Once again we’re gathering friends across time zones and milestones; some have flown in from Philly, others from NYC, one flying over from Dallas just for the weekend to make new friends, all converging together this week on a mountain town for a week of skiing, films, and meals that stretch past midnight: a reunion of 8 monsooners (plus late addition Elena making 9) who’ve traveled together everywhere from Killington to Yemen, now finding ourselves in Utah during Sundance’s final year.
Day 0, January 19
Susan was the first of us, arriving a day ahead on January 18th to get some skiing in and conveniently staying at an Airbnb next door (so she needed only a minute to wal over to ours for afternoon check-in.) The rest of us landed in Salt Lake City airport in waves throughout the evening on the 19th with Olga from Philly and the rest from NYC. Our connecting flight to SLC from Denver was delayed by three hours so instead of having them wait on Mel and me, Mel transferred our car rental reservation to Olga’s name, who had already just landed. Olga, Olivia, and Eric then dove headfirst through the gauntlet of independently-run predatory car rentals without us.
While they navigated through an unexpected mess at rentals and eventually drove to our Empire Avenue house (a four-bedroom gem with hot tub, plus a secret fifth futon room tucked between the laundry and garage in the basement that gave us even more space). The location was walking distance to Park City Mountain Resort’s base, nestled in Old Town’s grid of mining-era streets that now house million-dollar properties.
Mel and I landed late at 7pm and Ubered the 40 minutes (and $41!) from SLC to Park City where hot pot broth and ingredients were already waiting to feed us.
As we got ready to unpack and eat, Park City’s Legacy Rentals came by to deliver and fit my ski equipment right to the house. Celebrating the convenience and time saved, we then hopped in the hot tub as Bruce and Amanda, flying in late from different airports but arriving at the same time, rented another car and joined us right before midnight to complete our ski/snowboard group.
Day 1, January 20
Our first day started early for the ski crew as I woke up to the sounds of excited new friends getting ready for their first day on the slopes.
Roughing it through our altitude headache (easily fixed at 7000 feet above sea level with a vasoconstricting cup of coffee for the most of us) Bruce, Amanda, Olivia, Olga, and I walked out only minutes from our conveniently located Airbnb to explore Park City’s massive terrain, skiing from the Park City base all the way over to Canyons side. For those of you who didn’t know, Park City and Cayons had merged in 2015 to create the largest ski area in the United States, covering 7300 acres connected by the Quicksilver and Timberline Gondolas. We were therefore determined to explore as much terrain as possible.
Amanda and Olivia signed up for a morning group lesson before meeting us for lunch at Tombstone BBQ (which would become our default mid-mountain stop for the next 2 days), while Eric bought skis at the resort before joining us that afternoon.
As slopes began to close by the mid afternoon, I left my rental skis overnight at Park City’s valet for a small $5 fee, which I thought was totally worth it.
Back at the house, Mel took it easy all day while Susan worked remotely. Once we were all home, Bruce repurposed leftover hot pot meat and veggies into curry for dinner, then settled in for a back to back screening of K-Pop Demon Hunters and Sinners. It would be Olga’s first exposure to K-Pop!
Day 2, January 21
…was a repeat on slight variations: Amanda, Olivia, and Mel took an overflowing morning group ski class while Bruce, Olga, Eric, and I spent half a day skiing Park City to Canyons again.
We then met for another lunch at Tombstone BBQ before skiing back to Park City base. Susan finished her work day just in time for the four of us, Susan, Bruce, Olivia, and me, to peel ourselves out of the hot tub and drive an hour out to Brighton for night skiing.
Brighton, one of the original ‘local’ resorts in Big Cottonwood Canyon, runs night operations until 9pm on 3 lifts serving a limited set of blue and green trails under floodlights and stars.
As the slopes closed officially at 9pm, we returned home to Bruce’s pre-made pasta bolognese sauce for dinner.
Day 3, January 22
Mel and I slept in, Olivia set out for another morning class, Susan worked, and Olga, Eric and Bruce went skiing and snowboarding for first tracks. I eventually headed out to the mountain to join Eric, Bruce, and Olga, gravitating toward my favorite terrain: groomed blacks and steeper blues around McConkey’s Pass.
We then found a catwalk off the blue Georgeanna slope to have lunch at Mid-Mountain Restaurant, our new favorite spot on Park City’s resort. Located mid-mountain (obviously) at 8,700 feet, it serves quality rotisserie chicken and poké bowls rather than the typical ski resort cafeteria grub. Olivia joined us post-class.
After skiing McConkey’s groomed blacks a bit more, Bruce and Olivia headed home for another round of night skiing at Brighton, while Eric stayed back to teach me more technical technique work with a free one-on-one lesson. My bladder then called it earlier than usual, where I headed back early to rest and thrift shopping in the neighborhood.
Remarkably I found some great ski pants to replace the 17 year old ones I was wearing at the thrift shop, as well as befriending the clerk there who then walked out to show Bruce, the tattoo’ed future orthopedic surgeon, x-rays of her recent healing humeral head fracture and her own tattoo over the surgical scar: her incision was turned into art as a skier forever carving down her shoulder. We then returned home ready for hot pot round two and the latest episode of The Pitt, followed by episodes of Fallout and Soulmates.
While Olivia and I stayed back this time, Bruce and Susan returned from night skiing around midnight, and we stayed up talking until past midnight.
Day 4, January 23
While the ski crew headed out, Bruce slept in and Amanda, Mel, and I drove through the brutal Sundance traffic and 15 minutes onwards to Deer Valley later in the morning.
As Amanda and I explored the fancy pants of Deer Valley on skis (Amandav totally would fit in in her Montcler onesie), Mel enjoyed the famous après scene at the local St. Regis (including taking its funicular up to the Vintage Room!). Deer Valley is famously upscale with no snowboarders allowed, only 2026 acres compared to Park City’s 7300, tissue boxes for those sniffles on every lift line, and every trail is meticulously groomed nightly. The St. Regis funicular also runs 220 feet up the mountainside, delivering guests to the Vintage Room where a glass of champagne can cost what a lift ticket does at some resorts.
My cousin Gilbert, an ophthalmologist based in Salt Lake City whom I hadn’t seen since his wedding there in 2009 (16 years!), then came by with his 13-year-old son Chris to ski with us. They made it to us just in time after Amanda and I had skied directly from the Deer Hollow trail to the Vintage Room for her glass of champagne.
After catching up by the fire, Amanda stayed with Mel, while Gilbert, Chris and I tackled moguls at Deer Valley.
I’ve always bombed down moguls, in trust-my-luck kamikaze-style and remarkably without ever wiping out, but Gilbert taught me to carve on top of bumps rather than carve through them. But the only way is through?
Then on a chairlift at 3:45pm, exactly 2 hours before the 5:45pm screening, I pulled out my phone and joined the waitlist for the Sundance premiere screening of “American Doctor.” Despite registering the moment the waitlist button became available, my numbers came back at 261 and 265. Sundance’s waitlist system felt brutal (probably because it’s in its final year?); general admission tickets sold out in minutes and the waitlist became the only option for most screenings. You have to register exactly 2 hours before showtime, get assigned a number, then show up 30+ minutes early to queue in numerical order. No-shows from ticket holders mean waitlist numbers slowly get called. It’s a gamble every time.
Detaching myself from any expectations, we then skied until 3pm, grabbed chips at Deer Valley’s Snow Park restaurant with Mel and Amanda, then headed back to Park City while Gilbert and Chris returned to Salt Lake City.
Loading ourselves back in the car, Amanda dropped Mel and me at the waitlist line before heading back to the house, where Mel and I reunited with Bruce and Olga already in the waitlist line for “American Doctor.” We showed up late at 27 minutes before the 3:45pm screening, and got redirected to the back. And yet somehow, we still got in!
While getting off the waitlist line, we ran into Lillian Lin, a monsooner I hadn’t seen since our Barcelona/Andorra trip in September 2016.
We also befriended a film/TV lawyer next to us in line who, impossibly, lived a few blocks from us in the same Manhattan neighborhood. Monsoon serendipities always happen in pairs!
As for the movie itself, there was not a dry eye in the room by the time it was over. American Doctor follows American physician volunteers working in Gaza, documenting the humanitarian crisis through the eyes of doctors who chose to go. The footage is unflinching; our physicians operating with headlamps as the hospital is being bombed, pediatric trauma patients are treated without anesthesia, and healthcare workers become treated as enemies outside their work.
All of the featured doctors were there for the Q&A and one of them, Thaer Ahmad, happened to be an ER physician as well. Even better, Thaer knew Hussein Ahmad, a mutual friend and yet-to-be aspiring monsooner who’s an ER doctor a few years below me in training.
Mark Perlmutter, the Jewish orthopedic surgeon featured in the film, had a moment with Bruce, the aspiring orthopedic surgeon and fourth-year medical student whose match day is in two months. Bruce was sneaking in remote residency interviews during this trip, so meeting Perlmutter in this context (and knowing Bruce’s politics) felt serendipitous and made experiencing Sundance in its final year feel even more significant.
From the Ray Theater, we then frogged over a 6 lane avenue to grab wine for Elena (who had just flown in from Dallas that evening) at one of Utah’s many state-run liquor stores in Park City; you can’t get wine anywhere else here like you can in other states. Bruce then stayed behind to meet up with Susan to watch the animated shorts program thanks to tickets acquired by Sujay, another monsooner in the area (who’s been on a few trips with Bruce, Olivia, Susan, and me already), and his friend who’s a Sundance member. Amanda got a waitlist ticket for “Public Access,” Mel and I uber’ed back to the house to finally meet Elena in person, and saw how she bonded immediately with my college friend Olga, who also happened to be Russian and Russian-speaking. Another pair of coincidences for a monsoon!
Back at the house, we cooked whatever hot pot ingredients remained and I realized it was my first real meal of the day.
Then came the curveball: we were seeing news reports converging on confirming this massive winter storm that was bearing down on the Midwest and East Coast, threatening 12+ inches of snow in NYC. Olivia and Amanda therefore then decided to move their flights up a day, leaving the next morning. What was supposed to be our second-to-last night together became an unexpected early goodbye.
Day 5, January 24
The end begins. Olivia woke in the middle of the night at 4am to catch a scheduled Uber for her 7am flight, making it back to NYC just before the storm hit, while Amanda caught her 11am flight without issue. Elena set out for Sundance screenings, and Olga, Eric, and Susan headed out to ski Park City with me joining them and Sujay later in the afternoon. Bruce took the day off for ortho residency interviews and to catch-up on medical school errands.
The goal was to get to the Viking Yurt at the top of the Crescent Express lift to eat one of their famous Macadamia nut cookies that Eric said “was the best cookie I’ve ever had . . . Michelin star cookie,” but sadly thanks to some brutal moguls above Bonanza Express, we were not able to get back up before the lifts closed at 4pm.
Heading home, I noticed how things can happen in pairs when my personal ophthalmologist, Yuna (just like my cousin Gilbert!), reached out to hang out with us that afternoon . . . but then nothing’s that perfect as she sadly got sidetracked by a movie. Sujay stilled joined the remaining few of us that stayed in for the night and put on Knives Out: Wake Up Dead Man as well as a re-watch of The Pitt’s latest episode for Elena.
I then ended my day joining Elena, Susan, Eric and Bruce in the hot tub before calling it and packing my things.
Day 6, January 25
We woke up to the last of the remaining items of the fridge where we actually finished all our food! As Elena skipped breakfast to catch her Uber to the airport, we took a final group photo together.
We then checked out of the Airbnb by 10am, loaded the cars, and as Bruce, Susan and Eric went to ski, Olga, Mel and I walked towards Main Street to get as much Sundance Film Festival in its last year.
We first stepped into the United Airlines-hosted lounge at Sundance, handing out free coffee, breakfast, and protein bar snacks after checking in at the kiosk (no need to be a United member to visit). These corporate lounges are Sundance’s thing; luxury brands take over storefronts on Main Street during the festival, offering free food, drinks, and celebrity sightings in exchange for brand visibility.
We also signed up for their afternoon panel hosted by Portraits about marketing your film while still in production, and how to secure the best IP rights from a story.
Then back out onto Main Street to explore some more, namely my favorite, the Chase Sapphire Reserve lounge (available only to cardmembers and a guest). The lounge occupied a makeshift steel tent and a two-story building on Main Street, ostensibly to be a space where deals could get made during Sundance.
Charming my way to letting in both of my guests, the 3 of us relaxed in the tent as we enjoyed watching the Q&A panel for the film Leviticus, and the “brunch” in the form of hors d’oujvres afterwards. After I registered for Apple Music via the Chase Reserve membership at the front desk in this area, they gifted me an Apple MagSafe Wallet that clipped onto my phone.
The lounge was split in 3 other parts, 1 of them being the panel area with another café serving coffee, and the other being a restaurant serving different milk lattes and hot chocolate variations. They were also handing out a limited set of Chase Sapphire Reserve-branded YETI mugs in this area.
After an hour here, we then walked across the street to go upstairs to the Audible lounge where they were serving hot pocket arepas and hosted a listening station for different audiobooks.
We then returned onto Main Street where I reunited with Lillian and headed back to the United lounge for the afternoon panel we had signed up for.
After the panel, Mel, Olga and I walked over to the main festival hub for some souvenir shopping.
By then it was 3:30pm. Bruce, Eric, and Susan had just finished their time on the slopes with Susan’s friends and we traded our goodbyes at the Park City resort parking lot (as well as Eric getting me a pack of those famous Viking Yurt cookies he was raving about). While Eric and Olga drove off to their own onward accommodations, Bruce, Susan, Mel and I drove to the AC Marriott Downtown, where we quickly changed to have dinner with Gilbert and his family at Matteo restaurant 4 minutes away from the hotel.
We then attended his other son Nathan’s orchestral concert with the Utah Youth Symphony. I relived music school all over again after listening to Nathan and his orchestra pay all 4 movements from Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 2.
After the concert was done, I treated my extended family a post-concert dessert and dinner at the Cheesecake Factory downtown before Mel and I called it a night.
Day 7, January 26
Time to return home! We had been prepared to stay another night into January 27 if the winter storm would cancel our flights, but luckily everything ran on time and on schedule. By the time I returned, I was like “what winter storm?”
After coffee and brunch with Bruce at Skillets and getting dropped off at SLC airport, we waited about half an hour to get into the new Amex Centurion Lounge. This lounge opened months ago in October 2025 as part of Salt Lake City’s massive terminal renovation, featuring 10,000 square feet of space, a full bar, and sit-down restaurant service. Our wait time suggested how many people now have premium credit cards these days.
Afterwards Mel and I flew to Chicago where we barely had a few minutes to make our final return flight home to NYC.
What made this trip work was the way 9 people with different reasons for coming managed to bond without forcing it. Some skied every day while others worked remotely, some took morning group lessons while others slept in, and half of us went night skiing while the rest stayed back for movies. We cooked hot pot twice, got off Sundance waitlists multiple times, had family reunions on the mountain, and somehow got involved with two ophthalmologists in the same week.
Underneath all of it was the thing that’s kept monsoons going for 15 years: coming through for one another across time zones and life stages, cooking late-night meals, staying up talking when we should be sleeping, and remembering that maybe sometimes, the best trips are the ones where everything flows together effortlessly.
- At time of posting in Park City, UT, it was -6 °C - Humidity: 55% | Wind Speed: 13km/hr | Cloud Cover: bluebird days!
