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New book leads visitors and residents through 400 miles of Park City trails

Bervery Hurwitz, a long-time Park City resident, has self-published “Park City Hiking Guide,” her second book about local trails. (Tanzi Propst/Park Record)
Tanzi Propst/Park Record | The Park Record

Beverly Hurwitz’s “Park City Hiking Guide is available at Dolly’s Bookstore, Cole Sport, The Market at Park City, Right at Home, Switchback Sports, J.W. Allen & Sons Toy Store and amazon.com.

Park City resident and author Beverly Hurwitz began writing her new book “Park City Hiking Guide” long before she decided to actually write a book.

“Many of my visitors love to hike and I would give them directions and they’d be off,” Hurwitz said. “Then a few hours later, I would get a phone call and after telling me that they were between an aspen grove and big pine trees, my visitors would ask me which way they should go to get home.”

Hurwitz began writing out the directions. Then she began including copies of maps.



“But my visitors would still manage to get disoriented, so I decided to start giving them really detailed directions, which became the book,” she said.

You have a section of hikes at Deer Valley and a section of hikes at Park City Mountain and so forth…”Beverly Hurwitz,author

“Park City Hiking Guide” is actually a sequel to Hurwitz’s 2017 publication, “A Walker’s Guide to Park City,” which was about paved walks for people who weren’t ready to climb mountains.



“I started with a much broader concept, because I wanted to include all the hikes and nature information in one book,” Hurwitz said. “After I started doing that for some time for the book, I realized that I was going to end up with really fat book. So I started to break it down.”

The author kept the hikes that required a little more work for the new book.

“I left out a lot of the nature information, which is sitting around to see if I’m going to do another book,” said Hurwitz, a medical doctor who has been a neurology consultant for state and federal judges on contested Medicare and workers compensation cases for the past 10 years.

“Park City Hiking Guide” features 45 hikes in 41 different locations, and some of the hikes are variations of the same route. The hikes are divided into five groups and how they fit on a regional map, Hurwitz said.

“That way you have a section of hikes at Deer Valley and a section of hikes at Park City Mountain and so forth,” she said.

Hurwitz, who has lived in Park City for 28 years, spent a lot of time at the Park City Museum’s research library studying trails and the town’s history.

“There are many things that were documented in term papers that were written by students 50 and 60 years ago,” she said. “There were also things culled from old newspapers.”

Once she compiled the information in a manageable volume, Hurwitz reached out to friends to help with editing.

“I have friends who worked as critics and told me what I could get rid of,” she said.

Katie Mullaly, who recently published “Self-Publishing Your Children’s Book: A Practical Guide to the Planning, Printing, and Promotion of Your Children’s Book,” helped Hurwitz publish “Park City Hiking Guide.”

“This book give you practical advice that isn’t found on a map,” Mullaly said. “It addresses why we hike form a medical standpoint. It also gives suggestions about what shoes to wear, how to take care of blisters and what to do if you come across stinging nettle and poison ivy.”

In addition, “Park City Hiking Guide” includes a chapter about altitude, sections about dog- and kid-friendly trails, as well as bus routes that stop near trail-heads.

“This is great for people who are visiting and don’t have a car,” Mullaly said.

Since “Park City Hiking Guide” is issued by using print-on-demand technology, Hurwitz can update the book when needed.

“I had to change four trails during the time I started and finished my first book,” she said.

There are between 400 and 450 miles of trails in Park City, and most of the hikes can be completed in one to 5 hours, Hurwitz said.

“They don’t take all day, unless you want them to,” she said.

Hurwitz said she has a few favorite hikes in her new book.

“If we have a wet spring, Quarry Mountain has more species of flowers that you may see anywhere, and I can pull out my phone and we can look at photos for hours,” she said with a smile. “If I’m looking for a moderate hike that has wonderful scenes, I will go to the Deer Crest part of Mid-Mountain Trail.”

Yeti’s Moose Puddle near Olympic Park is also a favorite.

“It is a bit of a climb, but it has close to 100 switchbacks, so you get a different view every time you turn a corner,” Hurwitz said.

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