WHY PARK CITY UTAH?

People ask me some version of this question constantly: why Park City? Of all the mountain towns you could visit — or move to — why does this one keep winning? I've lived the answer since I moved here for my ski career. Here are the six reasons I give.

1. The skiing, obviously — but more than you think

Two world-class resorts share one small town: Park City Mountain, one of the largest in the country, and Deer Valley, perennially ranked #1 for service and grooming — currently doubling in size with the East Village expansion. The snow itself is the secret weapon: dry, light, high-desert powder. "Greatest Snow on Earth" is on the license plates, and it isn't marketing.

2. Four hundred miles of trails

Summer here isn't the off-season — it's the local's season. More than 400 miles of hiking and biking trails lace the town, including lift-served downhill at both resorts, and the whole network was the first to earn IMBA's Gold Level ride-center designation. You can ride singletrack from most neighborhoods without loading a car.

3. Main Street

Two-hundred-plus restaurants, bars, and galleries packed into a Victorian mining-town streetscape. High-alpine food scene, real nightlife, history everywhere — and you can ski directly down to it and ride the Town Lift back up.

4. Access nobody else can match

Thirty-five minutes from Salt Lake City International, a Delta hub with nonstops from most of the country. There is no other major ski destination in North America this easy to reach — coastal buyers can leave home in the morning and make afternoon laps.

5. An Olympic town, twice

The 2002 Games built the infrastructure — the Utah Olympic Park still trains the world's athletes up the road — and the 2034 Games are coming to finish the job. This is why national teams live here, and why I moved here to compete in the first place.

6. Real town, real people

Under the resort polish, Park City is a functioning community — a top school district, youth sports programs that produce Olympians, nonprofits, rec leagues, a farmers market. Plenty of resort towns feel like sets. This one has 8,500 residents who actually live here, which is exactly what second-home owners say made them stay.

Visit for any one of the six. Just know that the sixth one is the reason people never leave — and the reason the real estate holds its value the way it does.