Utah Trip Report: Bryce Canyon NP and Park City (Marriott Mountainside)

[heathpack]

We’re about halfway into a 16 day road trip from LA to Utah, and it’s awesome.

We started by driving to Hatch UT to stay at a place called Cottonwood Meadows Lodge, about 20 min from Bryce Canyon NP. We’ve stayed there before in the tiny Log Cabin, so we knew it would be a COVID friendly place to stay. Contactless check in and check out, a little kitchen and BBQ grill. We ate all our meals at the cabin except for a sunset picnic at Bryce.

The cabin has a sweet front porch that overlooks a horse pasture. This year there were two mares and two fillies in the pasture. It was so relaxing to watch the foals play, or graze, or nurse. I sat watching them on the porch for long stretches of time, or would go say hi and help scratch their itchy parts. Total antidote to all the strife in our world today.

I wandered off on afternoon on my mountain bike down the dirt road that ran past the cabin. A few miles down the road, I found a mountain bike trail with a helpful sign giving me its name, I rode back to the cabin and looked at my mtb trail app and figured out how to ride my bike here:

That is Red Canyon, a little outside Bryce. It’s state land, so mountain bikes are permitted. This ride was a killer, the altitude made it tough, plus the total distance and the loose trail surface from regular equestrian use. But very much worth it- I had the entire Canyon practically to myself. The only people I saw were a group trail ride of eight in the last mile or two of the ride.

Of course we went into Bryce too. We went for sunset because our mornings were otherwise occupied and we didn’t want to encounter any crowds. We had great Canyon views and also great deer sightings. This one young buck practically walk right up to our car.

We spent three nights at Cottonwood Meadows Lodge and highly recommend it if you’re also the sort who likes to sit watch horses graze with an extremely friendly calico cat purring away on your lap.

After three days decompressing at Bryce and the cabin, we headed off to Park City to stay at our home resort. More details on Park City tomorrow...

 

[DaveNV]

What a great trip!

Did you wave when you drove by Mesquite? I looked, but didn't see you.

Dave

 

[heathpack]

What a great trip!

Did you wave when you drove by Mesquite? I looked, but didn't see you.

Dave

I forgot the best part of our day 1: We stopped in Mesquite NV for gas!
The worst past of day 2: @DaveNV was not there to greet us

 

[DaveNV]

I forgot the best part of our day 1: We stopped in Mesquite NV for gas!
The worst past of day 2: @DaveNV was not there to greet us

You never call, you never write...

Dave

 

[tugcccsp]

We’re about halfway into a 16 day road trip from LA to Utah, and it’s awesome.

We started by driving to Hatch UT to stay at a place called Cottonwood Meadows Lodge, about 20 min from Bryce Canyon NP. We’ve stayed there before in the tiny Log Cabin, so we knew it would be a COVID friendly place to stay. Contactless check in and check out, a little kitchen and BBQ grill. We ate all our meals at the cabin except for a sunset picnic at Bryce.

The cabin has a sweet front porch that overlooks a horse pasture. This year there were two mares and two fillies in the pasture. It was so relaxing to watch the foals play, or graze, or nurse. I sat watching them on the porch for long stretches of time, or would go say hi and help scratch their itchy parts. Total antidote to all the strife in our world today.

View attachment 25875

View attachment 25876

View attachment 25877

I wandered off on afternoon on my mountain bike down the dirt road that ran past the cabin. A few miles down the road, I found a mountain bike trail with a helpful sign giving me its name, I rode back to the cabin and looked at my mtb trail app and figured out how to ride my bike here:

View attachment 25878

That is Red Canyon, a little outside Bryce. It’s state land, so mountain bikes are permitted. This ride was a killer, the altitude made it tough, plus the total distance and the loose trail surface from regular equestrian use. But very much worth it- I had the entire Canyon practically to myself. The only people I saw were a group trail ride of eight in the last mile or two of the ride.

Of course we went into Bryce too. We went for sunset because our mornings were otherwise occupied and we didn’t want to encounter any crowds. We had great Canyon views and also great deer sightings. This one young buck practically walk right up to our car.

View attachment 25879


View attachment 25880

We spent three nights at Cottonwood Meadows Lodge and highly recommend it if you’re also the sort who likes to sit watch horses graze with an extremely friendly calico cat purring away on your lap.

After three days decompressing at Bryce and the cabin, we headed off to Park City to stay at our home resort. More details on Park City tomorrow...

Nice photographs

 

[jd2601]

Very pretty and unique landscape. Cabin looks so peaceful! I look forward to your Park City posting. We are planning a trip to MountainSide.

 

[heathpack]

More Utah Trip Report

We own a summer EOY Gold 2BR lockoff week at Marriott Mountainside enrolled into the DC points program. We booked 6 days in a 1BR with DC points and also an II exchange into a 2BR unit, starting on the check out day of the DC points reservation. (Actually we had the II exchange first and then added more days with DC points).

The main events for us in Park City are: 1. Mountain biking (just me, actually) and 2. Hanging out and relaxing. We are only slightly interested in doing anything else.

On account of COVID, we really hoped to get a ground floor unit (so as to avoid elevators as much as possible) and we really hoped to get one of the three units with outdoor patio space, so that we wouldn’t feel cooped up in the room. I called about a week prior to check in and made my request, which was granted (total score!). We don’t even have to change rooms mid visit. And we have the prime poolside patio room over Labor Day week, even though that part of our trip is an II exchange. I can’t tell you how much (in light of COVID), the private outdoor space has improved our stay!

PS Adult mountain biking nephew was supposed to join us but couldn’t travel with COVID (due to restrictions with his job). So some MTB friends (acquaintances, really) are going to use the studio side of our unit starting Sat. However we don’t plan to hang out. Meaning, this trip is just husband and I.

Overall we’ve felt pretty Covid safe at Mountainside. We haven’t used the pool, but they are limiting 50 people to the pool area. We checked in on Sat and the pool And BBQ was definitely hopping on the weekend days. But there’s probably been no more than 15-20 people poolside midweek. Some of the BBQs are taken out of commission, the hot tubs, fire pit, movie theater, and mine are closed, and there are no activities. We actually could have had a mid stay housekeeping because we‘re staying more than a week, but we declined that. Mask wearing is mandatory indoors, and it’s enforced by staff. Only one family per elevator. Overall it’s well done. It’s been quiet here this week, but was busy last weekend and I expect it will get busy again for the holiday weekend. We leave next Thursday (actually have the place until Fri but need to get home early for dog-related reasons).

So... what have we done here in the first five days of our stay? I’ve done four mountain bike rides, we did a scenic drive up to Guardsman’s Pass and Little Cottonwood Valley (beautiful and only takes an hour out and back), we went to a drive in movie at the Olympic park (organized by Park City film, our showing was free but most are $30 per carload), and got takeout twice. And we’ve hung out on the patio, played Yahtzee, watched a disturbing five part documentary about Ted Bundy, cooked in.

Really all I have are MTB pictures but everything I’ve ridden could be hiked as well. There are 400 miles of trails here in Park City.

Day 1 ride: Up Jenni‘s Trail, which you can pick up from the base of Park City Mountain, two minutes from Mountainside. Then I rode Mid Mountain Trail and came down Crescent Mine Grade Trail. The pic is from Jenni’s trail which goes up the mountain for around 5 miles.

Day 2: Jenni’s Trail to a trail called Tommy’s Two Step. This goes up another approx 1.5 miles from Jenni’s. Then came down Mojave Trail and Crescent Mine Grade. Saw a deer quietly watching me from below my trail. I stopped to watch the deer when I took this pic.

Day 3: Cold morning (mostly the weather has been warm and sunny, we had two cool days with highs in the low 70s but morning temps in the 30s), so I went down the hill a little and rode in Kimball Junction. Much different landscape, mostly open sagebrush. Not quite as pretty as the mountain forests but still pretty nice. I rode a long loop (18ish miles) but the main trails were Glenwild and Flying Dog. If one went hiking out there, I’d suggest the portion of Glenwild that is away from the interstate, if you look at a trail map, you’d see what I’m talking about. After the ride, we got takeout from the Loco Lizard, which is down in Kimball Junction. Very tasty Mexican food.

Day 4: I planned to ride but we slept in instead. Eventually we decided to take a little drive up the Guardsmans Pass. Nice scenery. We checked out the trailhead too for my proposed Wasatch Crest ride. On the way back, we stopped at the State Liquor store on Snow Creek Dr, I forgot your bring wine. They have a great wine selection. Then we picked up take out from the Windy Ridge Cafe, which was also abundant and tasty. Restaurants around here really seem to have takeout down to a COVID safe science.

Day 5 (today): I decided to do my Wasatch Crest mini epic ride. Husband drove me up to the Guardsman Pass trailhead and I rode from there. The Wasatch Crest Trail is the main attraction, to get there from Guardsman Pass you first take Scottys Trail (1.2 mile, I think, beautiful), then a fire road called Puke Hill (steep and at 9700 ft elevation, maybe another mile). Then you have 7 or so miles of the beautiful Wasatch Crest Trail before you. High alpine meadows and aspen/pine forest at 10,000 ft. Beautiful, well worth the effort. Obviously hiking, you might only do a portion of the trail but even a little of it would be awesome. I rode Wasatch Crest, around to the other side of the mountain and back to Marriott Mountainside along Mid Mountain Trail and Spiro, which was around 25 miles. I’m tired. So we had lunch and a mini Yahtzee tournament on the patio (I lost!).

That’s it so far. We don’t have any big plans for the rest of the stay. I’ll probably ride my MTB most mornings, we’ll hang at Mountainside most afternoons. If it’s really busy at the resort over Labor Day weekend, and the pool noise makes the patio less chill, we’ll probably do a scenic drive or maybe two.

Any Mountainside questions, fire away. I’ll try to answer what I can.

 

[mjm1]

More Utah Trip Report

We own a summer EOY Gold 2BR lockoff week at Marriott Mountainside enrolled into the DC points program. We booked 6 days in a 1BR with DC points and also an II exchange into a 2BR unit, starting on the check out day of the DC points reservation. (Actually we had the II exchange first and then added more days with DC points).

The main events for us in Park City are: 1. Mountain biking (just me, actually) and 2. Hanging out and relaxing. We are only slightly interested in doing anything else.

On account of COVID, we really hoped to get a ground floor unit (so as to avoid elevators as much as possible) and we really hoped to get one of the three units with outdoor patio space, so that we wouldn’t feel cooped up in the room. I called about a week prior to check in and made my request, which was granted (total score!). We don’t even have to change rooms mid visit. And we have the prime poolside patio room over Labor Day week, even though that part of our trip is an II exchange. I can’t tell you how much (in light of COVID), the private outdoor space has improved our stay!

PS Adult mountain biking nephew was supposed to join us but couldn’t travel with COVID (due to restrictions with his job). So some MTB friends (acquaintances, really) are going to use the studio side of our unit starting Sat. However we don’t plan to hang out. Meaning, this trip is just husband and I.

Overall we’ve felt pretty Covid safe at Mountainside. We haven’t used the pool, but they are limiting 50 people to the pool area. We checked in on Sat and the pool And BBQ was definitely hopping on the weekend days. But there’s probably been no more than 15-20 people poolside midweek. Some of the BBQs are taken out of commission, the hot tubs, fire pit, movie theater, and mine are closed, and there are no activities. We actually could have had a mid stay housekeeping because we‘re staying more than a week, but we declined that. Mask wearing is mandatory indoors, and it’s enforced by staff. Only one family per elevator. Overall it’s well done. It’s been quiet here this week, but was busy last weekend and I expect it will get busy again for the holiday weekend. We leave next Thursday (actually have the place until Fri but need to get home early for dog-related reasons).

So... what have we done here in the first five days of our stay? I’ve done four mountain bike rides, we did a scenic drive up to Guardsman’s Pass and Little Cottonwood Valley (beautiful and only takes an hour out and back), we went to a drive in movie at the Olympic park (organized by Park City film, our showing was free but most are $30 per carload), and got takeout twice. And we’ve hung out on the patio, played Yahtzee, watched a disturbing five part documentary about Ted Bundy, cooked in.

Really all I have are MTB pictures but everything I’ve ridden could be hiked as well. There are 400 miles of trails here in Park City.

Day 1 ride: Up Jenni‘s Trail, which you can pick up from the base of Park City Mountain, two minutes from Mountainside. Then I rode Mid Mountain Trail and came down Crescent Mine Grade Trail. The pic is from Jenni’s trail which goes up the mountain for around 5 miles.


View attachment 25911


Day 2: Jenni’s Trail to a trail called Tommy’s Two Step. This goes up another approx 1.5 miles from Jenni’s. Then came down Mojave Trail and Crescent Mine Grade. Saw a deer quietly watching me from below my trail. I stopped to watch the deer when I took this pic.

View attachment 25912

Day 3: Cold morning (mostly the weather has been warm and sunny, we had two cool days with highs in the low 70s but morning temps in the 30s), so I went down the hill a little and rode in Kimball Junction. Much different landscape, mostly open sagebrush. Not quite as pretty as the mountain forests but still pretty nice. I rode a long loop (18ish miles) but the main trails were Glenwild and Flying Dog. If one went hiking out there, I’d suggest the portion of Glenwild that is away from the interstate, if you look at a trail map, you’d see what I’m talking about. After the ride, we got takeout from the Loco Lizard, which is down in Kimball Junction. Very tasty Mexican food.

View attachment 25913

Day 4: I planned to ride but we slept in instead. Eventually we decided to take a little drive up the Guardsmans Pass. Nice scenery. We checked out the trailhead too for my proposed Wasatch Crest ride. On the way back, we stopped at the State Liquor store on Snow Creek Dr, I forgot your bring wine. They have a great wine selection. Then we picked up take out from the Windy Ridge Cafe, which was also abundant and tasty. Restaurants around here really seem to have takeout down to a COVID safe science.

Day 5 (today): I decided to do my Wasatch Crest mini epic ride. Husband drove me up to the Guardsman Pass trailhead and I rode from there. The Wasatch Crest Trail is the main attraction, to get there from Guardsman Pass you first take Scottys Trail (1.2 mile, I think, beautiful), then a fire road called Puke Hill (steep and at 9700 ft elevation, maybe another mile). Then you have 7 or so miles of the beautiful Wasatch Crest Trail before you. High alpine meadows and aspen/pine forest at 10,000 ft. Beautiful, well worth the effort. Obviously hiking, you might only do a portion of the trail but even a little of it would be awesome. I rode Wasatch Crest, around to the other side of the mountain and back to Marriott Mountainside along Mid Mountain Trail and Spiro, which was around 25 miles. I’m tired. So we had lunch and a mini Yahtzee tournament on the patio (I lost!).

View attachment 25915

That’s it so far. We don’t have any big plans for the rest of the stay. I’ll probably ride my MTB most mornings, we’ll hang at Mountainside most afternoons. If it’s really busy at the resort over Labor Day weekend, and the pool noise makes the patio less chill, we’ll probably do a scenic drive or maybe two.

Any Mountainside questions, fire away. I’ll try to answer what I can.

Thanks for your update. Beautiful photos too.

We have been to Park City before, but will be at Mountainside for the first time Sept 18-22. I do have a couple questions for you.

- Any recommendations on building requests? We are not sure of the views available.
- Do all of the units have a balcony or patio, depending on the floor?

Thank you.

Best regards.

Mike

 

[heathpack]

Thanks for your update. Beautiful photos too.

We have been to Park City before, but will be at Mountainside for the first time Sept 18-22. I do have a couple questions for you.

- Any recommendations on building requests? We are not sure of the views available.
- Do all of the units have a balcony or patio, depending on the floor?

Thank you.

Best regards.

Mike

Theres only one building and there’s three unoffical view categories. I can’t remember what they told me at when I called to make my request but one is “plaza” which is kind of like a city view, the other two are basically pool and mountain, although that’s not what they called them.

None of the views are epic, so I wouldn’t sweat it too much.

The rooms don’t have balconies or patios with the *exception* of three poolside units on the ground (second) floor. The patio for the 1BR size is enormous with a table and six chairs. The studio patio is separate and small, with a table and seating for two. There’s a little stone wall around the patio, so theyre very private. But adjacent to the pool and BBQ grills, which creates noise and grilling smoke for much of the day when it’s busy. But when it’s slow, the patio is lovely and it would likely be slow when you go.

I did not know the room numbers when I called to make my request. I just asked for “ground floor, with a pretty please patio if possible”. The Mountainside person I talked to knew exactly what I was talking about. I called the front desk number and was transferred to someone who took my room request.

PS I really want to hear about your trip. Next year, we’re thinking of a 12 day stay starting Sept 19. I want to try to catch the fall foliage. I imagine riding through those Aspens would be incredible. So you’ve gotta let me know.

 

[mjm1]

Theres only one building and there’s three unoffical view categories. I can’t remember what they told me at when I called to make my request but one is “plaza” which is kind of like a city view, the other two are basically pool and mountain, although that’s not what they called them.

None of the views are epic, so I wouldn’t sweat it too much.

The rooms don’t have balconies or patios with the *exception* of three poolside units on the ground (second) floor. The patio for the 1BR size is enormous with a table and six chairs. The studio patio is separate and small, with a table and seating for two. There’s a little stone wall around the patio, so theyre very private. But adjacent to the pool and BBQ grills, which creates noise and grilling smoke for much of the day when it’s busy. But when it’s slow, the patio is lovely and it would likely be slow when you go.

I did not know the room numbers when I called to make my request. I just asked for “ground floor, with a pretty please patio if possible”. The Mountainside person I talked to knew exactly what I was talking about. I called the front desk number and was transferred to someone who took my room request.

PS I really want to hear about your trip. Next year, we’re thinking of a 12 day stay starting Sept 19. I want to try to catch the fall foliage. I imagine riding through those Aspens would be incredible. So you’ve gotta let me know.

Thank you. That is very helpful. I will share our experience too. Since we are only there four nights we probably won’t have much priority for room assignments, but we will see. Enjoy the rest of your stay.

Best regards.

Mike

 

[jd2601]

We arrive on Saturday 9/5/2020. I requested a pool view, not sure if it will be available. We are excited to explore the trails around MountainSide. I enjoyed you write up and all the pictures. I hope for good weather, relaxation, and a good time.

 

[geist1223]

Have you or are you going to ride down the ski trails?

 

[heathpack]

Have you or are you going to ride down the ski trails?

I think an occasional trail is buried by snow and serve as ski runs in the winter. But generally speaking, ski runs aren’t really fun for mountain biking. You want a less steep descent with more curviness to it. Many of the mountain bike trails cut across ski runs basically perpendicular to them.