There Ain’t No Party Like a Sundance Party

Alright ya’ll, so we went from roughing it in the woods at 10,000 feet to living it up at Sundance thanks to a 40% off coupon I got in my email. I think going to Sundance because of a coupon is the antithesis of the general type of people who vacation at Sundance, but we didn’t care. We had that coupon, and it was a deal we couldn’t pass up!

Sundance is Robert Redford’s bougie ski resort conveniently located about 35 minutes from our house. We’d gone cross country skiing there a couple of times this past winter at their nordic center, which was quite fun, and had always been curious about staying at the resort.

In the summertime, the ski trails are open for hiking and mountain biking. I’ve been too chicken to get back on the bike after my fall and pass out incident a few weeks ago, so we stuck to the trails we could do just on our own two feet.

Overall, Sundance was pretty nice. Good food, albeit expensive, but honestly not as expensive as I thought it was going to be given that everything is more expensive these days (hooray for inflation). We stayed Saturday and Sunday night (July 2-4), and it didn’t even feel all too crowded for a weekend. Perhaps they were desperate to fill rooms and that’s why they sent out the coupon? It worked out for us either way - happy birthday to me!

We had a nightmare of a time trying to find where to check in, and then another nightmare of a time trying to park (the lot they told us to park in was full), but once we got into our room and the lot cleared out things were going much better. We moved the car, had a snack, and things were back to happy.

I realize that this is a terrible picture taken through a window, but this is the view from our room. We had to walk up a million steps through a lovely outdoor garden area to get to our little building, but it was a nice walk. I saw two snakes.

Here’s our room. There’s actually a loft area behind the railings up top. The handmade toiletries in the bathroom were my favorite part. I don’t generally like to consider myself basic in any way, but I’m a sucker for a good handcrafted soap.

Parking lot views

So many streams

We got dinner at The Owl Bar on our first night, which had a nice (but crowded) outdoor seating area and a substantial amount of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid memorabilia. The food was good, and the location and atmosphere made for some great people watching. There was a wedding happening in the barn, separated between the Owl Bar by a sidewalk and a small pond, so some random people’s nuptials also provided free dinnertime entertainment.

The next morning we had a nice leisurely grab-and-go breakfast and set out for a day of hiking. At the top of the highest ski lift at Sundance there’s this little cabin restaurant that serves tacos and burritos and the like. Most people buy a ski lift pass and take the lift up to take in the views and the tacos. We hiked up. We were tired and it was hard, but how many people can say they hiked up ski trails in the summertime? Also, the tacos were delicious, as was the giant chocolate chip cookie.

Jumbo dandelion

First stop, Stewart Falls

The mist felt very refreshing, and there were a bunch of cute dogs.

Sundance was so green.

Up we go.

I guess this would be fun to ski down if you were coordinated and weren’t afraid of plummeting to your death.

Worth the trek for the views and the tacos, but I can’t say which was better.

That body of water in the distance is Deer Creek Reservoir. That’s where the trail is where I fell off my bike. I whipped out my binoculars and could see the parking lot where we park to access that trail.

Tired and full of tacos, we took the ski lift back down the mountain - an hour commute!

There’s the trail we hiked up.

That night, since it was my actual birthday, we made dinner reservations for this farm-to-table restaurant at the resort. We had one of the worst servers ever, but the food was good. Well, the steak was not good, but everything else was yummy. Kind of an underwhelming birthday dinner, all things considered, but I was feeling pretty homesick at this point so that was probably the bigger culprit there. Shout out to my family for Facetiming me so early that morning. It was the only time we could get (mostly) everyone together, so I talked to them from the bathroom while Ian was still asleep at 6:00 AM… I’m weird, I know.

Another shout out to everyone who called me to wish me a happy birthday while we were on our second scenic lift ride of the day frying like lobsters in the sun.

That night we stayed up way too late binge watching the last two episodes of Stranger Things. The next morning we had to check out and go home. Tragically, our birthday adventure weekend extravaganza was over. We took the scenic route home and spent the rest of the day resting because adventuring is hard work!

Full disclosure, I’ve been blogging for five hours - but you’re all caught up on everything now!

I’m gonna go to bed, but I hope you all didn’t feel too overwhelmed by the quadruple blog release. It’s mostly photos, so it’s like an online picture book, really.

Thank you for reading! Love and miss you all!

Chloe