Big changes this season at The Canyons

[Mike Bernstein]

All Utah resorts have their own set of Pros and Cons. As someone who has only lived in Utah for 4 years, the Canyons has far more pros than it does cons, especially for someone who lives in Park City. The Canyons biggest pro, the access to the backcountry. I'm not sure who actually determines where a backcountry gate can be placed but I feel like the Canyons needs to get some credit for this? If anyone has that answer, I'd love to hear it as well. For all those people that say the Canyons has bad snow check out the following photos taken at the Canyons this year. Mind you 50% were taken in the Backcountry, (Square Top, Dutch Draw, and Peak 5) but the rest were inbounds. The snow felt great to me! In todays age of huge rockered powder skies 9 inches of pow at the Canyons skis the same as 15 inches at Alta. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=75817&id=1231002422&l=39bc35b663

No doubt that the Canyons has its Pros, one of which you highlight. But think about the type of skier who is going to view BC access as a Pro. That may apply to no more than 5% of the skiing population. If that place is going to be a success, it has to appeal to Joe Dentist and his family. They don't have touring gear, let alone any semblance of avi awareness, so they are going to ski solely what's on the trail map. What matters to them is quality terrain that they can access and egress in a reasonably efficient manner. I'm not sure how the current set-up, even with this year's changes, meets those requirements.

 

[mbaydala]

Mike I pretty much agree with everything you've said. As a Park City Local, and from a seasons pass prospective, I would say that of the three Wasatch Back Resorts the Canyons offers the best terrain and access. I have had Ski Utah Silver pass for the past 3 years and each season I have maxed out my 30 days at both the Canyons and PCMR. I've gotten probably 8 days in at DV over the past 2 years. I ski PCMR purely for its convenience and accessibility living in Old Town Park City. Though if I could only buy one resorts season pass and I was living in Park City I would buy a Canyons pass, even this year now that PCMRs prices have decreased and the word on the street is the Canyons is going to increase.

 

[Marc_C]

No doubt that the Canyons has its Pros, one of which you highlight. But think about the type of skier who is going to view BC access as a Pro. That may apply to no more than 5% of the skiing population. If that place is going to be a success, it has to appeal to Joe Dentist and his family. They don't have touring gear, let alone any semblance of avi awareness, so they are going to ski solely what's on the trail map. What matters to them is quality terrain that they can access and egress in a reasonably efficient manner. I'm not sure how the current set-up, even with this year's changes, meets those requirements.

Actually, The Canyons is one of the best and most enticing gateways to BC skiing around and lures hundreds of Joe Dentists and his family each season (sometimes with disastrous consequences). The best example is Dutch Draw. The only thing separating it from in-bounds terrain is a 3/8" run of polypro rope. You can see all of the terrain while riding the 9990 lift. Get off the lift, take off your skis, boot uphill for 50 vert. feet, go thru the B/C gate (with the skull & crossbones sign) and you're there. The run-out is into an in-bounds blue square trail, 50 yards from the base of the 9990 lift. Add in a traverse and Square Top is about the same effort (but with a slightly more involved run-out). There's similar side/back country just as easily accessed from elsewhere at The Canyons that doesn't require touring gear. It's one of the selling points of The Canyons.

 

[icelanticskier]

SQUARE TOP-YIKES!

i've skied the canyons a few times and felt like i was at sunday river with more open trees in places and some less than exciting bowl access up top. i actually liked deer valley better due to better snow preservation on pow days due to the clientel and lots of long fall line pitches out in the open which didn't get tracked up nearly as quickly.

there's no doubt about the bc access from the canyons. i used tour up into beartrap WAY early from bcc just to get some runs in before folks from the canyons would access it. i was actually lapping perfect pow in upper btf in the ball fields the day of death in dutches draw. the bc access from the lcc resorts however is MUCH more dramatic and real deal skiing than the pc ridgeline. not that there's anyhing wrong with that. i actually preferred the pow preservation and safer slopes of the pcr over upper bcc/lcc more often than not.

one of my fave tours tho did use the canyons. i'd first lap usa bowl, then wills hill/sweet roll, then no name or dutches draw into the canyons, lap the dreamscape/catcher? can't remember the name, lift, ride that chair for a few laps, then skin back up the ridge and head for home. loved doing that sometimes for a change of pace/scenery.

never skied park city resort, but from admins and others reports, it looks interesting/fun.

rog

 

[Mike Bernstein]

No doubt that the Canyons has its Pros, one of which you highlight. But think about the type of skier who is going to view BC access as a Pro. That may apply to no more than 5% of the skiing population. If that place is going to be a success, it has to appeal to Joe Dentist and his family. They don't have touring gear, let alone any semblance of avi awareness, so they are going to ski solely what's on the trail map. What matters to them is quality terrain that they can access and egress in a reasonably efficient manner. I'm not sure how the current set-up, even with this year's changes, meets those requirements.

Actually, The Canyons is one of the best and most enticing gateways to BC skiing around and lures hundreds of Joe Dentists and his family each season (sometimes with disastrous consequences). The best example is Dutch Draw. The only thing separating it from in-bounds terrain is a 3/8" run of polypro rope. You can see all of the terrain while riding the 9990 lift. Get off the lift, take off your skis, boot uphill for 50 vert. feet, go thru the B/C gate (with the skull & crossbones sign) and you're there. The run-out is into an in-bounds blue square trail, 50 yards from the base of the 9990 lift. Add in a traverse and Square Top is about the same effort (but with a slightly more involved run-out). There's similar side/back country just as easily accessed from elsewhere at The Canyons that doesn't require touring gear. It's one of the selling points of The Canyons.

And yet, their skier visits are still the smallest of the three PC resorts and are microscopic compared to other resorts of their size. "Hundreds" doesn't quite get it done, Marc.

 

[Marc_C]

And yet, their skier visits are still the smallest of the three PC resorts and are microscopic compared to other resorts of their size. "Hundreds" doesn't quite get it done, Marc.

Yeah, I know, but that wasn't the point. My post was to illuminate how easy the B/C access is from the Canyons and to refute the opinion that it isn't an enticement for the more casual skiers, not to suggest anything about visitation numbers.

 

[ChrisC]

Some thoughts:

1. The new orange bubble quad in general.
Needless spend. Is the new marketing looking at history? Vail tried the Vista Bahn in the 1980s and got rid of the covers in 2000s. Alyeska is a mess with mostly broken bubbles. Overall, it doesd not work. No one puts the bubbles down --- it's a different ethic in Euroland (where the references are from on why)

2. Terminus of Orange Quad
It looks like the extended the lift beyond the natural high point. I hope not.

3. Parkwest/Canyons meet Crested Butte.
I have not spent a lot of time at the Canyons -- but it looks obvious what they need to do. Crested Butte was a great town and below average mountain until the surface lifts in the 1980s. If 'Canyons' took a look....maybe 3 strategic lifts up to the ridges with a patrol budget --- that would bring everyone into the highest snowfall zone -- there is potential there. Fun.

4. New Lift.
This is the first North facing lift at Canyons. I will guess it will be the mountain's best terrain. I have seen the south burn-off too much on the steeper ends. However this is not really fair - any mountain would suffer.

 

[Mike Bernstein]

And yet, their skier visits are still the smallest of the three PC resorts and are microscopic compared to other resorts of their size. "Hundreds" doesn't quite get it done, Marc.

Yeah, I know, but that wasn't the point. My post was to illuminate how easy the B/C access is from the Canyons and to refute the opinion that it isn't an enticement for the more casual skiers, not to suggest anything about visitation numbers.

It isn't an enticement for the vast majority of skiers, regardless of however many "hundreds" of tracks you may see - that most certainly is the point. When you are talking about a resort with aspirations to compete with areas generating over a million skier visits, a few hundred tracks into the BC from a relatively small minority of skiers remains irrelevant.

 

[Mike Bernstein]

Some thoughts:

1. The new orange bubble quad in general.
Needless spend. Is the new marketing looking at history? Vail tried the Vista Bahn in the 1980s and got rid of the covers in 2000s. Alyeska is a mess with mostly broken bubbles. Overall, it doesd not work. No one puts the bubbles down --- it's a different ethic in Euroland (where the references are from on why)

Agreed - it's failed everywhere in the States. Not sure why they think "it's different this time"

2. Terminus of Orange Quad
It looks like the extended the lift beyond the natural high point. I hope not.

If they were committed to increasing relevant capacity out of the base, I actually think they did the right things here (stupid bubble aside). There is a mid-station serving Lookout Mtn, which offers some of the best N facing terrain on the mtn, and the lift then continues upwards towards the saddle between the Sun Peak area and Saddleback area, enabling people to ski down to either lift pod from the lift terminus. Given the topographical challenges and the apparent commitment to the existing base area (which is the real problem), it's not a bad solution for killing two birds with one stone. Personally, I thought they should stick a FG double starting from somewhere between the base of Super Condor and Sun Peak, ending on top of Lookout. That would be a great expert skiing pod where people could sit on the deck of the Sun Peak lodge and watch gomers and experts alike take on those steep runs like Super Fury and G Force.

3. Parkwest/Canyons meet Crested Butte.
I have not spent a lot of time at the Canyons -- but it looks obvious what they need to do. Crested Butte was a great town and below average mountain until the surface lifts in the 1980s. If 'Canyons' took a look....maybe 3 strategic lifts up to the ridges with a patrol budget --- that would bring everyone into the highest snowfall zone -- there is potential there. Fun.

Agreed, though there's only so many places where they can punch a lift up to the ridge - much of that land is owned by the NFS.

4. New Lift.
This is the first North facing lift at Canyons. I will guess it will be the mountain's best terrain. I have seen the south burn-off too much on the steeper ends. However this is not really fair - any mountain would suffer.

Not sure if it will be the best terrain (that may go to 9990), but it will definitely be up there. Of course, the problem is that you need to ride two lifts to nowhere before even getting to the base of the new Iron Mtn lift.

 

[Admin]

4. New Lift.
This is the first North facing lift at Canyons. I will guess it will be the mountain's best terrain. I have seen the south burn-off too much on the steeper ends. However this is not really fair - any mountain would suffer.

Not sure if it will be the best terrain (that may go to 9990), but it will definitely be up there. Of course, the problem is that you need to ride two lifts to nowhere before even getting to the base of the new Iron Mtn lift.

Not to mention the fact that the base of the Iron Mountain terrain isn't much higher than the base village -- it's around 7,200 feet. I got a peek at some of the new runs over the weekend when we took the dogs swimming in a pond up near there. Snow will likely be an issue. Next time I'll bring a decent camera along.

 

[Mike Bernstein]

4. New Lift.
This is the first North facing lift at Canyons. I will guess it will be the mountain's best terrain. I have seen the south burn-off too much on the steeper ends. However this is not really fair - any mountain would suffer.

Not sure if it will be the best terrain (that may go to 9990), but it will definitely be up there. Of course, the problem is that you need to ride two lifts to nowhere before even getting to the base of the new Iron Mtn lift.

Not to mention the fact that the base of the Iron Mountain terrain isn't much higher than the base village -- it's around 7,200 feet. I got a peek at some of the new runs over the weekend when we took the dogs swimming in a pond up near there. Snow will likely be an issue. Next time I'll bring a decent camera along.

Right, and IIRC it's also a bit of a monadnock - it kind of juts out on its own pretty far to the East of the rest of the terrain, so it's far from the ridgeline where you'd expect the best snows.

 

[Admin]

Right, and IIRC it's also a bit of a monadnock

You recall correctly:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source= ... 1&t=p&z=13

Looks like the lift will stop just shy of the top, which will lose a bit of vertical to ski on that open ridgeline to looker's left of the chair line -- which to me looks like some of the more interesting terrain over there. Not steep, but interesting nonetheless:

BTW, those are the über-luxury homes of The Colony in the photo middle ground -- the same ones that would make it difficult now to build a day skier access point at the base of Tombstone.

 

[rsmith]

And yet, their skier visits are still the smallest of the three PC resorts and are microscopic compared to other resorts of their size. "Hundreds" doesn't quite get it done, Marc.

Yeah, I know, but that wasn't the point. My post was to illuminate how easy the B/C access is from the Canyons and to refute the opinion that it isn't an enticement for the more casual skiers, not to suggest anything about visitation numbers.

It isn't an enticement for the vast majority of skiers, regardless of however many "hundreds" of tracks you may see - that most certainly is the point. When you are talking about a resort with aspirations to compete with areas generating over a million skier visits, a few hundred tracks into the BC from a relatively small minority of skiers remains irrelevant.

I think Marc_C is referring to a halo type of effect, a lot like how car manufacturers will build a hi-performance coupe that's a loss-leader but gives the brand cred across the board. If the Canyons could provide additional access to it's upper bowls then a couple hundred skiers directly benefit but the resort gains a stronger overall reputation as a skiers mountain. Dutch Draw, for instance, is pretty enticing but it's too scary in terms of avy risk (at least for me) to take a chance on as a destination skier. I'm not sure what the blocking points are, but it would seem plausible for the Canyons to provide avy control of the ridges and bowls accessible from 9990, even on NFS land. You could access a lot of terrain from 9990 with a short hike and the Canyons could legitimately add the additional acreage to their totals without having to build a lift on public land. With one more strategic lift to the ridge top south of 9990 you could probably access the entirety of the Canyons bowls with short hikes and traverses. And, voila, you've addressed a few of the main concerns of the Canyons, snow quality and advanced terrain.

An additional thought - I think Canyons would benefit quite a bit from a Wasatch interconnect (or at least a small version of an interconnect). Resorts should play to their strengths if they want to survive long-term, and the strengths of the Wasatch-back resorts are proximity to a major airport, sheer size and Park City downtown. If I was Talisker I would be talking with PCMR management looking seriously at adding a couple lifts to make an PC/Canyons interconnect a reality. The interconnect would differentiate the Park City resorts from their competition in Colorado and Whistler. 7500+ acres of ski-able terrain, Utah powder, 30 minutes from the airport, a real ski town. Ya, it's a marketing ploy and doesn't have a huge impact on the actual ski experience, but I guarantee it would be top-and-center on all the ads and magazine spreads. The skier based at the Canyons could ski Jupiter and have lunch/apres in downtown Park City. The PC-based skier could ski the entire ridge line - the kind of safari skiing you only get in Europe or Whistler...

 

[Mike Bernstein]

I think Marc_C is referring to a halo type of effect, a lot like how car manufacturers will build a hi-performance coupe that's a loss-leader but gives the brand cred across the board. If the Canyons could provide additional access to it's upper bowls then a couple hundred skiers directly benefit but the resort gains a stronger overall reputation as a skiers mountain.

I don't doubt that it ads brand cred, but to further your analogy, if AMC circa 1981 added a luxury sports car to its fleet of Gremlins and Pacers, I'm not sure it would have added much in the way of a halo effect. You've got to fix the underlying, very noticeable rot before any sort of halo effect is going to generate traction for you. When the first thing you experience at the resort is the need to ride 3-4 lifts just to get to the vast majority of the terrain (and no ability to ski down from said terrain at the end of the day w/o taking another 2-3 lifts), that's going to tend to stick out in the minds of the majority of the market.

 

[Marc_C]

I'm not sure what the blocking points are, but it would seem plausible for the Canyons to provide avy control of the ridges and bowls accessible from 9990, even on NFS land.

Actually they cannot do avy control on NFS land if it is not within their permit unless they go through a specific permitting process. IIRC, there is an exception where propagation zones above and out of bounds can be controlled if the resultant slides run in-bounds.

An additional thought - I think Canyons would benefit quite a bit from a Wasatch interconnect (or at least a small version of an interconnect). Resorts should play to their strengths if they want to survive long-term, and the strengths of the Wasatch-back resorts are proximity to a major airport, sheer size and Park City downtown. If I was Talisker I would be talking with PCMR management looking seriously at adding a couple lifts to make an PC/Canyons interconnect a reality.

Have you noticed exactly where the new Iron Mtn. lift is located? :-$

Regarding the comments of someone else about the lift not going to the top but ending lower down the ridge. Remember that there are considerations in lift placement other than ideal location - like avi exposure (probably not the case here), wind exposure, esp at unloading terminals, and, as i alluded to above, PCMR boundaries and where a lift on the *other side* of the ridge might be placed.

 

[biny]

When the first thing you experience at the resort is the need to ride 3-4 lifts just to get to the vast majority of the terrain (and no ability to ski down from said terrain at the end of the day w/o taking another 2-3 lifts), that's going to tend to stick out in the minds of the majority of the market.

yeah, but for those looking for a ski vacation with an actual town, it certainly beats an hour drive each way (on a good day) to LCC. and in a sense it's not a whole lot different than trying to access blue sky basin at vail - which requires several lifts to get there and back.

it's actually one of the things i like most about the canyons. yeah, you have to take a few lifts to get to a lot of the terrain, but once you're there, you have it practically all to yourself.

That's a great map, though I'm almost certain that his placement of the Daybreak, Dreamscape and Dreamcatcher lifts is incorrect.

I actually created a similar map a while back - i think i have all the lifts in the right spot. i just updated it with the new lifts (at least where it looks like the new ones are being installed), and then added some extensions to Sun Peak, Peak 5 and Day Break that seems to match up with what some of you guys have been suggesting. If google maps is correct, it doesn't even look like there would be much crossover with NFS land.
I can't figure out how to default the setting to "terrain", but it's definitely much more clear to look at the map in that view.

here is a link...
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&msa=0&msid=117429753130539806832.000457e27746aada9d673

I think Canyons would benefit quite a bit from a Wasatch interconnect

I couldn't agree more. I think the whole region would benefit, especially if they dropped a lift into BCC too. any of the locals know if this even realistic or just a pipe dream? it's the only way i can think of that the canyons would be able to increase "access" points, since all the land south of the current base is now part of the Colony.

 

[Admin]

Have you noticed exactly where the new Iron Mtn. lift is located? :-$

Close, but no cigar -- there's still a small drainage between the top of Iron Mountain and Thaynes Canyon, and IIRC that land is privately held. You'd have to skin a bit to get out of that drainage and over the top to drop into Thaynes.

You can, however, go in the other direction right now. From a short bootpack up Pinecone Ridge within PCMR's boundary it's all (sort of) downhill to the bottom of the new Iron Mountain lift. You'd still need skins, for it's ridiculously flat for about half the distance.

The new lift is, however, one step toward a possible eventual touching of boundaries.

it's actually one of the things i like most about the canyons. yeah, you have to take a few lifts to get to a lot of the terrain, but once you're there, you have it practically all to yourself.

Not taking sides as to whether it's a plus or a minus, but didn't you kind of make Mike's point on his behalf? I mean, if you've got that terrain to yourself then the majority of the clientele either aren't figuring out the layout or are deterred by it.

I think Canyons would benefit quite a bit from a Wasatch interconnect

I couldn't agree more. I think the whole region would benefit, especially if they dropped a lift into BCC too. any of the locals know if this even realistic or just a pipe dream?

It's not out of the question. Huntsman put the possibility of an interconnect between all 7 resorts on the table as a possible solution to Cottonwood Canyon traffic in the Wasatch Canyons Tomorrow master plan, along with other alternatives, before he skipped off to China. See:

http://www.firsttracksonline.com/News/2 ... ation-Fee/

and

http://www.wasatchcanyons.slco.org/

I can tell you that from discussions with those involved, which occur at Utah ski resort industry social gatherings I attend every fall, most resorts would be happy to see an interconnect happen. And the questions are almost inevitably raised by someone in attendance. Realize, however, that environmental groups like Save Our Canyons and the Sierra Club oppose virtually any ski resort development whatsoever within the Cottonwood Canyons. Save Our Canyons in particular wields a lot of political clout around here, so it's a real uphill battle.