Ambiance: Utah Olympic Park

(Unfortunately, I don't have many pictures of this event. My sisters primarily used Snapchat, and my phone no longer takes photos.)

Yesterday was awesome. For the first time in forever, all of us had a day off. Usually Ashley works like 18 hours a day, six days a week, but she managed to convince her boss to give her a Memorial Day vacation.

I'm so glad she did! With all of us at home, Dad decided to take us all to Park City. More specifically, the Utah Olympic Park. It's been raining like crazy for the past few weeks, but Sunday started out rainy and ended up gorgeously sunny, so we hoped the same would happen for Memorial Day. And it did!

When we first drove out to Park City at around noon, we drove through scattered showers and the sky was dark with clouds. We were worried that after a nearly hour-long drive we wouldn't even be able to do anything at the park. But we packed our rain jackets and remained optimistic.

By the time we arrived at the Utah Olympic Park, the sun was streaming through the rain clouds, and all raindrops had stopped. The parking lot was full enough for us to know that the park was open despite the weather, yet the rainy start to the day had scared off the majority of the crowds. We had the place practically to ourselves.

Dad got us a pass for the day, so we got our wrist bands in the welcome center and checked out everything they had to offer.  Even just the welcome center was cool, with a gift shop of Olympic apparel that took me right back to my childhood during the 2002 Winter Olympics, and a bobsled that we took a sisters picture in, and maps and videos to show all the cool features the park has to offer.

There were a few things that we'll have to come back later to do, such as watch pro skiers jump into the pool (which wasn't even filled yesterday), try out an actual bobsled run, and do the adventure course. But we had a great time with the two most popular features--the Alpine Slide and the Extreme Zipline.

The Alpine Slide was one of those things that I've heard about for years but never really thought I'd do. It's a bit pricey for how short your ride is, but it was pretty cool! Check out the link for a glimpse of what it's like.

Basically you get this little sled and go down a narrow track through the forest all the way down the hill to the main area of the park.  It was a pretty long track--I mean, you have to take a ski lift just to get to the beginning of the track. It was a bit scary seeing how narrow the track was, and hearing the "ride operators" (I guess you'd call them...) say that if you fell off it, to just walk back. But the way the sleds work, you have total control of your speed the entire time. That was a big consolation.

The first time I went down the slide, I didn't realize that I wasn't pushing the accelerator as far down as I could have, so I was going pretty slow. At one point I almost came to a halt and I was terrified of getting hit from behind by another rider. But I made it to the bottom okay.

That's Sarah and Ashley on the ski lift, passing over the huge ski jump. The view was awesome.

The second time we went up the ski lift, my family wanted to do the Extreme Zipline. I was too scared of my mind to do it, and there were only four harnesses at a time anyways, so I let them go ahead of me while I took the slide back down a second time. THAT time, I went much faster. Almost too fast. It was pretty exhilarating.

But seeing my family go down the Extreme Zipline together made me feel like I missed out. And I realized it couldn't be all THAT scary. I mean, Ashley was freaking out when she got strapped in. She's almost as afraid of heights as I am, and she was worrying about the looseness of her harness and the brakes at the end and everything. But when I met her at the bottom she promised me it was totally fine. That gave me confidence to try it for myself.

So I DID. I felt so brave. :) I've always liked ziplines, but the ones I've done before were always fast more than steep. This one was steep. The link doesn't give you a great idea, but you know how steep ski lifts go, right? The zipline was perfectly parallel to the ski lift we were on. When I was at the top getting harnessed in, the descent looked like an almost-straight plunge. Only Ashley's reassurances that it "wasn't bad at all" gave me courage.

So I got strapped in, and they had us in like a starting gate, where you hang in the harness and rest your knees against this door where you can't see anything--just contemplate your doom. Then the operators push a button, the door opens, and WHOOSH! You're gone!

My stomach leapt just the tiniest bit, but to my relief, Ashley was telling the truth. The harness had a controlled descent that made the plunge exhilarating but not out-of-control rapid. It was really cool, zooming down a mountainside like that. I'm really glad I worked up the courage to do it. I conquered a fear and had a great time.

When we'd all had our fill of the slide and the zipline, we took the ski lift to the top one last time, then walked all the way down, but went around to the other side of the park where the bobsled track and adventure course were.

SUCH a gorgeous day!

That's the bobsled track towards the bottom.

We didn't do either of those things during this visit, but it was fun to watch other visitors zoom by on the bobsled at 70 miles per hour. And there were these guys on the adventure course who were determined to cross everything without relying on their harnesses for balance. It was very entertaining.

We'll definitely go back for those. Well... we'll go as a family, but I don't know if I'll do the adventure course. I've done one before, and it was terrifying. This one looked twice as scary as the one I did in Provo. And a separate part of the course is a drop tower, where you have to zipline to this tower, then jump off to the ground (strapped into a harness, of course). It's probably a super controlled fall, but I don't think I'd have the guts to jump straight off like that. Who knows, though? Maybe that'll be my next fear conquered.

Anyways, if you're in Utah and you're looking for something fun to do with the family, I'd recommend this park. On top of the things I mentioned, there's a mini adventure course for younger kids, and smaller ziplines, museums, tours, lessons, etc. Plus, just being there was fun. True we had amazing sunny weather just after a rainstorm, which gave everything a crisp, fresh feel, but I've been to Park City at all different times of year, and it's always gorgeous.

The mountains are breathtaking and there's always a good trail to explore. There are hawks and chipmunks and moose. The views are spectacular. And it's just a short drive away from Midway, which I like even better than Park City. But I'll have to blog about Midway later, when I actually do something there. :)