Opening day of ski season typically resembles an appetizer. Conditions usually allow resorts to open just one or two runs, usually on beginner or easy intermediate terrain, to whet the appetite. Yet with the main course potentially still a month away, that’s barely enough to hold over the most voracious skiers and snowboarders.
Park City Mountain plans to offer an expanded early season menu when it opens for the 2024-25 season, the resort announced Wednesday.
The resort plans to open Nov. 22, which adheres to its tradition of kicking off the season the Friday before Thanksgiving. This year, however, it has expanded snowmaking on the Canyons Village side of the resort, which could result in skiers and snowboarders getting onto more of the mountain sooner.
Historically, Park City Mountain has started the winter season at Canyons by having visitors take the Red Pine Gondola to access two areas: its High Meadow Park beginner terrain and the intermediate terrain off of the Saddleback Express lift. This off-season, however, the resort upgraded the snowmaking on Chicane, one of the mountain’s main thoroughfares, and could open it within the first few days as well. An intermediate run, Chicane connects to Over and Out, which offers visitors a way off the mountain other than the Red Pine Gondola.
Chicane also leads to the popular Tombstone Express lift. Chicane’s improvements, resort spokesperson Sara Huey said, could lead to that lift opening earlier. The decision to crank up Tombstone, Huey said, is traditionally dependent on whether it can be accessed via Chicane and whether enough snow exists for skiers to return to the lift via Red Pine Road, which has had snowmaking equipment since 2018.
This early season, though, skiers and snowboarders could have another option off of Tombstone Express. The resort added snowmaking to Another World, an intermediate run accessed to the left of the upper lift shack that follows the fall line of the mountain back to the Tombstone base. In addition, the bottom of Another World has been widened as has the Chicane Bypass run.
“That is the piece we will be able to pull forward to open before the holidays thanks to this summer’s snowmaking expansion in this area,” Huey said in an email, “creating the earliest and highest-quality experience ever on this popular trail.”
The new snowmaking systems, according to a news release, incorporate “state-of-the-art automated snowmaking technology that will maximize resources, minimize environmental impact.” Even they cannot produce snow, however, if temperatures where they are stationed don’t get cold enough (at least below freezing).
Park City Mountain is owned by Vail Resorts. It is the only Utah resort included on the Epic Pass. However, an Epic Local Pass ($746) also includes unlimited, unrestricted access to 29 resorts, including Colorado’s Breckenridge, Keystone and Crested Butte. It also includes 10 days at Vail and Beaver Creek.
A full Epic Pass ($1,004) includes access to 80 resorts worldwide. Prices on both passes are scheduled to go up after Sept. 2.
Correction • Aug. 14, 2024, 8:13 a.m. >> The name of one of the runs receiving snowmaking upgrades was incorrect in a previous version of this article.
