Word About Town

The Goods Get Better

How the ski-resort purse strings have been loosened both here in the Park and across Utah

By Park City Staff January 1, 2016 Published in the Winter/Spring 2016 issue of Park City Magazine

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Colorado-based Vail Resorts made a splash last fall with the announcement that it would spend $50 million on improvements at its Utah properties—the resorts formerly known as Park City Mountain Resort and Canyons. The most notable expenditure, of course, was for construction of the Quicksilver Gondola, connecting all 7,300 acres of the new Park City. But Vail isn’t the only company with designs on the Utah ski season. Herewith, some notable improvements, investments, and milestones at ski hills throughout the state.

120 and 175: Total number of fan guns and air/water guns, respectively, now installed at Deer Valley Resort, ensuring the “Deer Valley Difference” even when Mother Nature chooses not to deliver.

81: Number of chairs on the new high-speed quad at Solitude, replacing the creaky old fixed-grip double Summit chair. (Although they purchased Solitude last year, this season marks the first that Deer Valley will be wholly managing the Big Cottonwood Canyon resort.)

7,600: Square feet of low-e glass windowpanes used in the construction of Snowbird’s new 23,000-square-foot Hidden Peak Lodge, dubbed The Summit.

13: Number of resorts accessible to skiers and snowboarders who buy Vail Resorts’ Epic Pass (at last count).

14: Number of Utah resorts that offer three days of free skiing to fifth-graders from anywhere in the US (skiutah.com/passport).

80: Number of years Utah’s longest continuously run resort, Brighton, has been in business. 

140: Miles you can see out The Summit’s 360-degree windows on a clear day, all the way to Nevada’s Pilot Peak.

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