Jeremy Pugh is Salt Lake magazine's Editor. He covers culture, history, the outdoors and whatever needs a look. Jeremy is also the author of the book "100 Things to Do in Salt Lake City Before You Die" and the co-author of the history, culture and urban legend guidebook "Secret Salt Lake."
Footloose celebrated its 40th Anniversary last year with a big hullabaloo at its main filming location—Payson High School. So it’s common local knowledge it was shot right here in Utah— Utah County, to be precise. But the film’s script sets the “Overly Religious Town where Dance is Forbidden” somewhere in the Midwest. The scenery? Utah. Tractors for the chicken fight? Utah. The roller mills? Utah. The way Kevin Bacon asks the preacher’s daughter to dance?
Not Utah.
A careful eye will note that Bacon’s Ren McCormack simply asks Lori Singer’s Ariel Moore if she’d like to go to the dance. There are no scavenger hunts, piles of M&Ms, fortune cookies or candy hearts to sort through, nor an elaborate balloon-popping ritual on either side of this teenaged rite of passage.
Here, as in the Midwest, high school is punctuated with the requisite occasions for dance and merriment, both formal and informal. But in Utah, the question-popping portion of these rituals has become high art. It is not enough for a young boy to see a young girl across a crowded cafeteria, make the long walk toward her and merely mutter, “Will you go to the dance with me?”
There are rules, formalities to be observed. First, the boy must surprise the “heck” out of her by pasting hundreds of meticulously cut-out paper polka dots onto her parents’ home. (Mc- Bride, David, The Polka-dot Maneuver, 1988.) Next, a poorly metered limerick indicating that the young lady has indeed been asked to the dance (and is not the victim of very strange, perhaps deviant, vandalism) is taped to the front door.
It reads: Your house is like a clown’s pants/it would like to go to the dance/on one dot you’ll find my name by chance/and then you can tell me if you want to be like the clown’s pants (and go to the dance) (McBride, 1988).
At this point, the girl and her squealing sisters, friends and/or fellow Madrigals will collect every single dot (many of which are on the roof) and hunt for the young man’s name. For the reply, a helium tank is procured and thousands of balloons are crammed into the young master’s bedroom. (McMurray, Janean, The Balloon Caper, 1988.) Inside one of these balloons is a scrap of paper with the word “yes” written on it.
They will not speak to each other until the actual night of the dance, as is tradition.
From the above study, it’s clear that Utah youth are preoccupied with avoiding the humiliating potential of the question (known as the “walk of shame” in less-advanced teenaged societies). The awkwardness of the moment is completely avoided by elaborate (at times, borderline illegal) overtures designed seemingly to shame the askee into answering in the affirmative.
As in: “Well, he went to all this trouble. I might as well go with him” (McMurray, 1988).
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In the late 1800s,Little Cottonwood Canyon was the site of a mining boom (and subsequent bust, of course). Many of the place names were coined by miners or taken from the titles of mining claims. While industrious, the miners weren’t winning any spelling bees. Cecret Lake (pronounced, and correctly spelled Secret) is a popular hike during wildflower season and a widely accepted misspelling. The US Geological Survey even goes along with Cecret on its official maps of the area.
The “cecret” isn’t so secret anymore—in the late summer high season, busloads of tourists and nature lovers from Salt Lake City crowd the trail to the Alpine lake, because the basin it winds through is crowded with wildly colorful wildflowers—lupine, Indian paintbrush, American bistort, sunflowers, fireweed, and many others. Take a picnic.
The Town of Alta, now a ski mecca, got its start as a mining town in the 1800s. Photo courtesy of Marriot LibraryA black and white stereograph from 1883 by W. H. Jackson showing a scene in Little Cottonwood Canyon. The caption reads “Looking up from near Wahsatch,” yet another typo.Photo courtesy of Marriot Library
The mining boom in Little Cottonwood Canyon had another side effect: The large population was vulnerable to the frequent avalanches. By 1872, Alta Town had become the home of several thousand miners and camp followers, and that winter 10 died in a December avalanche. In 1885, 16 were killed in a deadly slide that destroyed the town and left 50 feet of snow on its ruined Main Street. The frequency and deadly nature of the slides prompted The Deseret News to dub Alta “home of the avalanche.” Today avalanches in Little Cottonwood Canyon still are a threat but are mitigated by the Utah Department of Transportation’s aggressive avalanche control and the Alta and Snowbird ski patrols. Explosive fact: The Utah Department of Transportation, responsible for keeping the highway open and safe, owns six World War II-era howitzer artillery pieces that it uses to fire shells onto slopes to trigger avalanches deliberately.
The trailhead to Cecret Lake carries the typo. Photo courtesy of Marriot Library
“Cecret” isn’t the only word the early Wasatch miners couldn’t spell. See “Iron Blosam,” now a vacation rental development at Snowbird Snow & Summer Resort, named after an early mine. Another spelling bee fail.
Find the ‘Cecret’:
What: A perfect Alpine lake with an imperfect name
Where: The Cecret Lake trailhead is near the Albion Basin Campground at the top of Little Cottonwood Canyon. To reach the trailhead from I-215 in Salt Lake City, take Exit 6 for 6200 S. Wasatch Blvd. Drive south on Wasatch Blvd. for and take Utah Highway 210 to Alta. In the peak summer season, a bus system takes you to the trailhead.
Pro Tip: There are more ambitious hikes above Cecret Lake that will take you to spectacular views into American Fork Canyon from the ridge above Alta and Snowbird.
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Bear Lake offers one of Utah’s most scenic vistas. As you crest the hill of Logan Canyon into Rich County, the lake sprawls out into a vivid, sparkling blue jewel defining the valley that bears its name. If Delicate Arch is southern Utah’s Mona Lisa, then Bear Lake is northern Utah’s Girl with the Pearl Earring. But beware. Bear Lake’s stunning blue waters are said to hide a great serpentine beast, as wide as a man and, depending on the account, anywhere from 40 to 200 feet long. The creature’s head is alternatively described as a betusked walrus or a toothy alligator, both bearing giant eyes, set widely apart. The beast has conical ears (“like a pint glass”) and an indeterminate number of legs, is awkward on land but can swim, as one written account has it, “faster than a locomotive.”
The local lore, even today, has it that the depths of Bear Lake have never successfully been fathomed, and it is within these deepest, coldest depths that the creature lurks, hidden from the eyes of man. Down there. In the dark. That’s where the Bear Lake Monster waits.
But Bear Lake’s depth has been measured plenty, says the late Ted Alsop, the affable and beloved Utah State University professor of physical geography, from whose lips I first heard tell of the beast. Alsop used the story to debunk the myth that the lake’s depths had never been plumbed and to artfully describe the scientific difference between a crater lake and a lake, like Bear Lake, created from a “dropped-down graben.” (Which sounds equally monstrous, really: Watch out child, or the Graben will get you!)
“It was a story made up by drunk Mormons,” Alsop, who passed away in 2017, told his freshman classes year after year. “The lake is 280 feet deep at bank full, and no, it’s not a crater lake, although there are crater lakes in the area…,” etc.
But the legend (and all legends like it: Loch Ness, Sasquatch) persists because these tales of fearsome, left-behind creatures are vestigial holdouts from the time when we were fighting for control of this world.
They live on in our deep cortex. The feral, fight-or-flight memories of a time when we named the monsters and mastered them. But on a darkened shore of a silvery lake, these long-forgotten fears spring forth as a primal response to errant and suspicious splashes amid the lapping waters.
And we can easily see in our mind’s eye the scaled beast breaking the water’s surface, gliding in the moonlight in stern warning. It is a shadow of what we once encountered and conquered, and it waits with the patience of eons in its dark, murksome home to rise from the waters and take back what we took.
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The Sundance Institute, which has been “kind of, sorta seeing other people,” announced today that it will be moving in with Boulder, Colo. Yeah. What? What the actual F-word? I mean what happened to “I just need some space” Sundance? How long has this been going on? You just said you were just “going to coffee” and it was “just one meeting” and now you’re moving in?
Wow.
Great! I, mean, good for you! It’s so great to see you grow into yourself after the years we spent giving you tax breaks and paying the bills for transportation and venue infrastructure. Oh, and cleaning up the mess you and your friends made after you left town. Jeez Louise! So many branded water bottles.
Sorry. Sorry! I don’t mean to be negative. I mean we did have some fun. Remember that time when our friend got on a bus and the bus didn’t stop and kept going out to Heber? And he was like, “hey where’s this bus going? And the dudes on the bus said, “Wait who are you? I thought “you were with us.” And it turns out the bus was chartered by the Slamdance people who were throwing their anniversary bash at the Heber bowling alley. Wow. Good times. Nice people BTW, so glad you introduced us. Doubt they’re into Boulder though. Just sayin’.
I mean. OK. We DID say some stupid things. Like the thing about your movies promoting the gay lifestyle. We know some of your best friends are gay (well, all of them, let’s be real). And the flag thing. Yeah. That was a cheap shot. SOO DUMB. Gah! We were in a FIGHT. People say things. I mean, WTF Cincinnati? Cincinnati?! What was that even about?
Fine! Well. I’m not getting anywhere with you (as usual). So… I don’t suppose you want to have one more crazy time with us? I mean we do have all these traffic cones and buses and seated venues and the signs and the GD water bottles so I mean…I don’t want to sound desperate but you and me? One more harrah? 2026?
I mean if Boulder is cool with that? We want to respect your boundaries.
We’ll clean up after. Don’t worry. Hugs and kisses to Boulder.
When Mark Twain—then still just plain Samuel Clemens—came through Salt Lake City in 1861, he was accompanying his brother Orion on his way to take up the position of Secretary of Nevada Territory. It was usual for traveling dignitaries to stop in and say “hello” to the Lion of Zion, LDS Church President Brigham Young, and the Clemens brothers did just that. It is supposed that Mark Twain felt snubbed by the great man because later, in his 1872 book, Roughing It, he exaggerates the encounter and his impressions of Mormons in general in full Twain style.
Of The Book of Mormon, he wrote, “It is so slow, so sleepy, such an insipid mess of inspiration. It is chloroform in print. If Joseph Smith composed this book, the act was a miracle—keeping awake while he did it was, at any rate.” Of the practice of polygamy and Mormon wives, he said his heart “warmed toward these poor, ungainly and pathetically ‘homely’ creatures…the man who marries one of them has done an act of Christian charity which entitles him to the kindly applause of mankind, not their censure,” and then marvels at the man who could wed 60 of them, as he exaggerated Brigham Young’s matrimonial count. (Young actually had 55 wives, so Twain wasn’t far off the mark.)
Mark Twain passed through Salt Lake City in the journey west he recounts in his book, Roughing It.(Photos and Documents courtesy of The Library of Congress)
But Twain didn’t stop there, long after the official visit, the humourist imagines Young at the Beehive House overwhelmed by his many, many children.
“Once a gentleman gave one of my children a tin whistle—a veritable invention of Satan, sir, and one which I have an unspeakable horror of, and so would you if you had 80 or 90 children in your house,” Twain writes as his imaginary Brigham. “But the deed was done—the man escaped. I knew what the result was going to be, and I thirsted for vengeance. I ordered out a flock of Destroying Angels, and they hunted the man far into the fastnesses of the Nevada mountains. But they never caught him. I am not cruel, sir—I am not vindictive except when sorely outraged—but if I had caught him, sir, so help me Joseph Smith, I would have locked him into the nursery till the brats whistled him to death.”
Mark Twain Gets The Last Laugh
Twain wrote, “When the audience was ended and we were retiring from the presence, he [Young] put his hand on my head, beamed down on me in an admiring way and said to my brother: ‘Ah—your child, I presume? Boy, or girl?’”
For Epic pass holders, the temptation of Whistler is hard to resist
With some of the world’s greatest ski resorts right here in the Wasatch Range, Utahns can be forgiven for a lack of curiosity about skiing elsewhere. Why would we think about other resorts? But let’s not pretend that we don’t have a wandering eye from time to time. Be honest, you’ve said the word, maybe over beers at the Corner Store after a day on Park City side, leaning in, whispering across the table: “Whistler.” Just saying it feels like you’re cheating, right?
Nevertheless, you find yourself dreaming of Canadian ridgelines, poutine and ice-cold Molsons. And this is OK. Go ahead and leave that Snowbird season pass dangling on the key peg, grab your Epic pass and slip away to Vancouver for a rendezvous with the mighty mountains of British Columbia. After landing in Vancouver, it’s only a two-hour drive on the Sea-to-Sky Highway (see below) into the Fitzsimmons Range, where you’ll quickly be sitting in front of a roaring fire in your pied-à-terre in one of Whistler’s two base villages, a trail map spread out before you.
Whistler is really Whistler Blackcomb Ski Resort, and all the space between its two massive, namesake peaks. All told, it’s the largest ski area in North America (sorry, Park City). From the lowest base area at the resort, Creekside Village, the ascent to the top is dramatic: A gondola and lift take you from 2,140 feet above sea level to Whistler Mountain’s 7,156-foot summit. (Blackcomb Peak’s summit is even higher, nearly 8,000 feet, but isn’t served by a lift.)
From Whistler Mountain’s summit, you’ll have the entirety of the Fitzsimmons Range laid out at your feet. Most of what you’re looking at is Garibaldi Provincial Park, a wilderness area unsullied by the development and luxury cabins that increasingly junk up alpine scenery in the United States. Where you go from here is up to you, but, with 200 marked runs, 8,171 acres of terrain, 16 alpine bowls and three glaciers to explore, there’s no shortage of options.
Don’t worry, Utah never needs to know.
GETTING THERE: Ride the Sea-To-Sky Highway
Whistler Blackcomb is about a two-hour drive north from Vancouver. While renting a car is an option, take a shuttle: You’ll want to sightsee along the well-named Sea-to-Sky Highway. Whistler Connection offers airport transfers to stops in both Creekside and Whistler villages, meet-and-greet services, and more. Make like James Bond and book a helicopter. This will have you in Whistler in a mere 30 minutes (with some detours for the scenery) but, ouch, it’s about $4,500 (one-way). However you get to Whistler, it’s easy to get around here. Go old school and utilize the area’s reliable cab services. Bonus: The local drivers are a colorful lot who speak the Queen’s English with a thick Canadian brogue. Nice one, eh?
Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre is part of Whistler’s Cultural Connector trail. Photo courtesy of Tourism Whistler, Mike Crane.
GET YOUR ART AND ARCHITECTURE ON
Apart from the quad-burning ski days that are the center of this visit, you’ll want to make sure you don’t miss the Audain Art Museum. Home of a fascinating collection of First Nation artworks, as well as contemporary works by Canadian artists, the 56,000-square-foot building designed by architect John Patkau is itself a work of art. The Audain is a must-see along Whistler’s Cultural Connector, a scenic path that links six of the ski village’s major cultural institutions. On your stroll, also stop into the Maury Young Arts Centre, the home of Arts Whistler, a gallery and hub of local artistic and cultural activity. Check the center’s calendar before you visit to find activities for all ages. The Whistler Museum gives a funky, fun rundown of the timeline from Whistler’s start as a tiny fishing village to its Olympic glory days. Also along the Cultural Connector, you’ll find two notable works of public art—Susan Point’s bronze sculpture, A Timeless Circle, and James Stewart’s Jeri, a compelling figure study of a Brazilian Capoeira fighter ready to spring into action.
BRING IT HOME
Amid the usual resort suspects—gear and T-shirt shops—are some one-off gems, literally in the case of Keir Fine Jewellery. The boutique jewelry store specializes in inspired settings for Canadian diamonds and other stones. If you do find yourself with a hankering for gear, pop into the Whistler Blackcomb Outlet Store in the main village; it requires digging through its racks but finding a deal on something Gortex is part of the fun. Plaza Galleries is that ski town gallery that offers an eclectically curated selection of work by international artists that you won’t find in Utah.
PLAY
Most of your time will surely be spent exploring the vast resort you came to Canada to ski, and there is a lot to explore. Break it down into smaller chunks by joining one of the free mountain tours given daily on each of the two peaks. The colorful volunteers who lead the tours are Whistler lifers who will ensure that you see the best each mountain offers. For a break from downhill skiing, book a self-guided snowshoeing or cross-country ski excursion with Cross Country Connection. Or join a guided zip line, snowmobile or snowshoe tour with The Adventure Group. Finally, ditch the gear and the cold completely and book (in advance) an afternoon or evening at Scandinave Spa. This place is no joke—very hot and very cold pools sit in a beautiful garden dotted with cozy chill-out rooms where you can catch your breath.
Scandinave Spa is a wonderful respite from winter temperatures. Photo courtesy of Scandinave Spa.
EAT & DRINK
Let’s talk waffles—gorgeously decorated with blueberries and frothy whipped cream—served next to a steaming cup of coffee. On a gondola ride, “Have you had the waffles?” is the answer to our question, “Where should we eat?” So, make sure at least one of your ski days includes a mid-morning or mid-afternoon break at Crystal Hut on Blackcomb’s Crystal Ridge.
Crystal Hut’s famous buttermilk waffles are a must for an on-mountain ski break. Photo courtesy of whistlerblackcomb.com.
The après scene at Whistler truly is a scene. Garibaldi Lift Company Bar & Grill is the big show with the see-and-be-seen crowd. For a quieter wind down, try Bar Oso, a tapas joint with an interesting and extensive wine list of Spanish varietals. Wherever you après, try a Bloody Caesar, a Canadian variant on the Bloody Mary made with Clamato juice. The bartenders around Whistler attempt to outdo each other with both classic and ridiculously adorned Bloody Caesars. For the former, stop into Dusty’s Bar & BBQ in Creekside Village. For the latter, clomp those ski boots into Merlin’s Bar & Grill and, with a straight face, ask for “The Jester.” Chances are you won’t be able to keep that straight face: The Jester comes garnished with chicken wings, onion rings, cured bacon and beef jerky.
Rimrock Cafe. Photo by Darby Magill.
The premier dining destination in the Whistler area is Rimrock Café. Here the servers are lifer ski bums who are not only hospitality pros but also offer great beta on tomorrow’s ski plans. For something more casual, try Creekbread Pizza, a convivial wood-fired pizza joint near Creekside Village. Craft beer lovers who like hipster menus will love Hunter Gather. Take in the views over lunch at Christine’s on Blackcomb, a beautifully designed nouvelle cuisine restaurant in the Rendezvous Lodge perched high on Blackcomb Peak.
REST UP
Whistler is a sprawling ski area with many options for places to stay, including a wide-ranging selection of vacation rentals, bed and breakfasts and a solid lineup of full-service hotels. As you consider the options, know that where you stay is a big factor in determining the kind of trip you’ll have. Creekside Village, which links to the Creekside Gondola, is a quiet(ish) residential community, with a smaller selection of restaurants and bars than Whistler Village.
Whistler Village has easy access to both the Blackcomb Excalibur and Whistler Village gondolas and is the heart of the resort’s activity and action. There’s a well-run bus system between and around both areas. In Creekside Village, Nita Lake Lodge is perched on the shore of (frozen) Nita Lake. A scenic boutique hotel, it’s a getaway from your getaway, designed in “mountain modern” chic style (yes, there are stag heads on the wall). Whistler Village’s counterpart to Nita Lake is Fairmont Chateau Whistler. Looming over the village like something out of a Disney fairy tale, it’s basically a castle, with turndown service.
The Pan Pacific Whistler Mountainside has rooms with views of the gondola lines. Listel Hotel Whistler is a business-class property with a groovy modern lobby. It’s also home to the Bearfoot Bistro, which has an Ice Room experience, where you can drink ice cold vodka (or whatever) out of, yep, tumblers made of ice. The Blackcomb Lodge has that rough-hewn log vibe and offers reasonably priced rooms right in the center of Whistler Village.
Après ski in the Whistler village at dusk. Photo courtesy Adobe Stock.
Mars has alwaysbeen called the red planet, and it’s easy to see why with one look through a telescope. It’s also held a certain mystique, because for years we’ve been told that Mars is the planet most like Earth. And Utah is the place on Earth most like Mars. (Look at all that red rock.)
So it seems appropriate that the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) is located just outside Hanksville, near the massive area of rock formations and deep canyons called the San Rafael Swell. The project is operated by the Mars Society, the largest non-profit organization advocating humans to Mars, and is funded by private donations, grants and crew fees.
The analog astronauts in Hanksville, as MDRS reffers to its crew members, never leave the Earth; their job is to simulate what life could be like if and when humans ever get to Mars. They field-test dwellings and figure out how to grow food in what they hope will be Mars-friendly greenhouses, and try to answer all kinds of practical questions that will come up for explorers in a truly otherworldly environment. The crew members are deployed for two- to three-week missions.
Driving by the site, you can occasionally glimpse these earthbound Martians, suited up for space and exploring the Utah landscape as if it were the Ghost Dunes of Noctis Labyrinthus. Beyond the otherworldly landscape that drew these would-be Martians to central Utah, the state long has had a connection to space exploration.
Dr. Bonnie Baxter, professor of biology at Westminster College in Salt Lake City and director of Westminster’s Great Salt Lake Institute, collaborated with the space program. Baxter’s work studying the microbiology of the Great Salt Lake caught the attention of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. Baxter studies the transition of the ancient progenitor of the Great Salt Lake, Lake Bonneville, into the salty remnant that exists today.
In February of 2021, the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover landed on Mars at Jezero Crater, an ancient lake bed. The Great Salt Lake Institute aided JPL scientists in developing special equipment for Perseverance to help with its mission of seeking out ancient life and collecting samples for a possible return to Earth.
MRDS Crew 261 on the MDRS campus – Photo Courtesy MRDS
A glimpse of what’s out there (right here)
The MDRS researchers even have all-terrain vehicles (Mars will test the limits of the term “all-terrain”) to explore. Designed by Polaris, the electric ATVs, piloted by suited-up Utah desert Martian explorers, occasionally can be seen crawling around the rocks of the San Rafael Swell.
Mars on Earth
What: The Mars Desert Research Station (MRDS) Where: Just north of Route 24, Hanksville, Utah Fun fact: The first Mars simulation project was situated in the Haughton Impact Crater in Northern Canada. More projects are planned for Europe and Australia. Learn more: Visit mdrs.marssociety.org
From his early years,Willie Ford unknowingly set on a path that would lead him to the helm of the National Ability Center, a program founded 40 years ago around a kitchen table in Park City by Pete Badewitz and Meeche White. From those modest beginnings, the NAC has grown into a major national resource to provide profound life-changing outdoor experiences for people of all abilities. Ford essentially grew up at Holderness School, a small private boarding school in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. His father was the dean, math teacher and football coach, and his mother coached the ski team.
Willie Ford and his dog Rudy at The Hub Recreation Center at the National Ability Center in Park City. Photo by Adam Finkle.
“I saw what a positive impact living in a campus community dedicated to outdoor recreation can lead to,” he says. “I always at some point I’d be doing something along those lines.”
That early inspiration observing the rewarding work his mother and father undertook as teachers, coaches and mentors would become a fundamental touchstone for Ford.
After college at the University of New Hampshire where he was a two-time All-American member of the ski team (thanks, Mom), he found his way to the outdoor gear biz. First as the co-founder of Givego, a company that connects athletes with professional coaches, as well as Cake, a Scandinavian maker of premium lightweight electric motorcycles, and POC, a Swedish company known best for its iconic goggles. Thirteen years ago, POC was acquired by Utah’s own Black Diamond and Ford happily found himself in Park City.
“I’ll always be a New Englander at heart, but out here the snow is lighter and the sun is brighter,” he says of the move.
Ford always found himself drawn toward the experiences that had informed his early life. Like the High Fives Foundation, an adaptive sports organization in Truckee, Calif., where Ford was a volunteer and a board member. At High Fives he gravitated toward working with Military to the Mountains program that wounded veterans experience skiing and snowboarding.
The NAC serves more than 5,000-6,000 individuals a year in its programs. Photo courtesy of National Ability Center.
“I understand the impact that outdoor experience can deliver,” he says. “When I heard about the NAC, I always thought I would love to be a part of that organization. When the word on the street was that the CEO position was open. It hit me like a bolt of lightning.”
After an extensive search, the NAC tapped Ford for the job last summer.
“We have a big responsibility,” he says. “Helping individuals get outside their comfort zone, and leave with confidence, inspiration and self-esteem, proud of what they accomplished. That’s just part of it. So many families tell us that ‘my son or daughter felt completely invisible until they came to the NAC.’ There is so much massive potential for us, and our team finds ways to unlock these huge human hearts.”
In the run-up tothe 2002 Salt Lake Winter Games, you may recall, there was a large flap surrounding the bidding campaign to bring the Games to Utah. During that turbulence, public support for the Games waned. One local company, O.C. Tanner, played a special part in keeping them on track. And it was, as they say, the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
“Our CEO worked behind the scenes with Olympic leadership and our board to commit a sizable chunk of our charitable donations to the United States Olympic Committee,” says Sandra Christensen, the Vice President of O.C. Tanner’s Awards Division. The donation would be manifest in three familiar Olympic denominations: bronze, silver and gold. O.C. Tanner produced and donated the medals for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. The 2002 gold and silver medals were the heaviest Olympic medals ever created and, for the first time in Olympic history, the medals were varied for each sport, featuring 16 unique artists’ renderings of the various snow sports featured in the Games.
Thus began a legacy of partnership between O.C. Tanner and the USOC (now the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee—USPOC).
The Team USA rings are sized for each athlete and they can be customized with personalized touches. Photo courtesy of O.C. Tanner
Following the success of the 2002 Games, O.C. Tanner’s Awards Division was tapped to design the commemorative rings each U.S. athlete receives for making Team USA. Now, going on 13 Olympics, the company has presented more than 10,000 rings to every U.S. Olympic and Paralympic athlete who makes Team USA.
The rings, Christensen says, become a vital part of the athlete’s Olympic journey.
“It is the one thing they are guaranteed if they make Team USA,” she says. “Making the team itself is a huge accomplishment and this ring acknowledges that. Not all of the athletes will make the podium and earn a medal, but they all get their ring.”
Veteran athletes who have made Team USA for multiple Games strive to “collect all five,” Christensen says. “So they have one ring for every finger.”
Two years ago, snowboarding legend Shaun White told GQ Sports that his first Team USA ring (he has five total), earned when he was just 19 years old, is one of the 10 things he can’t live without. (Note to Shaun: If the rings are lost, O.C. Tanner will replace them.)
“Not a lot of athletes are going to carry their medals around,” Christensen chuckles. “So the ring becomes this subtle reminder for them and something they cherish.”
Read more about Utah’s lasting Olympic influence, here!
The Viking Yurt at Park City Mountain Resort is not a regular night out to dinner. The Yurt, perched at 8,700 feet, near the apex of the Crescent Lift, piles a whole lot of “special” into the term “special occasion.” For starters, you’ll arrive via an open sleigh that is drawn up the mountain by a specialized snowcat.
An evening at the Viking Yurt includes
an open-air sleigh ride up the mountain to 8,700 feet above sea level.
Photos Courtesy Graff Public Relations
The Viking Yurt has been an experience in experiential dining since 1999, when its original owners, Joy and Geir Vik, opened its doors. Over the years, the Viks served nightly four-course meals accented with Norwegian hospitality (and plenty of Aquavit). But orchestrating sumptuous dinner service at 8,000 feet above sea level is not easy after all those years. They began to discuss ways to move on.
It turned out there was a plan right in front of them. For many years, the Viks had found synergy in hiring off-season river guides from Western River Expeditions, a well-known guiding company run by Brian and Dena Merrill. Starting about 15 years ago, a pipeline developed between the Merrill’s off-season staff and the Viking Yurt. River guides know how to work hard, can deal with the challenges of outdoor work and, well, the ski passes and good tips don’t hurt. The Viks approached the Merrills about taking over the operation, which was already staffed with many Western Expedition guides, including their son Dylan.
Photos Courtesy Graff Public Relations
“We decided to do it as a family,” Brian says. “It’s been fun—a new challenge, but it’s not so different than running a multi-day river trip. It didn’t intimidate us. We pull off pretty amazing food service in remote settings. At least at the yurt, we’re not cooking over a camp stove.”
The Merrills, in partnership with their son Dylan, opened the yurt for the 2023 winter season without much fanfare or fuss. Brian and his wife Dena have an unassuming friendly style of relating to people, something that they’ve honed over years of running rivers. They brought that sensibility to the Yurt.
“We didn’t have to change a lot of things,” he said. “It was pretty well set up. We’ll find small ways to improve but we respect that this is a tradition for many families and we want to respect that.”
The main staff returned that first season (including the snowcat driver, a key player). So they started with a crew that knew the quirks of the yurt and how to deliver the high-end service guests had grown to expect.
“We did counsel the staff to not bore customers with river stories though,” he adds, chuckling. “They can get boring if you’re not a river rat.”
Experience the Viking Yurt
The evening begins at the Park City base village where you begin a 25-minute sleigh ride up the mountain, offering views of the night sky, trees, city lights and mountains. The sleigh parks outside the Viking Yurt and inside you’ll be greeted with a warm fire and a mug of Glogg, a hot, non-alcoholic spicy cider. The evening unfolds with a six-course gourmet dinner and concludes with the sleigh ride back down to the base.
The Viking Yurt operates from mid-December through mid-March. Regular pricing is $225 per person. Holiday pricing (Dec. 18 – Jan. 1) is $295 per person. Prices do not include alcohol or gratuity.
