Park City and Summit County are special places, and local residents seem to share similar inclinations regarding the outdoors and small-town living.
Author Michael O’Malley has tapped into that persuasion with his new book, “Attitude at Altitude: The People’s Guide to Park City and Summit County,” which was published a few days ago.
The book looks at the area’s history, wildlife, climate, civics and politics, recreation and arts and culture.
“I also didn’t want to be a restaurant critic,” O’Malley said with a laugh. “There are plenty of other great sources for that information.”
Still, “Attitude with Altitude” spotlights select coffeehouses, galleries, ski runs and trails that attract visitors and keep longtime residents put, O’Malley said.
“I tried to explain to someone who is not as familiar with Park City as we may be about the complexities of the area that may not be apparent in a tourist brochure,” he said. “I also want people to laugh, and I want people to think. So, that’s the underlying goal throughout the book.”
O’Malley is more than qualified to write such a book. Over the years he has served as a mountain host and hiking guide at Deer Valley, a Park City Museum docent, a leader of the Fox School of Wine’s Mines & Wines tours and a regular contributor for the Park City Museum’s “Way We Were” articles that run in The Park Record.
“I have heard a lot of the questions (in those capacities) that ultimately turned into this book,” he said. “I really started writing the book a year and a half ago, but for many years I have been writing the ‘Way We Were’ articles, and they gave me about a 10,000-word headstart.”
The idea for the book actually came two years ago.
“My wife, Lauren, announced she was done with winter, and that we should get another place somewhere else,” said O’Malley, who owns a townhouse in Kimball Junction. “We landed in Olympia, Washington, but we still have the townhouse so I can still ski.”
Part-time Parkite Michael O’Malley, author of “Attitude at Altitude: The People’s Guide to Park City and Summit County,” has been a mountain host and hiking guide at Deer Valley Resort, a Park City Museum docent, a leader of the Fox School of Wine’s Mines & Wines tours and a regular contributor for the Park City Museum’s “Way We Were” articles for The Park Record. Credit: Photo courtesy of Michael O’Malley
When the O’Malleys bought their house in Washington, their realtor gave them a book, “Making Sense of Olympia,” written by David Scherer Water.
“He did a really good job putting together the history, culture and civics of Olympia in a very funny book,” O’Malley said. “I thought, ‘Holy cow, no one has done this for Park City,’ and I felt there was an opportunity here.”
O’Malley’s goal was to write a book that read like a conversation.
“I’ve had friends say that it reads like that, and I’m really pleased that’s the reaction people have,” he said.
Still, O’Malley took a little while to get the book to that point.
“I wrote it completely in a random fashion — no rhyme, no reason — but I had a very talented editor, Stacy Dymalski who helped me out,” he said.
Dymalski, a longtime Parkite, is an author and also a stand-up comic living in Los Angeles.
“She took a look at it and said, ‘Wait a minute. You can only throw so much spaghetti at the wall, my friend,’” O’Malley said with a laugh. “So, she made some critical and very helpful suggestions for reorganizing the material.”
O’Malley also turned to another experienced Park City-based author and publisher, Katie Mullaly, who is known for her “Land Of” children’s book series and for helping other local authors maneuver the self-publishing path.
While Michelle Rayner of Cosmic Design worked on designing the book’s cover, Mullaly, who owns Surrogate Press, designed the interior of the book
“Katie had some wonderful insight and advice for the book,” O’Malley said.
For the most part, however, O’Malley wrote chapters based on his own experiences talking with local residents and visitors, either on a chairlift or hiking trail.
“The Critters chapter, for instance, has a little vignette about rattlesnakes and ticks that comes straight from taking people on hikes when they asked if they needed to worry about snakes and ticks,” he said. “When writing that chapter, I learned there is one of the worst jobs in Utah. Some poor, beknighted state employee has to repeatedly drag a white piece of cloth through sagebrush and then tweezer off ticks into lab vials so they can be analysed.”
The book is also a love letter to Park City, a place O’Malley fell in love with in 1980.
“My folks were avid skiers and they lived in western Massachusetts and came out here,” he said. “They loved Park City so much they bought a time share, and we would come out for one week every winter.”
In 1997, O’Malley and his wife moved to Park City.
“We followed a job out here,” he said. “I was working for GE Capital, and they sold our division in the Bay Area. So I looked and found a job and told my wife that we could live in a ski town and get paid city money. So, I’ve experienced being a first-time visitor, a repeat visitor and then a full-time resident.”
As a resident, O’Malley has seen the ups and downs of living in a ski town that deals with international fame due to the Sundance Film Festival and world-class ski resorts.
“For every downside, complaint or concern, there is a positive, and for this book, I looked for both sides,” he said. “Sure there is more traffic and development, but I need to give credit to Summit County and Park City and wonderful organizations like Utah Open Lands and Summit Land Conservancy for the work they’ve done in identifying and protecting open space. That has been so valuable for our quality of life.”
Although O’Malley relied a lot on his own experiences while writing the book, a glance at the index will show readers how much research went into the chapters. He tapped sources ranging from The Park Record to Wikipedia to Weather.com and the Utah Conservation Data Center to the Internal Revenue Service, to name a few.
“One of the surprising things that I found, I think, was learning the complexity and the hard work and efforts that our public-service and infrastructure people do,” he said. “You look at Park City Municipal and how they get almost half of its water from 100-year-old mining infrastructures, and you look at the new water treatment plant at 3Kings. It’s amazing what goes on in there.”
O’Malley even dug into what types of freight finds its way onto the interstates.
“I can guarantee no real-estate or lifestyle publication talks about the content that semi- and tractor-trailer trucks haul through the area,” he said with a laugh.
To celebrate “Attitude at Altitude,” O’Malley has scheduled some book signings — 5 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 19, at Barnes and Noble, 1678 Redstone Center Drive; 1-4 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 25, at Dolly’s Bookstore, 510 Main St. and from noon to 4 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 23, at Barnes & Noble in Sugar House, 1104 E. 2100 South.
“I’m looking forward to having some great conversations with old friends and new friends and getting their feedback,” O’Malley said. “Unlike a novel, this book is evergreen, and if it’s successful, I’m going to have to revisit it at least annually to update it.”
The book is available now at Amazon, Dolly’s Bookstore and Barnes & Noble, and it will be carried at the Swaner Preserve & EcoCenter, the Park City Museum and at Atticus Coffee & Teahouse, according to O’Malley.
“It’s fun to get it out there, and I hope to give some presentations for groups who are interested in the book,” he said. “I love sharing my thoughts about Park City — both its past and present.”
Author Events: Michael O’Malley
- When and where: 5 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 19, at Barnes and Noble, 1678 Redstone Center Drive; 1-4 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 25, at Dolly’s Bookstore, 510 Main St. and from noon to 4 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 23 at Barnes & Noble in Sugar House, 1104 E. 2100 South
- Web: dollysbookstore.com
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