Adventures

The Lodge at Blue Sky’s stunning mountain views are 27 minutes from Park City. It’s well known for romantic getaways, luxury family vacations and, now, summer camp. 

The Little Vaqueros Kids Club opened last year for kids to explore nature, learn skills and go on adventures. Parents can register kids for summer 2025 now. It’s open to ages 6 to 10, and 5 to 12 for lodge guests.

“The Little Vaqueros Kids Club was born from the vision to create meaningful, hands-on experiences for younger guests at Blue Sky. During the early stages of development, we knew multi-generational travel would be a key part of our guest experience, and it was important to offer something as immersive and thoughtful for kids as we do for adults,” said Henry Hudson, ranch general manager at Blue Sky. “With 3,500 acres to explore and a working ranch as our backdrop, we saw an incredible opportunity to design a full-day program where kids could truly experience life on the land—caring for animals, learning horsemanship, exploring nature and engaging in ranch-inspired activities. It’s been a passion project from the start, and one we’re proud to see inspiring a deep connection to nature in the next generation.”

The camp takes a different group of eight kids each week during the summer. Different themes are explored each day of the week. One of the most popular, “Discovering Gracie’s Farm,” will take place on Fridays. Throughout the day, kids care for farm animals, learn about sustainable farming practices and complete farm chores. On Thursdays, kids will see how food goes from the earth to their plates by gathering edible plants along the property’s trails and then learning to bake in the lodge’s kitchen. All of the themes are listed below.

“The primary goal of Little Vaqueros is to provide children with an immersive educational experience that deepens their understanding of nature and ranch life. Through activities like exploring the land’s geography and history, studying local ecosystems and working on horsemanship skills—such as catching, grooming and riding horses—kids develop both practical and environmental knowledge,” Hudson said. “They also engage in culinary lessons, where they spend the morning collecting eggs and produce from the farm and then meet with the chef to learn how to cook with what they’ve gathered. Additionally, kids interact with animals at the Saving Gracie Healing Foundation, which teaches empathy and responsibility. By combining these experiences, we aim to foster curiosity, respect for nature and a sense of personal growth through hands-on learning.”

Since many of the participants will be vacationing at the lodge, Little Vaqueros gives local kids a chance to build friendships with kids from other parts of the state, country and world.

“While kids are off enjoying their day at Little Vaqueros Kids Club, parents can take full advantage of everything Blue Sky has to offer—from relaxing at the Edge Spa and enjoying lunch or a tour at High West Distillery to dining at YUTA or booking their own adventures like fly fishing, horseback riding and more,” said Hudson.

Little Vaqueros is $750 per week. Kids may bring their lunch or receive lunch from the lodge’s restaurant, YUTA, for an additional $25 per meal. 

Email bsk.adventures@aubergeresorts.com for more information.

Weekly themes at Blue Sky’s Little Vaqueros

• Monday: Wilderness Explorers Hike Blue Sky’s trails while searching for natural treasures and learn the basics of fishing in local waters.
• Tuesday: Cowboys & Cowgirls Assist with horse care and morning chores, then saddle up to work directly with the horses in the riding arena.
• Wednesday: Mountain Creativity Forage along Alexander Creek to create nature-inspired crafts, then use natural materials to make birdhouses and mandalas.
• Thursday: Culinary Exploration Identify and collect edible plants along the trails, then learn baking secrets and test your skills in Blue Sky’s kitchen.
• Friday: Discovering Gracie’s Farm Care for rescued animals at Gracie Equine Healing Foundation, then assist with daily farm chores and learn sustainable farming practices.
• Saturday: Little Miner’s Search for geodes along Blue Sky’s trails, then explore the mining history of Park City through a geocaching course.
• Sunday: Love of the Land Help restore native plant species along Alexander Creek, then create paintings of Blue Sky’s rescue horses or scenic landscapes.

Discover more outdoor inspiration, and find all our Adventure coverage. And while you’re here, why not subscribe and get six annual issues of Salt Lake magazine’s curated guide to the best of life in Utah?

March and April are the bona fide salad days of living along the Wasatch Front when mountain snow conditions are still stellar and the valley’s foothill singletrack is all smooth, tacky fun. But before you dust off your knobby wheels and hit the dirt, investing in a little mountain-bike specific spring strength training can help ease the transition from sliding down mountains to peddling up them. So says two former professional mountain bike racers and now coaches, WUKAR Fit’s Art O’Connor, who focuses on gym-specific strength training for cyclists, and K Cycling Coaching’s Sarah Kaufmann, a specialist in helping elite mountain bikers build both endurance and speed. 

Getting Strong

Coming out of ski season most mountain bikers’ leg strength is pretty much up to snuff, O’Connor explained. “Where most people, alpine skiers especially, lack strength in the spring,” he says, “is in the upper body.” To prepare your arms, shoulders, upper back and core for the demands of climbing and descending on a mountain bike, O’Connor recommends adding push-pull exercises to your fitness routine.

Push-ups:Not surprisingly, the good ole push-up remains the standard-bearer of developing upper-body pushing strength. To achieve the perfect-form push-up, begin in a plank position with your hands slightly wider than shoulder-width and your feet at hip-width. Tighten your core and then lower your body until your elbows are at a 45-degree angle. Pause for a beat and then push back up the starting position. Your body should remain in a straight line from head to heels the entire time, no sagging or rising hips allowed. “And you don’t get better at push-ups by doing them on your knees, but rather doing them with your hands elevated, ideally in a stairwell,” O’Connor says. “Start on the highest stair you can reach,” he says. “When you can do three sets of 10 in perfect form, then you’re ready to move down to the next step.” 

Plank Pulls:To increase pull strength, used by mountain bikers as they pull on the handlebars to apply pressure to their back wheel as they ascend hills, O’Connor recommends plank pulls, or pulling your upper body up while in an inverted or upward-facing plank position. The farther you place your feet out in front of you, decreasing the angle of your body in relation to the floor, the more difficult the plank pull will be. This exercise can be done in the gym by pulling yourself up on a pair of TRX bands suspended from a ceiling or by pulling yourself up to a barbell placed on a squat rack. A plank pull can also be performed at home by crawling under a dining room table and pulling yourself up by holding onto the edge of the table.

Greasing the Groove:For athletes looking to get strong without bulking up, O’Connor recommends “greasing the groove,” a training technique that increases neuromuscular efficiency through minimal repetitions and plenty of rest time in between sets. An example of this training technique would be doing three sets of three to five push-ups spread throughout the day: one set after getting up in the morning, another at midday, and a final set in the evening. “It’s not necessary to follow that exact schedule,” he says, “the key is keeping the reps low and making sure the time in between sets is at least an hour.”

How to Last All Day 

The best way to maintain endurance-related fitness, says Kaufmann, is by regularly engaging in an activity that challenges your cardiovascular system. “For athletes who put away their bike for the winter, that can look like ski touring, snowshoeing, hiking or running—anything that gets your heart rate up and keeps it up for a while,” she says. “The more you do over the winter, the more you can absorb when you get back on the bike in the spring.” Of those activities, Kaufmann says that ski touring translates particularly well to mountain biking. “The motion of dragging your ski uphill uses many of the same muscles used in a pedal stroke, and then skiing downhill is very similar to the skills of spatial perception and maintaining your body at a speed that is required in mountain biking.”

For those of us, like me, who tend to let the chairlifts do most of the work during the winter, Kaufmann says that cadence workouts are a great way to kick-start your cycling endurance in the spring. A simple example that can be done on a gym bike, trainer or on the road is performing three to five sets of pedaling at a high cadence for one minute and then backing it down to a normal cadence for five minutes. “You don’t need a computer to tell you what your cadence is,” she says. “A high cadence is when you’re pedaling at an uncomfortably fast pace but below the point that you’re bouncing out of the saddle.” 

Another workout, more focused on neuromuscular power, can be done by repeating a gradual climb that takes about three to five minutes to complete one time. Ride the climb once in a moderate gear and then repeat, shifting the gears up one cog harder each time, until you fail. Whenever you do get back on the bike, Kaufmann warns, resist the urge to ramp up too quickly. “Even if you feel good, always take it easy when restarting an activity you haven’t done for a while, even one you’ve done for years,” she says. “Doing too much too soon is a sure-fire recipe for starting the season with an injury.”

More from the Pros

WUKAR Fit  |  wukar.com
K Cycling Coaching  | kcyclingcoaching.com

When we’re talking about spring break destinations, Ft. Lauderdale or Palm Beach might immediately come to mind. But consider…Ogden, Utah. Skiers and riders hoping to ski spring break are wise to save what many Utahns call the best, Ogden Valley’s resorts, for last. It’s spring break—Ogden style. 

It starts with Nordic Valley’s killer ticket deal and continues with end-of-season shenanigans like pond skimming at Nordic, Snowbasin and Powder Mountain. It’s spring break, baby!

Nordic Valley

Only a few miles outside of Ogden in stunning Eden, Nordic Valley has a budget- and family-friendly reputation.

They’ve earned it with ages 12 and under riding free all ski season and having the “World’s Best Spring Break.” Running March 1 until the resort closes, every lift ticket comes with a $10 credit and the option to add a $30 rental and a $50 beginner lesson. 

Tickets start at $19 and rise as the mountain becomes more crowded. “At the window, you can anticipate seeing prices between $69 and $99, but you can save a bunch by going online and reserving ahead of time,” said Katie Gubler, resort operations manager.

The credit is good only on the ticket date but can be used for food, shopping or even a ticket for a later date. Like many other resorts in spring, look for the dates they host pond skimming, where skiers wear costumes and attempt to skim across a makeshift pond. Nordic Valley will also hold the Denim Dual Slalom, a competition to find the fastest competitor dressed in denim, and the Duct Tape Derby, a cardboard-and-duct-tape sled race. 

“With our lower elevation, you’ll see warmer temperatures in the spring, so you’ll see a lot of people skiing in T-shirts,” Gubler said. “It’s a really good time.”

Visit nordicvalley.ski for event dates and tickets.

Snowbasin and Powder Mountain

As long as you’re in the neighborhood, visit Snowbasin and Powder Mountain for more fun on the mountain.

Snowbasin will host pond skimming and the Handle Tow Showdown rail jam, where amateurs and professionals compete with their best tricks on a rail. 

If you’re not the competitive type, you can still enjoy live music. “It’s free, and it’s just to create a real fun vibe at the mountain toward the end of the season,” said Davy Ratchford, Snowbasin general manager.

Also at Snowbasin, if you buy a 2025–26 season pass, the last month of skiing this season will be included.

On March 29, Powder Mountain hosts Turn ’n’ Burn, a series of snowboard-only races. Skiers can join the resort’s No Joke Tele Race on April 5, where all races will be telemark-only. Skiing after 4 p.m. will only be $19.

“What you’ll find is a really uncrowded, just super-fun experience,” said Tim LeRoy, Powder Mountain Resort spokesperson. “It’s just kind of more of a party atmosphere in the spring.”  

Tired of sweating it out in the gym? Time to learn to skate ski. After relocating to Utah from the Upper Midwest flatlands to Utah in my mid-20s, I let my classic-style cross-country skis gather dust for about a decade while I rode chairlifts and searched for face shots. But then one February, during an unusually extended period of high pressure, I got an invite to attend the Bryce Canyon Winter Festival, a weekend of mostly free activities held on the edge of Bryce Canyon National Park. There I took my first skate-skiing lesson and was hooked. While classic cross-country skiing is similar to going for a stroll along a flat sidewalk, skate skiing is as exhilarating as going for a trail run. Skate-skiing’s simultaneous upper-and lower-body workout checks both the cardiovascular- and muscle-building boxes while torching a whopping 600 to 800 calories per hour. And because most of Utah’s state-skiing tracks are in super-scenic wooded or rolling hills locations, the experience is much more mentally rejuvenating than spending an hour indoors in the stuffy gym.  

The only downside: learning proper skate skiing techniques takes time and practice. I had, misguidedly, tried to figure it out on my own before my first lesson at Bryce Canyon. But each time I went, I’d shuffle along awkwardly, bathed in sweat, trying to move my arms and legs in the effortless rhythm I’d see other skiers on the track demonstrate seemingly effortlessly while they passed me on the track, greeting me with an always cheerful, “good morning!”

Taking a lesson, especially for beginners, affirmed Don DeBlieux, a PSIA Level 3 Nordic instructor with 30-plus years of experience and who teaches at White Pine Touring Nordic Center in Park City, will “save you a lot of frustration and you won’t develop movement patterns that are inefficient and hard to break,” he says. “And I’m not just saying this to get more business. I’d much rather have a blank canvas than someone who tried to figure it out on their own.”

Learn the Proper Skate-Skiing Techniques

Start in a basic athletic body position: Feet shoulder width apart, slight bend in your knees, hips are directly over your feet. 

Next, lift your left leg and center your body weight over your right leg. Focus on maintaining a straight line from your armpit down to your toes. Now return back to your basic athletic position. Repeat by raising your right leg and balancing on your left, maintaining that straight line.

While there are several factors in mastering a skate-skiing’s V-shaped stance, solid technique boils down to getting comfortable with balancing on one leg. “Make sure you commit completely to one ski before pushing off onto the other ski,” DeBlieux says. “And keep that head up and eyes down the trail, you don’t have to keep an eye on your skis, if they fall off you will know.”

There are boatloads of drills new skate skiers can do to get accustomed to balancing on one ski, but one of the simplest, DeBlieux says, is this: when on a slight downhill, attempt to hold a glide on one ski a bit farther with each stride. “When we coach kids, we do contests to see who can go the farthest on one ski,” he says. “Hopping on one ski is also a good one. Some skiers practice by always standing on one leg when they brush their teeth.”

For what it’s worth, mastering one-leg balance is beneficial to classic skiing techniques, too. “[In classic skiing] the ski is moving down the track and we want to be over it and moving with it,” she says. “The most efficient classic skiers are moving from leg to leg just like we do when we walk and run.”

Where the pros are

Avoid the inevitable frustration of trying to learn how to skate-ski on your own by taking a lesson or clinic from one of the following Nordic schools or learn-to organizations.

Utah Nordic Alliance (TUNA)

Learn-to-ski programs for kids, juniors and adults are held at TUNA’s Parleys Canyon home base at the Mountain Dell Golf Course.

White Pine Touring Nordic Center

Located at the Park City Golf Course, they offer separate men’s and ladies’ learn-to-skate-ski-lesson series, weekly in January and February.

Park City Nordic Betties 

This group offers an eight-week skate-skiing series for beginners/never-evers starting January 8. Each lesson in the series is held at a different location around Park City, based on weather and conditions.

Ogden Nordic (ON) 

ON offers skate and classic ski lessons at North Fork Park in Ogden. Classic and skate-skiing group lessons for beginners are offered on Saturdays; private lessons are available with reservations seven days a week.

Solitude Nordic Center

Skate and classic group and private lessons, equipment rentals and track passes are taught on 20K of groomed trails adjacent to Solitude Mountain Resort. The Center also hosts a four-session women’s beginner skate-skiing clinic that includes equipment rental and a track pass.

Soldier Hollow Nordic Center 

Offering skate-skiing newbies a one-hour classic ski lesson that includes a Nordic track pass and equipment rental.

Sundance Resort’s Nordic Center

Offering weekly Ladies’ Day classic and skate-skiing clinics in January that include equipment rentals and a pass to the resort’s gorgeous 15K track.

There’s nothing quite like speeding down a snowy hill in a tube, and Utah has many spots that supply the tubes, hills and the lifts to do it. So, bundle up and head for the hills.

Helmets are not usually required, but it could be a good idea to protect developing brains. Prices and information listed here are subject to change. Go to park websites for up-to-date information.

Gateway Parks
2300 E. Powerhouse Rd., Spanish Fork
1110 E. Eaglewood Dr., North Salt Lake

These locations, in Spanish Fork and North Salt Lake, are accessible without driving an hour through a canyon. Both feature three tubing lanes and a terrain park. A conveyer takes tubers back up the hill.
$30 on weekdays, $35 on Saturday and Sunday (at both parks), kids 3 and under are free (parents, please exercise judgement)

Brian Head Resort
29 UT-143, Brian Head

Plan a day for tubing on your ski trip to Brian Head. The experience is located at the resort’s Giant Steps Base. Booking in advance is recommended, since tube enthusiasts flock to the hill.
$25 per person for 1.5 hours, kids 4 and older only

Cherry Peak Resort
3200 E. 11000 North, Richmond

Enjoy skiing or snowboarding, a burger at The Peak Grill and, of course, tubing with the family. A conveyer will bring you back up after sailing down the hill.
$59 for a family of four, $36 for 2 people, $20 for one person, $15 for ages 3–11. No children under 3.

Buckskin Hills Recreation Complex
4796 E. Diamond Mountain Highway, Vernal

Eastern Utah gets in on the fun. This hill is shared by skiers, snowboarders and tubers, so bring the whole crew. A tow rope pulls you up the hill. Campgrounds are available to make a weekend of it. 
$10 per person, $25 for a family of four including an adult ($5 per additional person)

Wasatch Parc Snow Tubing
3567 Nordic Valley Way, Eden

Do all the skiing you planned to do at Nordic Valley, and then take the kids tubing. Wasatch Parc boasts bobsled-like banked turns, two lanes and a tow rope to get back up.
$33 for two hours, $60 for four hours. Must be 42-inches or taller.

Soldier Hollow
2002 Soldier Hollow Lane, Midway

Soldier Hollow’s Toyota Tubing Hill offers 1,200-foot lanes, the longest in the state. A conveyer brings you back up the hill. Top off your day trip to Midway by seeing the Ice Castles.
Prices change depending on date and time. No children under 3.