In the spirit of New Years Eve, we decided to come up with a few company-wide resolutions for 2013.

1. Get out and explore our backyard more!
Park City is a 4-season playground, something that we often take for granted because we’re lucky enough to wake up in this beautiful town every day. So, in 2013 we vow to get outside more. We will explore the hundreds of miles of hiking and mountain biking trails in the spring, summer and fall. We will ski and/or snowboard at all three of our world-class resorts—Canyons, Park City Mountain Resort, and Deer Valley—as much as we possibly can. We will go snowshoeing, rock climbing, golfing, fishing and do everything in between.

2. Be more involved in our local community.
There are over 100 nonprofits in Park City. In 2013 we will get together as an organization and volunteer our time to at least one or two of these non-profits.

3. Break ground on our new building.
We’re in the process of building a new office for Park City Lodging, Inc. It will house all of our departments and will include a living roof and co-op garden. Our laundry facility is currently off-site, but will be housed in the new building with the rest of our operations. As part of our company-wide sustainability effort, laundry at the new facility will use recycled water.

4. Keep it green!
Park City Lodging, Inc. is committed to sustainability: We donate 1% for open space in Park City, we use environmentally friendly cleaning products and toiletries in all of our rental units, and we are passionate about recycling. In 2013 we would like to implement comprehensive recycling programs at all of our properties and promote sustainability company-wide.

5. Continue to be on the cutting edge of technology and communication.
In 2013 we will continue to find innovative ways to communicate effectively with our owners and guests in order to provide them with the best experience possible. In 2012 we invested in a mobile concierge application for our guests that not only provides GPS directions to and from our properties, shows restaurant recommendations, ski rental shop information, and property-specific instructions; but also allows us to communicate directly with our guests through push notifications. In 2013 we plan to utilize the mobile application to communicate with our guests even more.

Olympic Gold Medalist Ted Ligety, a Park City native, took home the gold on Sunday Oct. 28, 2012 during the first Audi FIS Alpine World Cup race of the 2012-2013 season. He won the giant slalom race in Soelden, Austria with a time of 2 minutes 36.02 seconds, 2.75 seconds faster than Manfred Moelgg of Italy, who placed second. This marked the largest lead between first and second place in a World Cup giant slalom race since 1979 and the seventh-largest winning margin in World Cup GS history.

The race was plagued by both fog and snowy conditions, but Ligety took risks on the course and it paid off. “In hindsight, it may not have been the smartest approach, because it would have been pretty easy to go out right there,” Ligety told the Park Record.

This race was the first GS race under new equipment rules that require racers to race on longer, narrower skis. The regulations were controversially put in place by the FIS to make ski racing a safer sport, and see fewer athlete injuries. These new skis are designed to slow the racer down, taking some of the risk out of the high-speed sport.

The next World Cup race will take place in Levi, Finland on November 11, 2012.

Photo courtesy of Ted Ligety’s Facebook Fan Page

A winter weather advisory is in effect for Park City through this afternoon, and we can see why! We woke up yesterday with smiles on our faces because of the dusting we got overnight. That snow melted as the sun came out yesterday afternoon, but we were greeted with another pleasant surprise this morning! It’s been dumping snow all morning, and continues to come down in Park City at about an inch each hour! Park City Mountain Resort turned on their guns to bolster Mother Nature’s efforts last night in preparation for opening day November 17, and Canyons is getting ready for their November 23 opening too. We’re very excited for this winter, and hope that the early snow is an indication of what we should expect all season.

Snow makes whiteness where it falls,
The bushes look like popcorn balls.
The places where I always play,
Look like somewhere else today.

By: Mary Louise Allen

Remember that burning sensation you felt in your legs after braving the first few runs of last season? It can be enough to make even the most seasoned skiers and snowboarders call it a day. Ski season is right around the corner–Park City Mountain Resort is scheduled to open November 17, 2012–so I sat down with Phil Parrish, a personal trainer at Silver Mountain Sports Club and Spa, to talk about why training before ski season is important, what types of exercises skiers should be doing to get in shape before the winter, and to give me a training regimen that could be tailored to fit every fitness level.

Phil Parrish is a personal trainer at Silver Mountain Sports Club and Spa.

Phil has worked professionally with winter-sport athletes for the last two years. He graduated from Springfield College with a bachelor’s degree in applied exercise science and has held strength and conditioning internships at both Stratton Mountain School and with the U.S. Women’s Ski Team at the USSA Center of Excellence. In addition to personal training, he also works as a strength and conditioning coach for figure skaters at the Park City Ice Arena. In other words: he knows how to whip you into shape.

Why is it important to train before the ski season begins?

It’s really important to train year-round, but the good news is that you might already be doing many of these things. During the summer, skiers can take advantage of cardio cross-training opportunities like mountain biking, road biking and trail running. And yoga and pilates can be a great way to work on core and flexibility. By building up an aerobic base through the summer and into fall, you’ll help your body perform better on the mountain, ski for longer amounts of time, recover faster, and reduce your risk of injury. Strength training year round helps to prepare your muscles to better handle the stress of skiing. Because skiing is so quad-demanding, it’s important to focus on training your hamstrings and glutes to prevent muscle imbalances that could occur. “Skiing is a lot more aerobically and muscularly demanding than people think. You can be exposed to great forces, and it’s important to prepare your body in the off-season to handle the stress of skiing,” says Parrish.

What types of exercises should skiers and snowboarders be doing?

A good winter-preparedness workout will involve cardio, core, anaerobic and strength training as well as plyometrics and flexibility.

Phil demonstrating plyometric training using a speed ladder.

It’s important to remember that the core is more than just abs. It includes obliques, hip flexors, back extensors, glutes, and other stabilizing muscles that help transfer energy between the upper and lower body. Great core exercises include variations of medicine ball tosses, planking, and asymmetric lifting activity.

Plyometric training is made up of quick, rapid jumping exercises that improve speed and power, and are also great for strengthening knees because they provide controlled stress at several angles and directions. Plyometrics can be done with a speed ladder, micro hurdles, or a series of box jumps.

Strength training should focus on full-body and lower-body movements. For experienced lifters this means exercises like cleans, squats, deadlifts and romanian dead lifts; lifters with less experience can strength train by doing box jumps, leg presses, lunges and hamstring curls.

Lactic acid build up in your legs can lead to muscle fatigue and a burning sensation. Anaerobic-endurance training helps your body become more efficient at clearing lactic acid and trains it to produce less. Anaerobic training can be as simple as hopping over a line continuously or as intense as doing hill sprints for two to five sets of 30 seconds to one minute.

Flexibility and mobility can be achieved through dynamic stretches before working out and static stretching post workout. It’s important to stretch all of the major muscle groups of the lower body.

Here’s a sample workout that Phil recommends doing two times per week. I tested it out with him, and it took me about an hour.

1. Start out with an aerobic warm up: run at a medium pace for 5-10 minutes

2. Dynamic warm up
-Scorpions: 8 on each side
-Straight leg kicks: 8 on each side
-Quad pulls: 8 on each side
-Walking lunges: 8 on each side
-Skips: 8 on each side
-Carioca: 25 yards
-Build-up sprint (start out slow and build up to your fastest pace): 25 yards

3. Core
-Planks: 1 minute
-Dumbbell asymmetric carry: 25 yards on each side
-Back extension
-Band monster walks and side shuffles: 10 steps each

4. Plyometrics
-Speed ladder: choose three patterns and perform three times each
examples: 2 forward & 1 back, alternating in & out, shuffle 

5. Strength
-Superset box jumps and over-head squats: 3 sets of 6 repetitions
-Superset walking lunges (while holding weights) with cable hamstring kickbacks: 3 sets of 8-12 reps
-Superset chest presses with cable lateral pull-down and hamstring curls: 3 sets of 8-12 reps

6. Anaerobic endurance
-Side-to-side line hops: Jump over a line side to side as fast as possible for 30 seconds, rest, perform again. Walk for 30 seconds to help flush out muscles.

7. Static Stretching: Be sure to stretch your calves, quads, hamstrings, hip flexors, groin, glutes, and lats.

Ski season is just a month away, and if you follow this training routine you’ll be thanking Phil for your best ski vacation yet at  Deer Valley, Park City Mountain, or Canyons resorts this winter in Park City. If you’d like to find out more information about a training session with Phil, feel free to email him at Phil@PCStrength.com or check out his website for information and training-demonstration videos.

By: Colette Maddock, Marketing and Social Media Coordinator

Booking vacation rentals directly from an owner via directories and various rent-by-owner websites has gained a lot of popularity in recent years. And while this provides prospective customers with perceived savings and more options than ever before, the potential savings are not without risk. Uncertainty that accompanies renting from an owner can end up spoiling, if not drastically ruining entire vacations. Professionally managed vacation rentals come with a promise that a guest’s hard-earned vacation won’t be hindered by unforeseen mishaps like appliance failures, ceiling leaks, bed bugs, dirty linens or shabby furniture. Professional managers, like Park City Lodging, Inc. are trained to rectify these situations quickly, where as a private owner can take hours or days to resolve their guest’s problems, if at all.

A guest of a rental-by-owner in Silverado, California shared her story with us. “Our group booked a 4-bedroom home from someone we thought to be a reputable management company. Upon our arrival, we discovered that the property’s hot tub, although advertised on the website, had not been maintained at all and looked like it was filled with green slime. There was leftover food in the fridge with a note that read ‘help yourself but stay out of the freezer.’ I called the maintenance number given at check-in to ask for the spa to be drained and cleaned. The owner of the property returned my call three hours later and proceeded to give me instructions on how to drain the hot tub, stating that he was a few hours away and really didn’t want to come out on a Friday. i handed the phone over to my husband, knowing nothing about hot tubs, and after about a minute into the conversation I heard my husband angrily retort ‘Hey! I weigh 250 pounds and I am not climbing down that hill!’  The owner reluctantly agreed to come out. We left for dinner later that evening and upon our return found a note from the owner asking us not to use the decorative towels hanging in the bathroom. What!?! His note also reminded us to stay out of the freezer and to be sure to strip the beds, take out the garbage and broom-clean the home. What a joke! This was never represented to us prior to renting. I learned my lesson, though. I’ll be sure never to rent from a private owner again.”

Not only do vacation-goers risk inconveniences like green hot tubs and slow response time when renting from a non-accredited source, but they also run the risk of being duped into renting fraudulent properties. The recent explosion of scammers and hackers in the vacation rental industry has caused professional companies to respond by ramping up efforts to ensure guests staying in their properties feel secure and pampered from the time a reservation is made until the guests check out. We offer legitimate reservation booking services and trip insurance over the phone and online, and rental and refund policies are made very clear. When renting through a professional company guests are reassured that their hard-earned dollars are going to a credible source and that damage deposits will be refunded, a major hazard encountered by guests who have rented directly from “owners” through inscrutable and unregulated websites.

“Having been in the lodging industry for 30 years, it’s important to recognize and realize that our guests have chosen to spend their vacation with us, often times planned a year in advance, and it is our duty to ensure their vacation is everything they imagine it will be,” says Rhonda Sideris, owner of Park City Lodging, Inc.

The difference between an amateur and a professional should not be overlooked. It can mean the difference between a vacation of a lifetime and a disaster waiting to happen. “In the hospitality industry, our occupations revolve around service and making sure guests have the best possible vacation. This is our number one priority, and not just a side-project for someone with a second home in a tourist destination, says Jaclyn Buckingham, marketing director at Park City Lodging, Inc. We do everything they can to ensure that guests want to come back to our company every year to book  lodging in Park City. If there is a problem, guests can rest assured that we will make it right. We have assistance available 24/7 and will respond quickly to both inquiries and emergencies. In the rare event in which a guest must be relocated, a professional company has the ability to make that happen with little disruption to the guest’s vacation.

We also offer personalized concierge services, housekeeping and other amenities. If a guests wants restaurant recommendations or reservations, transportation to and from the airport, babysitting services, grocery delivery, etc. they have access to our knowledgeable reservation and concierge personnel who are trained specifically to help with every vacation need. The value we give to guests in unmatched, and we make it our priority to see that visitors will return again and again by exceeding your expectations.