Maggie Mattinson is glad it’s summer.  That’s because, as the paper’s new ski reporter, she’ll have some time to reacquaint herself with Park City before sliding into the ski season. “I’m a little bit still in disbelief that this is an actual job and that it’s my job,” she sa id. “I’m really excited about being fully immersed in outdoor recreation news and the community, just being able to write about stuff that I’m already thinking about doing.”  The role suits Mattinson, a student of philosophy who mostly grew up outdoors. Her parents moved to Eagle Mountain in the early 2000s, back when it was still a relatively small, rural town. That was perfect for a kid with too much energy, she said.  “There wasn’t much to do, so I went on a lot of bike rides,” she said. “I feel like either my hobbies were all really, really nerdy or just really outdoorsy.” Biking, camping, hiking, riding motorcycles, her family did it all, though climbing and skiing were her favorites. She learned to ride a ski lift around age 4 at Park City Mountain and took weekly ski lessons at Alta when she was 11.  “I pretty immediately fell in love with it,” Mattinson said. “That was back when you could go for a lot cheaper and get half-day passes.”  Plus, Mattinson’s dad had a rule passed down from his own parents: If she kept A’s in school, she could cut to go skiing.  Maggie Mattinson, center, as a child with her grandparents. Mattinson, The Park Record’s new ski reporter, spent a lot of time outdoors growing up in Eagle Mountain. “I was able to pull that off on a semi-regular basis,” she said. “I think I only fully skipped school like two or three times. Always with parent permission and everything.”  The ski reporter role isn’t her first stint in news, either. As a philosophy student at Utah State University, she worked in student media for Aggie Radio and the school’s newspaper, The Utah Statesman. She also worked at FOX 13, an “everything job,” she said: writing stories for the website, working the assignment desk and calling sources, listening to police scanners and compiling first drafts of news stories that would become on-air coverage. “I was on so many Facebook groups,” she said with a laugh. “I had one ear on the police scanners at all times. … It was really overwhelming, but it was a lot of fun to be immersed in the community and … to know everything that was going on.”  After FOX 13, Mattinson left for California and earned her master’s degree from University of California, Santa Cruz, in philosophy, which she said has continued to help her refine her skill for journalistic inquiry.  “The biggest thing with philosophy is that it teaches you how to do analytic reasoning and how to get something that’s dense and be like, what does this mean?” she said. “The last class that I taught, we were doing 17th century philosophy, this big, huge, 800-page book written in the late 1600s. I was working through it with a bunch of undergrads, being like, ‘OK, what does this mean? Let’s figure it out and write something about it.’” So what is Mattinson interested in figuring out about Park City? For one thing, what it means to live in a ski town — even if you’re not a skier — and how the industry has boomed over the past few years since she’s been gone.  “You come back to your hometown, you’re like, ‘Oh my God, everything has changed so much,’” she said. “I think what I really want to do with this beat is just zoom in on the community and see how these really huge changes and this massive industry (are) affecting this small community that we live in.” And beyond the industry, she’s also interested in finding the more niche groups that make up Utah’s recreation community. There are so many ways to be into a particular sport, she said. What are the little rituals that bring people together? “Every skier has a backpack with, like, a smushed PBJ in it,” she said. “Or, my uncle skis, and halfway through the day, he always opens up his coat and pulls out a can of diet Mountain Dew that he’s just had in his pocket all day.” Those kinds of details can expand the reader’s perception, she said, and she’s excited to fill her stories of the mountain with them. Keep an eye out for Mattinson on the slopes this winter. And be ready to talk about your favorite snack. The post New ski reporter slides into dream job appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less