As the designated host of all the Alpine skiing events for the 2034 Winter Olympics, Snowbasin Resort is wasting no time bringing its facilities up to snuff.
Since 2020, the Ogden Valley ski and snowboard area has added three lifts, including a tow rope. On Thursday, it announced it will be upgrading one more prior to the 2025-26 season. That will give it four lift improvements in six years.
“We’re getting ready,” said Snowbasin General Manager Davy Ratchford in an Instagram post, “over the next 10 years to pull off an amazing Games – again.”
The lift being replaced over the next two years will be the Becker lift. Situated on the far looker’s left side of the resort and accessed from the base via the LittleCat lift, it serves both beginner and expert terrain in the Strawberry area. The current fixed-grip triple lift will be replaced by a high-speed detachable quad crafted by Leitner-Poma of America. The new lift will have a slightly different line that will start closer to the Wildcat Express lift in front of Earl’s Lodge. It will also, Ratchford said in the post, allow riders to cut their time on the lift in half, from 12 minutes to roughly six minutes.
In addition to the relocated loading area, the Bear Hollow, Snowshoe and Slow Road runs that make up most of the beginner terrain off Becker will be widened.
“It will dramatically improve that area,” Ratchford said.
This season, guests will notice more subtle upgrades on the mountain and potentially game-changing ones on the way to the resort.
On-mountain, Snowbasin will be slowly refurbishing the cabins on its Needles Gondola, which was installed in 1998. The cabins will get new seats, windows and ski and snowboard racks.
Off-mountain, Snowbasin has worked with the Utah Department of Transportation to reduce the headaches of getting to the resort. Cars coming from either direction on Trappers Loop Road will now be able to turn onto Snowbasin Road simultaneously and merge further up the road. The resort experimented with the new traffic pattern last year using cones to mark the lanes, but starting this season the lanes will be striped. Additionally, the resort will be limiting all Earl’s parking lots to carpools of three or more on weekends and holidays until 11 a.m.
Snowbasin Resort winter trail map, 2023-24. The resort plans to upgrade the Becker lift, to the looker's left, from a fixed-grip triple to a detachable quad.
“Snowbasin is committed to being the most accessible mountain in Utah,” Ratchford said in a press statement “and these improvements will make a significant impact to our accessibility and efficiency.”
Since 2020, Snowbasin has added the Wildcat Handle Tow (2020), Middle Bowl (2021) and DeMoisy Express (2023) to its lineup of lifts. It also added Wildcat Express in 2017. Middle Bowl, DeMoisey and Wildcat are all high-speed six-packs. Snowbasin’s oldest lift is Porcupine, a fixed-grip triple installed in 1986 that extends from midmountain to looker’s left of Porky Cirque.
The Grizzly and Wildflower runs that were used for downhill competition in 2002 and are expected to be the site of the 2034 ski events are accessed via the John Paul Express, a high-speed quad on the far looker’s right of the mountain.