Park City, UT – If two Utah ski resorts have their way, skiers and snowboarders could one day ride a tram to travel from Park City to Big Cottonwood Canyon.
That journey presently requires a circuitous 45-minute drive through Salt Lake City, even though as the crow flies the base areas of the two resorts are less than five miles apart. On Tuesday, however, KSL Television in Salt Lake City reported that Canyons Resort officials are planning with Solitude Mountain Resort to jointly construct an aerial tramway that would lift skiers from near the Daybreak Lift at Canyons and transport them up and over the Wasatch Crest to Solitude in Big Cottonwood Canyon. While Canyons Resort is the primary player, it’s working with officials at Solitude Mountain Resort to try to bring the plan, which would include a joint lift ticket between the two resorts, to fruition.
Canyons Resort officials cite as a benefit of the lift reduced traffic in Big Cottonwood Canyon. Expecting opposition from local environmental groups, including Save Our Canyons which has already expressed concerns about the plan, officials backing the project have already indicated that it could be scaled back to a chairlift instead of a tram if need be.
Seems as though it would make more sense for Brighton to be connected to a Park City Resort in terms of tram/chair length…?
Not at all, at least for Canyons Resort which is the one proposing this, not PCMR or Deer Valley. Take a look at the topo map that we’ve just added to the story above that to your credit wasn’t there when you posted your comment. Solitude is much closer. The proposed route drawn in red is roughly 2.5 miles long.
Thanks for the map. =) I didn’t mean PCMR, I just meant any Park City resort (Canyons, PCMR or DV), but I can see from the topo that it does make the most sense at that point.
So this tram would travel approx. five miles? Are there any precedents for a tram of this length? How long do you estimate the travel time would be?
I’m going to invite the Twitter folk (@skisolitude, @catskiutah, @johnsonjoe, @nickDIY, etc.) over since I was tweeted by most of them last night about this subject after you wrote me.
Would be interesting to see their perspective here. FYI it’s 4.85 miles from base area to base area. The red line drawn on the map, which is one possible route according to Canyons officials is approximately 2.5 miles long.
Much better than 5 miles. But still long…
Yeah, it seemed there was one person on twitter who was very against it but gave no reason, just a lot of exclamation marks. Hope he heads over so we can get more out of him. I want to see why he is so emphatic in his decision.
The benefits I see here are mostly getting traffic out of Parley’s but I don’t really see it easing up traffic in BCC. From my observations, most skiers who visit the PC area resorts are tourists who don’t often venture outside the 3 resorts there. Canyons is slightly different; it does seem to see a good amount of their visits from outside that audience because of their promotions geared towards students. Not sure what the fee setup looks like, but I wonder if the tram could cause more traffic in BCC because of students looking for a way to save gas & time getting to Canyons from SL valley?
Still wondering if there is a tram this long anywhere else, if this means a joined pass (would make sense).
The Peak2Peak Gondola at Whistler-Blackcomb is 2.73 miles long with 1.88 of that being unsupported by towers.
Hope my comments are making sense as well. Running off of about 11 hours of sleep in 3 days.