Around 150 Park City Sunrise Rotary Club members and other volunteers descended on Main Street at 7:30 a.m. Saturday.
Over the next six hours, they bolted together 583 skis, placed 1,410 shot glasses on the skis and signed people in to take their spot.
Longtime Sunrise Rotary member John Lippert said the whole process is a lot of fun. He said there are always a lot of curious onlookers from out of town wondering what’s going on.
“They always say, ‘What in the world is this?’ And ‘Well, we're going to drink all at one time.’ ‘And they say, really?’” he said. “I said, ‘Yeah, it may seem a little contrived, but it's now part of our society.’”
Then he explains the friendly rivalry between Park City and Breckenridge, Colorado.
The two western U.S. ski towns have been battling it out for years, one-upping each other each season. Park City broke Breckenridge’s 2023 record in October 2024 with more than 1,380 people.
Breckenridge reclaimed the world-record title in December with just over 1,400 people.
A couple from Oak Point, Texas, were part of the curious crowd Saturday. First-time Park City visitors Rebecca and Ryan Miller
came to town for a wedding and said they weren’t quite sure what the Main Street hubbub was all about.
“We were walking up, and [Ryan Miller] said, ‘I wonder what this is all about,’” Rebecca Miller said. “I said, ‘Watch. I bet they're trying to break the world record for the most shot skis all at once.’”
The pair asked to join the fun and luckily were able to snag two shot spots.
Drinkers stood shoulder to shoulder along the linked skis, which stretched from about the Post Office to the top of Main Street and back again. Some took a swig of High West Double Rye whiskey; others had apple juice.
“It's like the most serendipitous thing ever, just to have stumbled upon this, and they happen to just have two extra tickets,” Rebecca Miller said. “Now we get to walk around and say, ‘Hey, when we were in Park City, we broke the 2025 world record for the most shot skis at once.’”
A Canadian ski resort claims to have broken the world’s longest shot ski record in March. However, Mike Luers, a co-founder of the shot ski event in Park City, said they are not in competition with the Mont-Orford Ski Resort in Quebec, Canada.
That’s because Park City’s Sunrise Rotary Club and the Breckenridge Mountain Rotary Club, both community nonprofits, sell tickets to the annual contest with 100% of the proceeds going to local charities.
“The group in Canada did a shot ski, and they just took a ski resort, pulled people off the hill, asked them if they wanted a free shot on a shot ski, and they said they set the world record,” Luers said. “They are not a charitable event like we are.”
This year, the Park City club raised $70,000 for local nonprofits — and set the new world record for the longest charitable shot ski.
Breckenridge will try to take back the world record during its Ullr Fest Dec. 18.
For those who want to plan for next year, Park City’s 10th annual shot ski is Oct. 10, 2026.
