Summit County Bucket List: Park City Driving Tour

In the whole time we’ve lived here, the kids and I have only been into actual Park City (not Kimball Junction) twice. We’ve avoided it. Mainly because we have lots of kids and are “a drain on society”. At least that’s what we’ve been told by a few people when we’ve gone to do our grocery shopping in Kimball Junction.

The thing is, Park City has a lot of charm. Main Street is just a long row of little shops and during this time of year, lights are strung across the street from the light posts. The houses are cute and all different colors. The buildings are old and the architecture is amazing.

On Sunday afternoon, we put dinner in the crockpot and, armed with our map, made the 30-minute drive to Park City.

We saw the cemetery very first as we were going in, and then we spent the rest of our time on or around Main Street. The old Miner’s Hospital was a very cool building with a great, big porch. The photos in our guide were taken during the summer when everything was really lush and green. Our photos are not as impressive, being mostly dull and brown, but the buildings were fantastic anyway.

This is on the way into Main Street. That bridge replaced the original bridge that was used by the miners to cart ore to the mill. Later, a cable tram system was built that would bring the ore out of the mine and down to the smelter. Today, a ski lift follows the same path, passing the historic tram towers. Cool, yeah?

See? They totally string the lights!

This next building is a restaurant called Zoom, but it used to be the train depot.

We did a little off-the-map exploring of our own. The streets do a lot of zig-zagging and there are loads of switch-backs and weird routes. We ended up on a PRIVATE! road (there are lots of those) with no way to turn around. We had to follow the road for a ways before it finally offered up a place for a u-turn. Anyway, the view was spectacular! Even more so because it was forbidden.

We finished up our tour with a peek at the old McPollin Barn. And when I say “peek” I mean “we drove by really fast because the kids were fighting and Gavin was crying and everyone was hungry and sick of being in the car.”