Episode 33 | Cabbott Wooley, the Park City Guy

Enjoy food, enjoy travel, and enjoy life. You're listening to Travel Gluten Free by Elikqitie.
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This is episode 33, 'Visit Park City with Cabbott, the Park City guy'. Welcome to the Travel Gluten Free podcast where you my friend listen in on how to lead a gluten free lifestyle with more fun and ease. This is Elikqitie and I founded Travel Gluten Free for you. I would love to be your resource, contributor and support to you on our gluten free journey. Today's guest is just getting started. He says, "follow me for the definitive locals’ tips and the best of Park City, Utah". If it's not posted here, ask him before you go. His name is Cabbot' and he is the Park City guy on Instagram. Cabbott, welcome to the Travel Gluten Free podcast.

Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's great to be here.
Thanks for making the time. I'm so excited that we actually got to talk in real life because we'd been Instagramming--Instagram messaging each other lately to get this together, so thanks for that.
Absolutely.
Kevin and I are going to have a discussion about Park City because Park City is a pretty fun place to be. I've been here for seven years. cabbott, how long have you been in Park City?
I've been here full time now for two years, but, I have some long history here in Park City. My parents have been here for about 30 years, and I grew up coming here as well, so it's nice to finally put roots down in a place that I've always loved to come.
So you're kind of a real local.
Kind of a real local. In fact it goes even further back because ancestry wise I have direct ties to the Kimball family who is Kimball Junction, and my wife also, very surprisingly, her whole family helped settle Park City as well. So her great grandfather actually built what used to be the 'Dahl Brothers Ranch' and is now called High Ute Ranch, that, that you can see just on the outside of town. So, we've got some deep roots here. Yeah, and it's good to be here.
Wow, that's amazing. And it's really hard to meet anybody in the Park City who is from or has roots in Park City because as you know, a lot of people are transplants from California or elsewhere.
That's exactly right. Which really makes for a great melting pot of a place because we have so much diversity here. People from all over, not only the country but the world. So you're in the grocery store or in a restaurant and you're meeting friends and meeting people that now live here, but they come from all over the globe.
It's pretty amazing and interesting, and I think because we have so many people here, it's what makes Park City such a fun and interesting place to live and hear from tourists all the time how people from Park City are so nice and so generous to them. And I'm sure you've probably experienced that too with other people in Park City as well.
Oh absolutely. I think anywhere you go there, there are so many businesses up here that are family owned, locally owned, and the people that live here are the ones that are running those businesses. So it's-- I always feel bad for people when they go on a trip or they go somewhere and they don't really get to know much of the local people. Here it's a great opportunity because most places you go into you can start talking to the owners and they will welcome you as friends really. So, it is a very friendly place.
Yeah, and Park City actually has some really--speaking of the family shops, they have some really great family shops downtown. So Park City for those of you who don't know is basically divided into two areas. We have our historic old town area and we have our Kimball Junction area, which is the newer area. Both have their own unique charm and place. A lot of what I see on your Instagram cabbott is a lot of old town which is really fun. And of course, skiing because that's what Park City is known for, its skiing. It used to be known for its mining a long time ago. Then transitioned over to skiing. I wanted to ask you about a couple of your Instagram posts because this one, was really great. So one of the places that you have on your Instagram post, it says "Meet Buck and Corey and Milligan on opening day of their new store, New West Knifeworks at 675 main street. They're the only high-end cutlery maker in the US. His son was the Chopped junior champion", and I'm sure a lot of my listeners and my friends out there have watched Chopped because we're all kind of foodies. So tell us about that shop and, the owners, the family that owns that shop.
It was a really cool experience. I just happened by-- I was walking past to an appointment I think on Main Street, and I noticed the shop was all of a sudden open, and there hadn't been anything there previously. And so I just stopped in and I walked in and I said, "Hey, tell me, tell me about your store". Cory, who is the owner, super friendly guy. And we just started chatting. His son was there with him and it was opening day. It's a really impressive store. On one side, they have all of their knives, especially chef knives, paring knives, really kitchen knives that have these beautiful handles. They say that the steel is even finer than Japanese steel. So if you know about Japanese knives, they said that they'd put them against any Japanese knife that's out there. So they're, really proud of the product that they produce.
And then really interestingly on the other side of the store is a bit of a different shop called the 'Mountain Man Shop', and it's really a shop for boy toys, and they have everything from different types of knives and hatchets and things like that to--they have some toiletries that are geared towards men and then they have, they put up and they don't have it quite functioning because it's brand new, but they don't have it quite functioning yet. They've got two huge blocks of wood on the wall and they'll be putting in metal screens, and so you can actually do hatchet throwing in the shop. So, they're doing a lot of cool things. And one thing if you do happen to stop in, they've got something that looks kind of like a plain canvas vest, but the inside is all beaver pelt. And that's again just something that is super unique and really representative of the type of stores I think that you find on Main Street. This isn't the kind of stuff that you check on Amazon to see, "well what's the Amazon price?". Things are super unique, really well curated and it's a fun place to shop even if you don't like shopping.
Another place that we would both enjoy, is the Olive Oil shop that Mountain Town Olive Oil where you can get like olive oil. I love doing all the oil shots and it sounds weird, but if you haven't done them basically when you go around and try all different types of olive oil and vinegar. Have you been in Mountain Town olive oil before? There's also an olive oil shop in Kimball. And I love these olive oil vinegar stories because they're just such fun to go in and experience it. And then they also have classes at that Mountain Town Olive Oil shop. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about this?
Yeah, absolutely. Those classes are something that they started this summer, they have really impressive room in the back of the store that they've built out that has a kitchen and a space for students to sit and observe. So, each Thursday from 1:00pm to 3:00pm they have a different theme, and anyone can join you. You need to call 48 hours in advance to let them know that you'd like to come. And they have a local chef there, Deanna, that does a really great job on whatever the theme of that particular day is. And I think they've even done a gluten free theme, and the idea is, "How are some other ways that you can incorporate olive oil or balsamic vinegar into your cooking?". A lot of people just get this, and then they dip bread in it, and that's where it stops. So they really take the opportunity to teach you how to incorporate both the oils and vinegars into your, your home cooking, which is I think a really cool concept.
Yeah, it is. And I do a lot of olive oil in different things like roasting vegetables.
Oh, absolutely.
They don't. I don't really know a lot about incorporating vinegar besides salad dressing. So that would definitely be something I would be interested in doing. That sounds like a lot of fun. Some other really fun places on Main Street. One of the places I really love to see Egyptian theater and I'm sure you've been there. One of the things I love about the Egyptian is, they do comedy a comedy night once every three months, and their comedy acts they bring in are really, fun and great. And have you done any of their--been to any of their comedy shows? What have you been to at The Egyptian?
I've been to a lot of their shows and again it's a small theater but it's a really. It really is a living, breathing community theater. And one of the great things besides the world class acts that come there and perform, I mean really some top performers that would normally have massive crowds attending their concerts or their shows are performing there, on right on Main Street. But one of the things that I really love is going to some of the local productions especially that involve a lot of the high school, junior high and even elementary school kids they have to try out for these. And there's some real talent here locally. And they're really great productions, especially those local musicals.
Yeah. I know my children used to go to the kids' camps when they were a little.
Absolutely.
Which is really great. And. But yeah, like you said, they actually fly people in from all over the United States to come in...
And the world.
And the world to do shows right here in Park City. So you really do get really high quality show or concert in this tiny little town of ours is amazing. Speaking of high quality in our tiny little town, I love the Park City museum, and when you look at it from the outside, it looks like it's gonna be like two rooms, and you walk in and it's actually like a million and a half dollar museum that is right in the middle of downtown. I think it's like two doors down from the post office. Isn't that correct?
That's right, yeah. That's pretty close to where it is. Absolutely. And they've really stepped that up, because the Park City Museum has been there and it really originally was built on top of the old jail, and one of my favorite things as a kid, whenever we'd visit, you could go down in the cellar, down into the basement, and they just had the old jail down there and they put a little dummy and in the corner. So it would always scare you. You, even if you knew that it was there, you turn around and you'd see this person down there. But to realize that, this was, the city jail. And to be able to go down there and see that. It's also a great way to learn about the history of Park City, because as you mentioned earlier, it started out as a silver mining town, really produced a huge, vast wealth, right out of the, the silver mines here in Park City.
But as the price of silver dropped, especially in the fifties and sixties, teen fifties and sixties a lot of the mines closed. And so what they ended up doing is figuring out a way to utilize the mines as ways to get skiers to these amazing mountains that were here. So this is a secret, and I don't want to put this out there too much because I don't want too many people to know about it. But for your listeners, if you go to 'Silver Star', which is a little bit hidden, it's the very, far north side of the Park City Resort. And there's actually a Silver Star lift so you can ski right down into it. But right there is an entrance to one of the mines that you can see, they have it lit up that you can look all the way back into the mine shaft from that point, they used to have the skiers come in and get into the little rail cars that look like subways and they would load those little mining rail cars up with skiers and they take their, boots in and they go deep into the mine and then they'd stop at a point where there was an elevator that takes you up to the top of the mountain, again, only for mining purposes. But there was a period of time that when the ski lifts didn't exist, they were getting people up to this top of the mountains by taking them through the mine shafts and the mine elevators, and it's got fantastic pictures and you can see those in the, in the museum. You can also see them over here at Silver Star.
That's interesting. I knew about Silver Star, but I've never actually visited, Silver Star. But interestingly enough, when you go into the Park City Museum and you see that; you see these people and they're all huddled in this mine shaft car and it's dripping wet, water is coming down, even though it's freezing outside, it's actually above freezing in the tunnels and you sit there and you're trying to picture yourself doing that and you're like, "I would never do that". That's similar. That was the only way to get to the top and today I don't think Osha would ever allow me. But it's so cool to look at that history, and another part of the history that's interesting when you go the museum is when it talks about how Park City basically completely burned down at one point and then they had to rebuild the whole thing.
Yeah. In fact there was a beautiful opera house that was built on Main Street. I mean the pictures that I've seen of it are gorgeous, and I don't think that it was open for more than a month before it burned down and was never rebuilt because the cost to rebuild that was so high.
I want to say last time I went to the museum they decided not to get insurance on the Opera House building and they had spent I think like $20,000 building it or something.
Which was a huge amount of money back then. Yeah, absolutely.
And so I think they skipped the insurance or something like that and then the fire completely demolished it so they ended up not rebuilding it.
It's a sad story.
It is. There's lots of really interesting history in the Park City Museum and if you come to Park City or if you live in Park City and you haven't been there, definitely I would say check out the Park City Museum. Some other favorites I love to do in Park City are, well we had the skiing and we'll talk about that a little bit after the break. Utah Olympic Park because my son is on the US ski team so he's up there all the time, but one of the really interesting things you can do if you haven't tried it, well one is you can go and visit the history museum up there for free. The Ski Museum, and one of the cool things is you can see the old snowboard from 1972, which is kind of scary. The other thing is, you can do the tour of the Utah Olympic Park, which takes you up to the top of the ski jumps, and I don't know if you've ever done that.
I have, yeah.
And what did you think? I absolutely loved it.
You don't realize how high up you are and I don't like heights to begin with, but when you're at the very top of the ski jumps, it is way up there and it is straight down that those guys are on their skis flying through the air and it was-- even more impressive. I've watched the, competitions there multiple times from the bottom as a spectator, but to be able to go to the top of where they're starting their descent down those hills, it's a really big precipice. Precipice for sure. The other thing that is so fun and it's not a cheap thing to do, but it really is a once in a lifetime experience is you can actually do the 'Bobsled' and going down that bobsled run.
One thing that I thought was interesting to learn when you go up there and you'll learn about is bob sledding or luge or skeleton, which all use the same course. They don't have world records. They have track records because every track in around the world is different. And because there are differences, you only have track records, so that's one of the sports that you only have a track record as opposed to a world record. So you're not competing against other track times, and you go up and ride in the bobsled with a professional bobsled driver and it is crazy. They start you from the women's start point and you do the entire run just like you would in the Olympics.
So you have actually done this.
I've done it twice. Yeah, and it is an incredible, experience to realize that you can go that fast on something that's not attached. It's not a roller coaster. I mean, it's a crazy, experience and it really is a once in a lifetime experience. So if you come to Park City during the winter, whether you're a skier or not, that's something that you can do and I'd highly encourage anyone to try that.
Definitely do not drink coffee before you go on that.
Right.
That sounds intense. So that sounds like so much fun. That's really interesting is, I didn't know about the track record. My daughter, my younger daughter actually looked into doing either bobsledding or luge, and no, it was luge or skeleton, and interestingly enough luge is when you do down feet first and, that's actually less safer skeleton and when you go down headfirst.
That's right.
Sounds absolutely backwards. And I don't know why that is.
They have youth programs, so anyone can join in and say, "Hey, I want to learn how to do this". So there's nothing preventing you, but if you're a tourist in town or whatever, it's not something you can go try once. It's something that they have available to anyone that wants to take up the sport seriously and give it a go, and so that's something that they have ongoing training programs for. I mean this, is one of two places in the United States that you can actually bobsled, luge or skeleton, and so it's a very, unique place. I've traveled quite a bit and I've been to maybe four or five of the other Olympic-- Winter Olympic locations before, and there's just not a lot there. It's really incredible to come here to Utah and see not only how well maintained all of the Olympic venues are, but the fact that they're actively used throughout the year is something that's really impressive, and you may have heard or your listeners may have heard that Utah was selected as the option for the United States in 2030 Winter Olympics. Again, all it seems like already we might have another winter Olympics here, but yeah, so we won't find that out for a few years. Park City, they were so impressed with the fact that, well Park City and Salt Lake in general, that they've been able to maintain all of the venues so well and keep them up to date. So when you come here and you see those, it's legit. This is a living, breathing sports center for winter sports.
Yeah. And that's another reason why it makes Park City so interesting is because we have, there's considerable number of people who move here so their children can train at the Utah Olympic Park because it is a world class training center.
Absolutely. In fact, you look out our window, you can't-- obviously if you're listening you can't see that, but look out the window right across the street, and we have the school for the athletes that are in elementary, junior high, and high school that are training to become, you know, I'm sure for them, hopefully Olympic athletes in the winter sports. So that's, it's all right here.
Yeah. It's actually the winter school. So actually if you're looking, just to give you an idea across the street. So we're on highway 224, and then right across the street is the winter school and my, our son Jared actually graduated from there. He graduated, he went to high school when it became a public school and graduated at 16. So he got out a little early. So yeah, his goal is to hit the Olympics and hopefully we're not sure if he's going to hit the next one. We hope he is, but if not he's definitely a contender for the next one after that because he's, he's 19 so he's still pretty young.
That's exciting.
It's really exciting. We're excited for him. We're going to talk about Park City and skiing.

cabbott, we all know that mostly people come to Park City if they are tourists because they want to ski because skiing is such a popular activity to do here. We used to have three mountain resorts. Now we only have two, and now they're both corporate owned which changes up their feeling a little bit. My favorite, when I first came here, I would ski at Park City and I love Park City. It was really fun. You could ski or snowboard there. They have tons of runs. They have lots of different levels of runs, and then I changed over to skiing Deer Valley because I don't snowboard and I actually like snowboarding, but I just never really got into it. So when skiing in Deer Valley, I actually like the runs in Deer Valley a little bit more, but the thing that really distinguished Deer Valley from Park City--and I have skied Canyons and Canyons is pretty fun. The reason why Deer Valley had become my favorite in Park City was because, they limited the amount of people that are there, so you can get on runs pretty easy. They have really big overruns. It's not as crowded. They definitely are a little bit higher end as far as comparing the three ski resorts in Park City, but I really do like Deer Valley is definitely my favorite. What's your opinion on the different ski resorts? Do you have a favorite? What do you do? Do you ski Snowbird? What do you like to do?
Yeah. No, that's a great question and you're exactly right in terms of the high end level of Deer Valley, but that's not to say Park City isn't high end because they are so elevated and when you're-- you can't really compare anything to the experience that you have at Deer Valley, even internationally, and I've skied in a lot of different countries. The experience that you have at Deer Valley is as luxurious as it gets for ski experience. You wouldn't believe the food and the amenities that are available for the skiers that are there, and to your point, they limit the number of passes, so once they reach that number of passes for the day, they make an announcement that the resort is sold out. So you're never dealing with any crowds. That said Park City and Canyons are now one resort, and it's the largest resort in the United States, and there's so many options to ski in Park City in terms of the number of runs that you really don't run into a lot of crowd issues there either, because again, they're just so many issues. I really love skiing the, Canyons again, maybe I shouldn't be saying these things so, that it stays,a little bit quiet, but the north end of the Canyons they have a run called 'Condor'. That is just a really great area, and it's a lot of people that started at Park City don't ever make their way all the way over there. And so it remains a little bit hidden. And there's some of those spots kind of, kind of all over the place, but it's a fantastic resort. You can come and you can ski for an entire week, and if you chose to never ski the same run, which is a pretty amazing thing to say that you could ski for, you know, five to seven days straight and never ski the same run.
And there are also a number of lifts. There's one called 9990 because that's the elevation. 9,990 feet. You don't want to make that way up your lift unless you're a very good skier because there are no easy ways down. A lot of these might be perceived as "These are just cliffs, where are you supposed to ski?". But that really is where I love going, where my kids certainly love going. Those are again some very special places. But make sure that you are confident with your skiing if you go up to 9990.
Yeah, for sure. Because I think Alpha 9990 is all black.
They're all double blacks. Yes.
I've never been up to 9990 and that's the reason why, but they're definitely on my hit list. Actually one of my favorite places to ski in Deer Valley is Empire Pass, and they have beautiful through the trees, blues, a double blue ski runs all down until you get down to the greens and that is definitely my all time favorite that I've skied Deer Valley so far and I've done all of things.
Well that's wonderful, you get right at the base, there is the Montage Resort as well. So Montage is now a chain. I actually worked on the branding of their very first property which is in Laguna. Beautiful, super high end resorts. And this one there in Deer Valley is, is beautiful. It's a beautiful building. If you want to make a real vacation out of things, that's a wonderful place to have as a base.
Yeah. It's a really-- if you want to have a super spectacular event, the Montage Deer Valley definitely a great place.
It's incredible.
We've been to a couple of different events there and it's just-- I've never been to event there where I've been disappointed about anything. Everything is top of the line that are high end, very good quality service. It's just amazing.
It's really good. And they have a really fun pool in the winter time and again for, the guests, they do something that's really special every night and that is a s'mores, that are, that are complimentary for guests. But the thing that's really cool about the s'mores at Montage is all of the marshmallows are homemade and they have, they have cinnamon and peppermint and caramel flavor and it's- if you've never had a s'more with a homemade marshmallow, then you definitely need to do that. Now, I don't know if they have a gluten free option for, your graham crackers, or you can just enjoy a roasted marshmallows, which is fantastic.
We definitely will bring my own graham crackers for that one.
That sounds good.
I have some really good gluten free graham crackers, I would love a cinnamon marshmallow. Now can you do the marshmallow roasting if you are not a guest or do you have to be a guest?
I think, I think those are reserved mostly for guests.
I definitely have to stay there for the services.
Absolutely.
That sounds amazing. I love s'mores. So let's talk about some other winter your things you can do here besides skiing, because everybody knows skiing. But a lot of people may not know that, one of the things you can do in Park City is while they may know you can do ice skating, but we actually have an ice rink right out by off of exit two the highway and have you. I've been to the ice rink. I love it. It's really big and I know that they also play hockey team sports there. Have you been to the ice rink as well?
Many times. And you're right, they do a lot of hockey there they have open skate hours as well. But something that's really cool that you can do to go out there if you've ever watched it during the Olympics, one of the things that you can do there that's really unique is curling. So if curling is a sport that you've seen on the Olympics and wanted to try, they, I believe, have one or two classes every week that are open to the public that you can go and actually learn how to curl. So, that's a really unique thing that is located there or here in Park City. Another little tip that I think is fantastic. Again, and don't want it to get out there too much, but again, for, for your listeners, we'll do it. And that is Park City hospital and now, this sounds really strange, but the Park City hospital has an amazing cafeteria. They do and the, cafeteria is, I mean, this is gourmet food, as gourmet as you'll get anywhere, and it's right there in the cafeteria, which is right next to the ice rink. So if you're out that direction and saying, Oh, we're hungry, or whatever, that's a good place to slip in and anyone's welcome. You can, you can walk into the cafeteria. But oftentimes we think of hospital food is like being at the very bottom of the rung. Right? And this is right there at the top, so a true local secret that a lot of locals will go there for lunch and you get a fantastic meal for almost nothing.
Yeah. I actually ate lunch there a couple of weeks ago, and I got a salmon salad with like herbal---herb pesto dressing. It was just really good. I mean they do have actually restaurant quality food at the hospital, which is unheard of.
It's true.
But it is Park City, and it actually is reasonably priced for being in Park City.
Very reasonably priced. You'll be surprised.
And so one of the other things I love to do during winter is cross country skiing, and Park City is known for their miles of trails that are groomed for cross country skiing that are open to the public and complimentary like the ones over--so the ones behind the White Barn are actually part of White Pines, which they do a lot of winter tour, things like cross country skiing. But the ones across from the White Barn on the opposite side of the highway are open to the public, and I actually haven't gotten out there to cross country ski this winter break, but I definitely want to do that because cross country skiing is a, it's great exercise and b, it's just so nice because it's quiet, and then you can just like put yourself a little bit track of as far as you want and you usually see other cross country skiers. It's just a really fun sport to do. So where have you-- have you done some cross country skiing in Park City?
I have. There are a lot of places in Park City. So Park City has an incredible trail system, and during the winter the city and the county, maintain those trails. A lot of them for the purpose of cross country skiing. So there, there aren't many places in Park City that you can't cross country ski, It's pretty impressive. The golf courses are our main golf course, right in town is a public golf course. And so they groom trails so that you can skate, ski, or cross country ski anywhere on the golf course, even in City Park. So, which is right, just north of Main Street is the main park that's right in town. They even have set that up so that it's a smaller course that you can go and really get some great exercise if you're right there in town.
Yeah. That one I didn't know about, but I didn't know about the ones who were here closer to the junction area because that's the area that I live in. But that's really interesting. Yeah. And then besides snowshoeing, so anywhere we have tons of snow. We actually don't have our quota of snow yet this year, but at least it's definitely better than last year. And anywhere there's snow you can snowshoe it.
That's right. And again, those trails, the trail system goes all throughout the mountains here. And those trails don't close during the winter. They're open and available for people that want to go snowshoeing. So anywhere that you would typically hike with the exception of the, the ski runs, you can't be hiking around the ski runs themselves, but a lot of those weave in the trees, you know, around the ski runs, and those are all open during the winter for snowshoers.
And then also speaking of ski runs, I know Park City had Gorgoza Park, which they had the tube sledding, and I don't know, is that opened this year?
It is, absolutely. Yeah.
And then where you can just go to the top of the hill, and then you have, you buy a ticket to--and then you just tube sled down the entire hill, and they maintain it, and so you go super fast.
Really fast and so that is not as fast as bob sledding, but that is just as you are coming up over the canyon from, Salt Lake, if you're driving up from Salt Lake as you come down the mountain into the Park City area, it's right there on your right hand side. It's one of the first things that you see. And it's there and open and a lot of fun.
It's even open, I believe into the night.
It's all lit, so absolutely yes.
That's a lot of fun as well. So there's obviously tons of winter sports to do here in Park City. Really fun place. Everybody knows Park City for its winter sports of course, because for the past 40 years, that's 50 years, that's what we've been known for. But there's also-- we're also known for the summer, to summer events as well. Now I've noticed it's been getting more crowded, and we're actually going to take a short break right here, but when we come back, we're gonna talk about some of the things you can do while you visit Park City in the summertime.

So we talked about some things you can do in the winter, cabbott. Now, and there's also items you could do in the summer which a lot of people may not be familiar about because our summertime activities are kind of relatively new. When I moved here seven years ago, the summer was pretty dead, like it was just locals who lived here full time, and now in the summertime it's been pretty crowded on the streets, I noticed. It's definitely been picking up, and one of the really popular things to do is mountain biking on the same ski resorts we ski on in the winter, where you can actually take--rent a mountain bike from one of the popular mountain bike rental places around here. You pop it on the back of a ski lift. You sit on the front of it, take it up to the top and ride your bike all the way down. So I've done that at Park City and Deer Valley. Where have you done mountain biking? Have you done mountain biking at the ski resorts and where have you done--what's your experience?
Yeah, there, there aren't many places here now that I haven't gone in mountain biking, because again, they're-- these trails are incredible, and the trail system is something that the city has really invested in to make sure that these trails are well kept, and that they're well marked and then there are rules associated with them. So some of the trails during the summer are one directional only so that we don't-- if two people are moving at a pretty high speed at, on a mountain bike, that could be problematic. Absolutely. And so, make sure that you pay attention to wherever you're going to make sure that a trail is one directional or two directional. The other thing that people should know is if they haven't been on a mountain bike trail before, whoever is coming up hill has the right away, right? So, you want to make sure that you follow that. I think everyone appreciates when that's adhered to, but you know, it's, if you, if you've done mountain biking on real mountains before heading up a hill is, tough work, and you don't want that to be stopped. So give the people a break to if they're coming uphill and let them go past you.
Yeah. And dogs are really-- I think there's more dogs than people in Park City. And so when I walk my dogs on the trails, even if I'm going-- even if they're going down hill, I always move my dog over because she tends to be kind of neurotic, and she gets really excited easily and I just move her over to the side, because for it's just easier for me to get her out of the way then for me to pass the bike. So yeah, so definitely do that. And I believe that you can actually mountain bike from one end of the city to another just on the trail.
Oh absolutely. And you can get from one top of the summit of one mountain to the top of another mountain with the trails as well. Some other places that are really spectacular for mountain biking are over in the Jeremy Ranch area. There are, again-- these are secrets, so don't talk too much about these, but there's one I love doing called the Flying Dog. And Flying Dog is a, really great trail. It's certainly not for beginners because there's some real inclines, but if, if you know what you're doing and you want to find a great trail that's a little bit out of the way, but really, truly world renowned, you do Flying Dog, and you go through some beautiful forests. You're on the face of some mountains and you actually go through some complex beaver dam areas, which is really fun as well.
And the views from Flying Dog are amazing.
They are.
If you wanna get some great views of Park City, that's a great trail. And that trail is actually up by where I live. So I see people riding through it a lot. Yeah, it's definitely more complex, and if the listeners actually want to get a trail map. So if you go on basinrecreation.org and you look up their trails, they actually have all these trail maps and where you can-- where the trail head starts so you can park your car and they usually have bathrooms at the trail heads. Another one I love is Pacific Rail trail because that ones-- if you're a beginner, it's an easy pace beginner one that's flat and paved, and it goes through old town and then it takes you in some really, cool back area places that you normally wouldn't go to because unless you're on that trail you don't see them. And they actually had taken a lot of the old railroad tracks from the mining times and making them--and made them into paved trails for people to walk and bike on.
Which is a really something that, that you shouldn't be afraid of. If you want to get out on a bicycle while you're here during the summer or even during the winter because we have fat bikes now too. So you see a lot of the people on the rail trails with their fat bikes, the big tires that can go right over the snow, but there are some incredible opportunities for anyone, even if they aren't a biker, you can get an electronic bike today, that you can pedal as much as you want and if you think there's no way that I could possibly get back to home base, wherever that might be, if you've got an e-bike, then for sure you can get back. And so that gives a lot of people a lot of freedom that they may not have had, if they felt, "man, I'm not sure if I can physically do some of these more intense bike rides". That said, just keep in mind that the e-bikes aren't allowed on the mountain trails. So it needs to be a paved trail and the Rail Trail is a paved trail. So if you want to use an e-bike, you need to make sure you're on a paved path.
And there's lots of paved paths and the paths are usually closer to the highway. They're not obviously in the back areas of the mountains, but there's still great-- because a lot of people who come to Park City are coming from a lower elevation, so they may not be used to the high elevation air, and when you're peddling in high elevation and you're not used to it, you can get winded pretty easy. So those e-bikes bikes, either renting them from, I believe there's two bike stores that rent e-bikes now. One of them is in old town, or you can get e-bikes from one of the local-- there's about, I think six stations now that have the pedal assist bikes around Park City, so if you just look up e-bikes Park City on the Internet, you can find where the stations are, and then-- but definitely get there early, because those bikes go fast.
They do.
You usually you see a lot of people riding around with them in the summertime. Just like biking around and it's really fun. Another really fun thing to do in the summer, which I almost forgot to mention, is Park City Market. Two of the parents who are live here in Park City started that awhile back, and I believe when I first moved here seven years ago, it was brand new because it was pretty small and now it is, --they shut off pretty much all of the, all of the mainstream old town, and there's vendors and there's musicians and there's one end's all food carts or few trucks, and so I love going there because you get a lot of local-- it's all local artisans that are there. So you can find a lot of neat things like you said before, you can't find on Amazon, that are here in Park City for the Silly Summer Market. And they do that every Sunday, I think between twelve and five.
That's correct. And the other thing that certainly your listeners would be interested to know is we have a great farmer's market that it really is truly local farmers, from the, the areas, you know, all within a two hour radius probably. And those are every Wednesday throughout the summer. So if that's something that you're interested-- those are held in the parking lot at the Park City resort.
Which was used to be Canyons. I always think of that, you...
No, it's, it's moved now. It's actually at the front, so it used to be at Canyons until this last year announced at Park City. So don't go to Canyons or you won't find it.
Get to the farmers market, and it's really great. And they also have in the Park Silly Market too, one of the side streets they make into a little, really small farmers market, which is really great. You can get a little, some more produce there as well.
Not Park City. It's Park Silly for that Sunday, Sunday market.
Yes. And that's a really, that's one of my favorite markets to go to. I like that a lot. So besides biking, we talked about biking in the winter, biking in the summer, we talked about all of the trails and how you could get there. There's tons of hiking also along these trails you can hike on as well. Just definitely bring a hydro pack with you because a lot of people don't realize that even though it's the mountains and the weather can be cooler, it's extremely dry out here. So you always want to wear sunscreen, especially if you're skiing because we're at altitude. So the sun here is actually stronger than the sun in Florida where I used to live because I get sunburned way easier out here. So always wear sunscreen even if it's winter. And definitely always bring water with you because the mountain climate appears very dry and you want to be safe for sure. All right, cabbott. Anything else you can think of for summertime fun?
Well, we also have a really great lake here that's right behind the city and it's a lake that didn't previously exist. You know, when I was a kid coming here that was all just a canyon, but they've created a beautiful lake. So if you're into water skiing, or any, paddle boarding is a really big thing. There's a, real strong community for stand up paddle boards. And so that's a really big thing to do here during the summer, and we actually have a pretty good crew team, so rowing is a popular thing, and the team practices out of the reservoir as well. So that's a great experience and again, a beautiful, experience because you're in this pristine lake in the middle of the mountains and it's just gorgeous.
And the lake that you're talking about is the, the reservoir that you're talking about is the Jordanelle reservoir. And I've been there quite a few times, and it is really beautiful, and it's a great place to paddle board. You can also take paddle boarding lessons over at Deer Valley ski resort in the summertime, so I've done that before as well where they have like group paddle boarding lesson classes and that's a lot of fun.
It is fun. They've got a little lake right there at the bottom right by the main resort. And you can fish there as well if you have a fishing pole, and they've got trout, which is another thing that people love doing here. So if you go just out of town to an area called Heber or even Kamas, we have some beautiful mountain rivers that flow through this whole area that have wonderful, trout. So if you're into fly fishing, it's a great thing to do and you can do that all the way down Provo Canyon. So within, you know, a 30 minute drive of here. You have some really fantastic fly fishing.
Yeah. And there's outfitters to do all of these things. So if you've never been fly fishing before, just look up fly fishing in Park City or fly fishing on the Provo River, and you'll see you'll find outfitters they can take you out and hook you up with all the gear and everything. And another really fun thing to do, which I've done several times, is tubing down the Provo River. That's really fun. We've done that, and there's lots of ziplining to do in Park City at Utah Olympic Park. There's also at Park City mountain, we talked about the Alpine slides, and so I have not actually done the Alpine Slides, but they look really fun. Have you done the Alpine Slides?
Of course. So during the summer, you take the lift up, and they have a concrete course that you ride a Toboggan down, and a single rider you can go flying off, which I have done if you get going too fast around some of those corners. So I mean this is legit. You go, really, fast and so be careful, but it's another really fun thing that is a fairly unique to Park City.
Unless you're at a ski resort. I think those are the only places you can find Alpine slides in the summertime.
Right.
You have to have that height to get the Alpine slide down. Yeah, I've heard people flying off of that. It's really fun. I haven't done it yet, and it's like every summer I'm like "I need to do that". And so I need to totally put it on my bucket list this summer and do the Alpine slides. And the cool thing about Park City is that you can come here as a couple and have a great time. You come here as a family and have a great time. Like it doesn't matter like it's not just for couples or just for families no, you come here with a group of your friends and have a great time. Park City, there's so many things to do here other than the things we've mentioned today that no matter who you come here with, you're going to have a fun time.
That's exactly right.
And we haven't even gotten into all the bars and fun things to do and the nightlife. That's kind of--that would be in a whole separate podcast. But yeah, there's so many fun things to do, check out all the things we've mentioned, and if you have any questions you can definitely talk to cabbott @parkcityguy on Instagram. And cabbott, we do have our--since you are not Celiac or gluten free, we're going to skip our guilty gluten free questions for you, but we do have three wrap up questions here at the end. So one is, what are your future plans with Park City Guy? Are you still planning on posting on Instagram? What are you planning on doing with that?
Yeah, for me it's really something that's just fun. I mean it's something that I do a little bit on the side and dabble with a few times a week, but I really love this community, and I travel a lot myself. Quite often I will find myself saying, "Oh, I wish I had known about that after I've left somewhere", or I hear someone talking about something that they learned from another local, and really I just want this to be a resource so that people get the very best out of their time while they're here in Park City. There's not much that can go wrong. I mean there's--you really, you'd have to work to not have a great time up here, but I think that there are always things that can make your experience a little bit better. And so I, I find pleasure in finding those places and sharing them with people that might be visiting.
That's awesome. And the one thing I just wanted to mention really quick that we forgot to mention is we have a free city wide bus service. And so if you're a local or if you are visiting, if you're out at night and you don't want to drive somewhere, you can take a Lyft or you can take the free local bus service pretty much anywhere in Park City.
Well and the buses cover-- you can get truly almost anywhere in the city with the buses. They are, free they're hop on and off. They come every 10 minutes, and it's a service that everyone should use because it helps cut down on the traffic because we're a pretty small town and so if more people will use the park and rides and even park outside of town and hop on a bus and ride it into town, it will make your experience a lot better as well.
For sure. I actually always use the city bus when they go down to the Park Silly market because in the summertime the parking is crazy down there at the market, and it's so much easier just to hop on the bus and not have to worry about my car. So my next question to wrap up is, what is your ask of the audience?
I would love for people to just engage with me. You know, I love promoting, especially the small businesses that are here. There's no ulterior motive for me, this isn't about anything other than really promoting, what Park City is, because it's a place that I love. I think there are a lot of great businesses that are here. I know the owners and the shopkeepers and the people that work here. I you see them in the grocery store my children go to school with their children. Really, I love talking about them and I'd love for people to engage. And if you've been to any of these places that you see on my post, comment and share your experience and give some positive feedback because the more that we have of that, the more sharing that we have, everyone benefits.
It's great that you also do that about Park City on your, on your social media, and that leads into my next question which is, where can people find you, cabbott?
This is exclusively Instagram, and that's for me it's quick and easy. I take a picture with my iPhone and I posted a little comment about it, and I'm really trying to highlight the very best. There's a lot that I've, that I've done and I've experienced. I know Park City I think really well, and there's a lot that I haven't posted on. Some of that is because I'm really just getting started so a lot of posts potentially aren't up there, but I won't post on something that I don't think is just a fantastic experience. So like I say on my bio there, you know, if it's not here ask me about it, I'm more than happy to just shoot me a message on Instagram and I'll be happy to give you my honest, honest feedback. I'm not about being out there and posting negative reviews on--that's not a place that I want to go. That's not what I want the page to be about, but I do want people, if they see it on parkcity guy to know that, "Hey, this is going to be a fantastic experience".
That's great to know because you can go on your posts, and see all of the different places that you visited in Park City and so you went to have a little visitors guide just check out cabbott's Instagram. And it's @parkcityguy correct?
Correct. Yep.
Yeah, so P A R K C I T Y G U Y. Just like it sounds. Park City Guy, and you will see many of cabbott's posts on there, and these are really great posts. Definitely check out his Instagram feed and cabbott, you have a really great eye for photography.
Oh, thank you. Thank you.
This pictures are really, really great. cabbott, thank you so much for making the time to talk about Park City today. I loved your insider perspective on Park City, because you have such a history here. Your family has such a history here. It was really great to get your insider perspective on Park City, so thank you for making the time today.
It was really my pleasure. Thank you for having me.