwich, specifically) in robes. 

Pairing morning coffee with a reading from the room’s copy of John Muir’s Wilderness Essays is optional but highly recommended. One titled ‘A Great Storm in Utah’ was so apropos that it made us feel like the hotel had thought of absolutely everything, even our weekend’s weather report.

Speaking of, I assumed that 450 inches of snowfall would make use of the outdoor pool laughable, and I didn’t pack a swimsuit. What a dummy I was. This one, plenty big enough for lap swimming, was heated to 87 degrees, and you better believe Mr Smith took advantage of it and the heated towels waiting nearby without me.

One of our favorite activities of the weekend required just barely leaving the hotel for a tour of High West Distillery. The home base of the buzzy whiskey brand, founded in the notoriously liquor-shy state in 2006, is a mile down the road. Even if you aren’t up for the full 45-minute blending-to-bottling journey, you can grab lunch – or a three-course supper club dinner on Wednesday nights – and a tasting flight. Do me a favor and be sure to order a shot of my personal favorite, the punnily named Midwinter Night’s Dram, a limited release that’s aged in port barrels and makes for especially good post-meal sipping.

As cozy as we were with the fireplace in the hotel lobby and a soaking tub in our room, we came to take advantage of the skiing and the ‘The Greatest Snow on Earth’, as Utah’s slogan goes. (It’s not just a motto: The powder here is fluffier because of low moisture content thanks to dry conditions, high altitude, the Great Salt Lake, and science.) 

For me, the just-removed proximity to the slopes was ideal – more ski retreat than ski trip. We could get in our runs at Deer Valley (including extra careful turns down Bandana where GP had her run-in). 

We could bop around Park City’s Main Street and check out the merino-rich gear by the local indie darling We Norwegians. We could catch an early dinner at the (over-21) lounge at Firewood, where just about everything on the menu is flame-licked, and we could make it back to the hotel with ample time for a nightcap, a movie, or (if I’m being honest) an early bedtime. Oh, and I almost forgot the real highlight of a dusk return: we could spy the deer, horses, cows, and even elk munching on their dinner and posing for glamour shots. 

I can’t imagine the surroundings being any more scenic than they were during my stay when everything was powder-sugar-coated, but checking out, I learned that summer is the Lodge at Blue Sky’s high season. 

There’s hiking around the 3,500-acre property – each room has a backpack, walking stick, and map at the ready. There’s fly fishing, horseback riding, and mountain biking. Fourth of July brings a slew of programming, including axe-throwing, BBQs, and live music, and every August, there’s meteor-shower-watching as the Perseids put on an hourly show that sounds even more electrifying than the winter-wonderland viewing party I experienced. Something tells me the drive is lower-key, too.