It's Arts Fest Weekend!

It's hard to believe that the 38th annual arts festival is already here. This Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, Main Street is closed to traffic, and vendors come from all over the country to display their wares. The Park City Art Festival is always the highlight of the summer. Activities on Main Street range from many music venues, restaurants showing off their fare, fabulous variety of arts and crafts, and of course, one cannot forget the people-watching. About 50,000 people will attend the festival over the weekend.

In the meantime, the summer thunderstorms have returned. Days start off with crystal clear blue skies, cloud up and storm for an hour or two in the afternoon, then clear up again for the evening. Summer thunderstorms in the mountains are one of the delights as the days are cooler, and much needed moisture comes into the forest. The next two months, August and September, are some of the best here in the mountains. While the days are still warm, they are not as hot as July, and the evenings start to cool off. Temperatures were in the low 40s last Monday morning. August is also very busy in town, with many of the condos full of summer visitors. While this is once again terrific for owners, it does make showing the condos a little more difficult again. Many of our visitors are now starting to look towards the winter, and looking for a ski condo for the season. This is a great time to come out, as there are still some excellent values to be found.

Big Changes at the Canyons

The big news this week is that American Ski Corporation the owner of The Canyons resort here in PC, has sold the ski resort to Talisker Group. Talisker is a Toronto-based real estate development company that is developing the new Empire Pass area at Deer Valley as well as the Tuhaye golf course. This is exciting in that Talisker will bring an influx of money and renewed energy to the Canyons. For several years now, American Ski Corporation has been struggling financially, which left the Canyons resort in limbo. There is tremendous development potential at the Canyons, but ASC did not have the funds to realize this. While Talisker has not and is not a ski area operator, the bet around town is that Vail resorts will take over the day-to-day operations of the resort. Tune in for more details on this.

Summer is in full swing here, with music and art festivals weekly. The mountain trails are full of hikers and bikers, the golf courses are running at capacity, and the various pools around town are full. Come out, enjoy the cool mountain summers, and find out about exciting opportunities at the Canyons resort, Deer Valley, and Park City resorts.

Summer Activities

The July 4th holiday has come and gone and there really is nothing quite like the small town festivities that Park City enjoys on Independence Day. From the very quaint parade to activities in City Park, and the beautiful firework display with Park City Mountain Resort as a backdrop.

This week in Park City, we continue with the Wednesday night free concerts at Deer Valley, which are a locals highlight as well as this Saturday, Lyle Lovett and K.D. Lang will be performing in Deer Valley. Another event this week is the Park City Food and Wine Classic, running Thursday through Saturday. This is an opportunity for local chefs to show off their talents as well as pairings of fine wines from around the world. Friday night is a highlight with wine, food, and jazz as you stroll up and down Main Street Park City.

While we’ve had a very hot summer, for us, nights are still pleasantly cool, and extremely enjoyable. The hiking trails are in top condition, and the high altitude wildflowers are in full bloom. This is a great time to come out, enjoy the cooler summers at higher elevation, and take in all of the activities available, such as golf, tennis, biking, hiking, and all of the water sports, including terrific fly fishing.

In real estate news, there are several new developments under construction at all of the resorts, that are very interesting, and much easier to see during the summer months than in the winter. Summer is a perfect time to come out, look at real estate, as there are often exceptional bargains to be had, and access to properties is much easier now than during the busy winter months.