Park City has become a major ski destination with its proximity to Salt Lake City and champagne powder snow. Only maybe you don’t want to ski every day, or there’s a non-skier in your party. Luckily for you, there are plenty of fun winter things to do in Park City, Utah besides skiing, from snow sports to shopping and spas.
This guide will show you the best of the best and give you enough information to find the rest. We’ve even included a handy dandy interactive map with every location we mention in this guide and more!
Downtown Park City
Morning, noon, or night, downtown Park City is a delight. It’s a historic mining town with a serious skiing problem—or at least obsession. Park City Mountain Resort is the biggest ski resort in America, with 17 slopes, 14 bowls, 300 trails, and 22 miles of lifts. Deer Valley isn’t far behind, with plans to expand to 37 chairlifts serving 238 ski runs. Downtown Park City is effectively landlocked between steep mountains and behemoth ski resorts.
Parking in Park City is no fun, but walking through the historic streets, quaint shops and boutique galleries is quite the opposite, a perfect way for non-skiers to spend a winter day. Luckily, you should have no problems getting to Main Street between hotel shuttles and the free Park City Trolley.
Massage / Spa
Park City has you covered if you think the best snow day is a spa day. In town, you’ll find The Spa at Hotel Park City, TripAdvisor’s #1-rated wellness activity in Park City. There’s also the Alpen + Hyde in the historic Treasure Mountain Inn right on Main Street.
The hotels in each of Deer Valley’s base areas have five-star spas: Stein Eriksen Lodge, Montage Deer Valley, and the Remede Spa in the St. Regis. Canyon Village has its collection of spas, including RockResorts Spa at The Grand Summit, Serenity Spa by Westgate, and Spa Pendry Park City. We love to ski for two days and take a day off to recover, which is a perfect time to schedule a spa treatment to prepare for another great day of skiing to follow.
Park City Dining
Park City dining is a culinary experience beyond simply putting food in your belly. The restaurants are diverse, thematic, and uber-high quality.
Downtown, you’ll find favorites like the Riverhorse on Main and Tupelo Park City that serve European and American classics with regionally sourced beef, fish, wild game, and lamb.
In Wintertime, Deer Valley offers the extensive Cast and Cut Seafood Buffet and Fireside Dining, which transforms the Empire Lodge into a European Alps-inspired restaurant.
You can even find combination dinners with entertainment, like the Snowed Inn Sleigh Company, which offers Western-style dining and live music accompanied by a sleigh ride into the mountains. If you’re looking for a more contemporary experience, the Prime Steakhouse & Piano Bar offers great food and live music.
Sleigh Rides
I don’t know why, but dashing through the snow in a one-horse open sleigh makes me think I’ll be laughing all the way. And, of course, you have plenty of choices. Some of our favorites are:
Dog Sledding
I was medically unable to ski for 15 years and felt like I had lost a piece of my soul. Dog Sledding felt so much like skiing to me that I was balling tears of joy at the end of my ride. The pure joy and exuberance of these powerful pups just added to that feeling.
North Forty Escapes is a 10,000 Acre Private Ranch at 10,000+ Feet, with miles of trails winding through pristine forests and fields. Your Park City dog sledding adventure can be a single, hour-long ride or a split ride between two trips, which is perfect if you have lots of little ones.
Dog sledding options include:
Snowmobiling
If you like to go faster and farther, strap a motor to that sled and go snowmobiling. North Forty Escapes offers a two-hour guided tour that includes trail time and the ever-popular freestyle play in the meadow.
Park City snowmobile tour operators include:
Cross Country Skiing
If silently sliding through the serene landscape is more your style, you’ll love Park City’s 40+ miles of groomed cross-country ski trails. If you didn’t bring your own skis, you can rent from a local outfitter or even book a guided tour.
Popular Trails include:
Fat Tire Biking
The problem with cross-country skiing as a break from downhill skiing is that… you’re still skiing. Fat tire biking lets you hit the trails and other muscle groups at the same time. While you’re in the shop, be sure to ask them about which trails are closed to bikes, like White Pine, and other trails that aren’t groomed per se but could be rideable, like the Glenwild Trail Network.
Some of the best places to rent fat tire bikes in Park City are:
Snowshoeing
If you’re tired of sliding on the snow, you can always go snowshoeing. It’s like hiking, but the shoes keep you floating on top of the snow. You don’t need a groomed track, just a trail and the gusto to go.
Some of the best places to go snowshoeing in Park City are:
- Gambel Oak Loop: a 4.1-mile loop that starts from Park City
- East 224 Connector: a 3.8-mile trail from Willow Creek to the Swaner Nature Reserve
- McLeod Creek Trail: traverse from Matt Knoop Park to Willow Creek and beyond
- Round Valley Loop: 4.5 mile loop with many options available
Utah Olympic Park
Utah Olympic Park is home to two fabulous museums, the Eccles 2002 Winter Olympics Museum and the Alf Engen Ski Museum. Eccles relieves the passion and pageantry of the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. You can see an actual gold medal and even hold the Olympic Torch. The Alf Engen Ski Museum honors the area’s ski traditions and shows you why Utah receives the Best Snow on Earth. What’s more? Both of these museums are free!
Bobsledding
Utah Olympic Park has one of only four sliding tracks in North America. A professional driver can take you down the course at speeds up to 70 MPH, where you’ll experience 5g turns! See, you can still go fast and have fun sans-skis!!
Tubing
If you’re not cool enough for the cool runnings of bobsledding, or even if you are, tubing is totally tubular. Park City has several public tubing and sledding hills, but you’ll need to bring your own equipment and walk up the hill. Why not up your tubing game at Woodward Park City?
Woodward Park City offers two magic carpets to take you up to the expanded tubing lanes down Utah’s longest tubing runs.
Ice Skating
There are five figure skating disciplines in the Olympics and five categories of alpine skiing. A lazy writer could use that as proof that figure skating is equally as popular as skiing. Perhaps that’s why Park City has two major ski resorts and two ice skating rinks. Makes you wonder… If you find yourself asking (or singing) what would Brian Boitano do, he’d go ice skating every time.
The sad truth about ice skating is that the ice is better indoors, but the scenery is better outside. You have both options available in Park City. The Park City Ice Arena is an indoor rink in the Park City Sports Complex. The Resort Center Ice Skating Rink is an outdoor rink in the middle of the Mountain Village base area.
Après Ski
Don’t let the name fool you. You can après sled, tube, skate or any other winter sport. If you wear your tech clothes, nobody will know the difference! You can shoot the snow about all the powder runs you made and Utah’s champagne snow. You can even joke about the skiers who made two runs in a puffy white jacket before returning to the lodge to wait for après ski. Then again, you can always do that, lol! Every base area has some après ski going on, as well as downtown Park City.
Some of our favorites après ski spots are:
Wrapping Up Park City Activities for Non-Skiers
As you can see, Park City has plenty to offer skiers and non-skiers alike. Whether you’re down to chill and enjoy your amazing accommodations, looking for active adventures, or delicious culinary delights, you’re sure to find something fun to do in Park City in the wintertime, even without sliding down a mountain on a plank or two.
Like it? Pin it for later on Pinterest!
Hi! We are Jenn and Ed Coleman aka Coleman Concierge. In a nutshell, we are a Huntsville-based Gen X couple sharing our stories of amazing adventures through activity-driven transformational and experiential travel.
