Montage Spa pool
DAY 4 — I’m face down on a massage table and soft music is playing. My massage therapist seems to be working all of the stress right out of my neck.
I’ve given myself a few hours respite and I don’t feel the least bit guilty.
And what a place to do it. I’m at the year-old Montage Deer Valley spa—35,000 square feet indoor lap pool, separate mens and women’s facilities with steam room, sauna, whirlpools and more, a private sundeck with radiant heated floors and spectacular mountain views and a big fitness center.
Ready to surrender? The new Spa Montage SURRENDER offered just at three Montage resorts allows you and your spa therapist to customize your treatment after a consultation on your lifestyle and needs ($420 for 180 minutes. You can also opt for a three day Surrender retreat, starting next may from $2950, including room, meals, daily hiking and SURRENDER spa treatments.)
The massage, of course, is wonderful but maybe what is more wonderful is taking time for myself with my iPhone locked in my locker. I sip tea before my treatment and luxuriate I n the Eucalyptus steam afterward. AAH…
These days at ski resorts, there is almost as much emphasis on what there is to do off the slopes as on—from spas to sleigh ride dinners, cooking classes, museums, snow shoe and snowmobile expeditions (ready to visit a ghost town?) Check Park City’s website to see what is going on here with over 100 restaurants and bars, the Utah Olympic Park where you can go up to 80 mph on the winter bobsled ride, bowl at Jupiter Bowl—a 21st-century bowling alley or take a lesson at Riffs Acoustic Music, a new acoustic instrument store, learning center an d café.
Spas, of course, are part of the equation at most snow resorts these days but Montage is one of the best as well as the biggest. But this place isn’t for your kids or tweens. Unlike other resort spas, there are no treatments here for those under 16.
The idea is a true wellness experience– to develop customized treatments for you using the pharmacopeia from the alpine terrain. Decompress with healing mud during Apres Ease or relax in warm herbal clay during Earthly Matters.
There is a fabulous Serenity Suite for treatments for couples complete with huge copper tubs …only your budget will stop you from indulging and enjoying. The good news is you don’t have to feel guilty. This indulgence is good for you!
There are custom treatments for men too and a full calendar of daily wellness and fitness classes—yoga, Pilates, spinning, and more. I never enjoy massage as much as after a couple of days of skiing. She suggests I try an “invigorating” program afterward—time in the steam followed by a dip under the cold rain shower and back again in the steam. “Do it a couple of times and you’ll really feel energized,” she says.
I’m dubious but it really works.
I leave feeling great. And that’s the idea.