{"id":311566,"date":"2025-10-17T20:07:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T20:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/311566\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T20:07:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T20:07:11","slug":"part-time-parkite-has-an-attitude-at-altitude","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/311566\/","title":{"rendered":"Part-time Parkite has an \u2018Attitude at Altitude\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Park City and Summit County are special places, and local residents seem to share similar inclinations regarding the outdoors and small-town living.<\/p>\n

Author Michael O\u2019Malley has tapped into that persuasion with his new book, \u201cAttitude at Altitude: The People\u2019s Guide to Park City and Summit County,\u201d which was published a few days ago.<\/p>\n

The book looks at the area\u2019s history, wildlife, climate, civics and politics, recreation and arts and culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cI also didn\u2019t want to be a restaurant critic,\u201d O\u2019Malley said with a laugh. \u201cThere are plenty of other great sources for that information.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, \u201cAttitude with Altitude\u201d spotlights select coffeehouses, galleries, ski runs and trails that attract visitors and keep longtime residents put, O\u2019Malley said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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,\u201d he said. \u201cI also want people to laugh, and I want people to think. So, that\u2019s the underlying goal throughout the book.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Malley 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\u2019s Mines & Wines tours and a regular contributor for the Park City Museum\u2019s \u201cWay We Were\u201d articles that run in The Park Record.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have heard a lot of the questions (in those capacities) that ultimately turned into this book,\u201d he said. \u201cI really started writing the book a year and a half ago, but for many years I have been writing the \u2018Way We Were\u2019 articles, and they gave me about a 10,000-word headstart.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea for the book actually came two years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy wife, Lauren, announced she was done with winter, and that we should get another place somewhere else,\u201d said O\u2019Malley, who owns a townhouse in Kimball Junction. \u201cWe landed in Olympia, Washington, but we still have the townhouse so I can still ski.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Part-time Parkite Michael O\u2019Malley, author of \u201cAttitude at Altitude: The People\u2019s Guide to Park City and Summit County,\u201d 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\u2019s Mines & Wines tours and a regular contributor for the Park City Museum\u2019s \u201cWay We Were\u201d articles for The Park Record. Credit: Photo courtesy of Michael O’Malley<\/p>\n

When the O\u2019Malleys bought their house in Washington, their realtor gave them a book, \u201cMaking Sense of Olympia,\u201d written by David Scherer Water.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe did a really good job putting together the history, culture and civics of Olympia in a very funny book,\u201d O\u2019Malley said. \u201cI thought, \u2018Holy cow, no one has done this for Park City,\u2019 and I felt there was an opportunity here.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Malley\u2019s goal was to write a book that read like a conversation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had friends say that it reads like that, and I\u2019m really pleased that\u2019s the reaction people have,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Still, O\u2019Malley took a little while to get the book to that point.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wrote it completely in a random fashion \u2014 no rhyme, no reason \u2014 but I had a very talented editor, Stacy Dymalski who helped me out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Dymalski, a longtime Parkite, is an author and also a stand-up comic living in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe took a look at it and said, \u2018Wait a minute. You can only throw so much spaghetti at the wall, my friend,\u2019\u201d O\u2019Malley said with a laugh. \u201cSo, she made some critical and very helpful suggestions for reorganizing the material.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Malley also turned to another experienced Park City-based author and publisher, Katie Mullaly, who is known for her \u201cLand Of\u201d children\u2019s book series and for helping other local authors maneuver the self-publishing path.<\/p>\n

While Michelle Rayner of Cosmic Design worked on designing the book\u2019s cover, Mullaly, who owns Surrogate Press, designed the interior of the book<\/p>\n

\u201cKatie had some wonderful insight and advice for the book,\u201d O\u2019Malley said. <\/p>\n

For the most part, however, O\u2019Malley wrote chapters based on his own experiences talking with local residents and visitors, either on a chairlift or hiking trail.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

The book is also a love letter to Park City, a place O\u2019Malley fell in love with in 1980.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy folks were avid skiers and they lived in western Massachusetts and came out here,\u201d he said. \u201cThey loved Park City so much they bought a time share, and we would come out for one week every winter.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1997, O\u2019Malley and his wife moved to Park City.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe followed a job out here,\u201d he said. \u201cI 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\u2019ve experienced being a first-time visitor, a repeat visitor and then a full-time resident.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a resident, O\u2019Malley 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor every downside, complaint or concern, there is a positive, and for this book, I looked for both sides,\u201d he said. \u201cSure 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\u2019ve done in identifying and protecting open space. That has been so valuable for our quality of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although O\u2019Malley 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<\/a> and the Utah Conservation Data Center to the Internal Revenue Service, to name a few.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne 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,\u201d he said. \u201cYou 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\u2019s amazing what goes on in there.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Malley even dug into what types of freight finds its way onto the interstates.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can guarantee no real-estate or lifestyle publication talks about the content that semi- and tractor-trailer trucks haul through the area,\u201d he said with a laugh.<\/p>\n

To celebrate \u201cAttitude at Altitude,\u201d O\u2019Malley has scheduled some book signings \u2014 5 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 19, at\u00a0 Barnes and Noble, 1678 Redstone Center Drive; 1-4 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 25, at Dolly\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m looking forward to having some great conversations with old friends and new friends and getting their feedback,\u201d O\u2019Malley said. \u201cUnlike a novel, this book is evergreen, and if it\u2019s successful, I\u2019m going to have to revisit it at least annually to update it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The book is available now at Amazon, Dolly\u2019s 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\u2019Malley.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s fun to get it out there, and I hope to give some presentations for groups who are interested in the book,\u201d he said. \u201cI love sharing my thoughts about Park City \u2014 both its past and present.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Author Events: Michael O\u2019Malley<\/strong><\/p>\n