No. 181 - Deer Valley: A Field Guide of Sorts

My first visit to Deer Valley was a quick one – I was driving from Seattle to Atlanta, along the spine of the Rocky Mountains.

I woke up that morning in a tent in Sun Valley, swung by my old stomping grounds in Jackson Hole, and arrived in Park City, where I took the St. Regis funicular high atop the mountains of Deer Valley. I put my feet up fireside while the sky swirled with brush strokes of magenta, lemon, and peach.

I finished my coffee, checked into a hostel, and took the first shower I had in days before crashing. I was dying for four walls and heat.

My time in Deer Valley was short lived, but it left an impression (I suppose all St. Regis’s have the effect). The views were marvelous and the people watching was first class – I knew I’d be back, I just didn’t know when.

Fast forward a few years to the Summer of 2025.

I landed in Deer Valley via Austin to meet a buddy for a few days of live music, ski lift rides, and writing postcards in Library Field.

There are places in America that are obscenely idyllic – Carmel, Newport, and Aspen, to name a few. Deer Valley is one of them. They're charming, subtly exclusive, and outrageously expensive. At times you feel like you're walking through a novel, or a background character in a Nancy Meyers film.

No detail, however lackadaisical it appears, be it a frayed Brooks Brothers collar beneath a V-neck, or a slightly askew Ivy League sticker on the back of a 300TD, is ever accidental.

Everyone seems unusually tan, no matter the time of year, and the measure of a person’s worth is tied to how many seasonal nouns they can turn into verbs:

For instance, it could come outright, as in, “We summer in Maine, darling.”

Or, when the bourgeoisie is being coy, the verb slips in casually: “Can you believe it, my Bronco at our winter place in Beaver Creek broke down again.”

When kids are present, they look like mini Ralph Lauren models: blonde, rosy cheeks, and like their parents, they have tans too – like they were dipped in honey at Bergdorf’s before the nanny dressed them.

I may come across as being a critic, perhaps a bit acerbic, but I’d only be the butt of my own joke. I love these places – like a politico does graft. And worse, I look the part – though I’d like to believe I’m not as calculating as, say, a guy wearing Murray’s in the Sankaty locker room.

I’d go for a nonchalant approach, perhaps frayed khakis with Tod’s, sans socks, tan ankles. Do you see how absurd this is? Point is – there’s a look to these towns and everyone plays by a set of unwritten rules, penned by WASPs at the turn of the nineteenth century, refined by Emily Post in 1922, and reinforced by the resurgence of The Official Preppy Handbook.

Anyway, when I got to Deer Valley, my buddy and I hopped on a ski lift – which is one of my favorite summertime activities. I’d place it ahead of everything outside of a good G&T. First of all, you get to sit on your ass and do nothing but enjoy views few get to see – and not just of the mountains, but of the folks passing by in the opposite direction.

I said to my buddy as chairlift after chairlift of beautiful people waved to us, “There are only two types in these towns: those who made the right decisions in life, and those who were born into it – no one accidentally shows up in Deer Valley.” He thought about it for a second and reluctantly agreed after figuring out which bucket he fell into.

Think about it – how many people can spend a weekday in July sitting on a ski lift in a remote town where hotel rooms cost as much as some families mortgages?

For starters, most people are working; be it bussing tables, trying to stay awake in cubicles, or doing any number of jobs that come with a boss, a schedule, and the ever present and impossible to satisfy “Shareholders.”

All that is to say, when I’m enjoying a ride on a chairlift, I know how good I have it.

It’s impossible not to realize you’re in the lap of luxury when you’re eating a twenty-four-dollar bowl of chili in the middle of a mountain range while a Steely Dan cover band plays “Kid Charlemagne.”

There’s a decadence to it — or maybe the better word is guilty pleasure — like I’m going to wake up and find myself back in a Monday morning meeting.

When you can’t hack a boss, you end up forced into a corner where creativity and survival have to dance.

So yeah, I have a lot of “holy shit” moments — where I can’t believe this is real — and others where I can’t believe that was real. That’s the trade.

*Composed, Edited, and Published in Atlanta, GA