We will be going to Park City, Utah for the 2016 Hawaii Ski Week. As many of you know, Vail Resorts has purchased the Park City Mountain Resort. This summer they plan to install an 8 passenger gondola to connect Park City with Canyons Resort, already managed by Vail Resorts. This will create, in their words, the largest ski area in the United States, with over 7,300 acres of terrain. They also plan a new restaurant at the Park City gondola terminus (bottom of Silverload lift), and upgrades to the King Kong and Motherlode lifts. Ski.com will be providing discounted lift tickets, obviously good on both mountains. The adult 5 day ticket will be $330 and the senior 5 day lift ticket will be $250. Ski.com will also provide one day lift tickets for Deer Valley for those of you who want to spend the day there. These tickets will cost $90, which is a good discount from this year’s $115 window price. As we mentioned earlier, you may want to purchase an epic pass from Vail Resorts for the season. These will also be available from Ski.com, but we don’t know the details on this now.

Because you ski club members have stated categorically that ski-in/ski-out access is a priority, we have chosen to stay primarily at The Lodge at the Mountain Village. In addition to ski-in/ski-out access, the Lodge is 20 yards from the Payday Lift, a 6 person high speed lift. There is a mini mall next door with 4 ski shops and some restaurants. The Lodge offers hotel rooms, studio suites, and 2, 3 and 4 bedroom condos. We have reserved one 4 bedroom condo, four 3 bedroom condos and 4 hotel rooms. The hotel rooms have refrigerators and coffee makers. We say we are staying “primarily” at the Lodge because they do not offer hotel rooms with two beds. For our singles we have reserved some hotel rooms across the street at the Shadow Ridge Resort Hotel. These rooms will have two queen beds. The Park City free shuttle bus stops at the Lodge, and the Lodge also offers free point to point on demand shuttle service. Main Street, Park City, with all its shops and restaurants is about 1/2 mile away. The Lodge features an indoor/outdoor swimming pool, numerous hot tubs, free wireless internet, a fitness center and their own ice rink (for a fee). The Lodge has plenty of meeting space for our traditional reception, pot luck and farewell pizza party.

Our non-stop flights to Salt Lake City are as follows:

• Delta-1104 V Depart: HNL 1/29/2016 09:55 pm Arrive: SLC 1/30/2016 07:11 am
• Delta-1105 V Depart: SLC 2/6/2016 11:55 am Arrive: HNL 2/6/2016 03:35 pm

Since we are arriving so early, and it is only an hour and a half to Park City, one could ski on Saturday, our arrival day. That would give you seven days of skiing.

Of course, transfers to and from the airport are included. Park City is more expensive than Steamboat. We will be paying about $300 to $400 more for a full package. The full package price (air, transfer, 7 nights lodging, 5 day lift ticket) will range from $1,800 to $2,000.

This year we would like to try something different for registration. You will be able to register and pay for the trip online directly with Ski.com, and pay them directly by check or credit card. This will relieve the trip committee of some work, although we will still be responsible for roommate assignments. Ski.com anticipates have this service ready about May 20th. We will inform you of when to contact them for registration. Pray for snow.