Park City and Deer Valley look miserable over the holidays

ChrisC

ChrisC

Well-known member
Lift, picket, and powder lines bring challenges to Park City Mountain

Park City is still less than 20% open and its Ski Patrol went on strike?! Not going to open a lot of the mountain with a skeleton patrol staff.

Adding insult to injury, they are picketing the crowds. Ugh. Happy Holidays! The Canyons' base is below.

You would be wrong if you thought you could just go to Deer Valley, which is 50% open. They are sold out December 28-31. No-day tickets are available at any price.

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Great. I bought my first ever Vail product by way of an Epic day pass so I could tick off Park City when we are back in SLC in a couple of days. It was $110USD. Oh well.
 
EMSC said:
Wow. I thought Colorado was uniquely bad at times with lines... apparently they are spreading...
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Nothing new for Park City during the New Year's holiday week. My primary ski buddy joined a few friends to ski Park City during that week a few years ago. It was another low snow start to the season with very limited open terrain. Virtually all groomers based on snowmaking. The friends had a condo on the Canyons side. They took the gondola over to Park City one day. Took a long, long time to get back.

Sbooker said:
Great. I bought my first ever Vail product by way of an Epic day pass so I could tick off Park City when we are back in SLC in a couple of days. It was $110USD. Oh well.
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How many days were you planning on skiing PC?

If you aren't staying in PC, plan to get to a parking lot REALLY early. If needed, take a free bus between Canyons and Park City instead of the gondola. Starting in PC, skiing directly to the gondola, then working over to the Canyons side for the views (assuming good visibility) would be one way to get a sense of the scale of the place. The ride on the transportation lift on the Canyons side that people take in both directions is a bit unique.
 
The fun times at Park City continue.

Park City holiday skiers voice frustrations over limited resort access, delays
On Monday, Dec. 30, a power outage caused lift opening delays and Park City Mountain Resort directed guests to take a shuttle to the Mountain Village side of the resort from the Canyons Village to access skiing. “That trek alone would have taken hours,” Davis said, “not to mention the lines to contend with once we got there.”
Jason Davis, visiting with six adults and four children, described the scene at the resort. “The Red Pine gondola opened 45 minutes late, and the line was two hours long,” he recounted. “If you want to make it work, it’s a ton of effort. We were already two hours late getting started.”
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It's just not Park City; almost all of Utah looks like a disaster.

Solitude is <30% open.


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Snowbird is a disaster with nothing open.

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MarzNC said:
Nothing new for Park City during the New Year's holiday week. My primary ski buddy joined a few friends to ski Park City during that week a few years ago. It was another low snow start to the season with very limited open terrain. Virtually all groomers based on snowmaking. The friends had a condo on the Canyons side. They took the gondola over to Park City one day. Took a long, long time to get back.


How many days were you planning on skiing PC?

If you aren't staying in PC, plan to get to a parking lot REALLY early. If needed, take a free bus between Canyons and Park City instead of the gondola. Starting in PC, skiing directly to the gondola, then working over to the Canyons side for the views (assuming good visibility) would be one way to get a sense of the scale of the place. The ride on the transportation lift on the Canyons side that people take in both directions is a bit unique.
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One day only. Thanks for the tip on getting there early.
 
Sbooker said:
One day only. Thanks for the tip on getting there early.
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Don't do it. You're not going to see the scale of the place at 21% open. Throw in the holiday crowds and you couldn't pay me the $110 to go there.

Plan A: Stay in Wyoming until you have to fly out of SLC. This really should be a no-brainer. If it's not broke, don't fix it.
The flawed alternatives if you return to Utah:
Plan B: Go back to Alta
Plan C: The Cottonwoods got 3 feet of snow this week. Snowbird/Brighton/Solitude have 4 foot bases now and the limited operation might be due to control work. Check each day to see if more terrain opens.
Plan D: Snowbasin is 59% open, will be much better than Park City. You didn't like what you saw at Snowbasin last week. That plus the pics and commentary in this thread should be enough deterrent from Park City. Forget about the $110. You still have Targhee and Jackson (and Alta, Snowbird and Snowbasin) on MCP.

And what about Big Sky (now 83% open) and Yellowstone? Aren't you still doing that? Seriously, spend the rest of your ski time at Big Sky, Targhee and Jackson. As discussed in the other thread, you've already spent ~$2K+ per person in transportation cost. Does it make sense to leave the place where you had
Our best ever day skiing as a family
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to partake in the $#!&show described in this thread???

MarzNC:
Nothing new for Park City during the New Year's holiday week. My primary ski buddy joined a few friends to ski Park City during that week a few years ago. It was another low snow start to the season with very limited open terrain.
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Yes, Park City was 18% open at New Year's 2020-21 and 15% in 2017-18. It's a really lousy advance commit choice for the holidays.
 
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Tony Crocker said:
Don't do it. You're not going to see the scale of the place at 21% open. Throw in the holiday crowds and you couldn't pay me the $110 to go there.

Plan A: Stay in Wyoming until you have to fly out of SLC. This really should be a no-brainer. If it's not broke, don't fix it.
The flawed alternatives if you return to Utah:
Plan B: Go back to Alta
Plan C: The Cottonwoods got 3 feet of snow this week. Snowbird/Brighton/Solitude have 4 foot bases now and the limited operation might be due to control work. Check each day to see if more terrain opens.
Plan D: Snowbasin is 59% open, will be much better than Park City. You didn't like what you saw at Snowbasin last week. That plus the pics and commentary in this thread should be enough deterrent from Park City. Forget about the $110. You still have Targhee and Jackson (and Alta, Snowbird and Snowbasin) on MCP.

And what about Big Sky (now 83% open) and Yellowstone? Aren't you still doing that? Seriously, spend the rest of your ski time at Big Sky, Targhee and Jackson. As discussed in the other thread, you've already spent ~$2K+ per person in transportation cost. Does it make sense to leave the place where you had

to partake in the $#!&show described in this thread???

MarzNC:

Yes, Park City was 18% open at New Year's 2020-21 and 15% in 2017-18. It's a really lousy advance commit choice for the holidays.
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Unfortunately I have family commitments back in SLC. Big Sky and Yellowstone were a back up in case of nothing happening at the Tetons.
I’ll take your advice on Park City. It’s hard for me to face up to burning the cost though.
 
I love the job Peter at Lift Blog does. According to him PC had less than 18% open today and you'll never know that because VR has modified the PC website to no longer show acreage or % of open terrain. They do still show lift & trail counts though. Crazy.

I wonder how many 'guests' have demanded refunds of passes or tickets. Or will via lawsuits later.

Also Deer Valley will open a couple lifts of the expansion area. But clearly with manmade snow so probably one trail each. Such a waste of good ski resort capital on that expansion. Would have loved to see that kind of capital investment going to other resorts and terrain.
 
EMSC said:
VR has modified the PC website to no longer show acreage or % of open terrain.
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Yes the 21% is by trail count. PC did show acreage in 2020-21 and 2017-18 so it might be worse now. Heavenly, Kirkwood, Stevens Pass and Whistler still show % of open terrain along with lifts and trails. Other Vail resorts do not.
 
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Tony Crocker said:
Don't do it. You're not going to see the scale of the place at 21% open. Throw in the holiday crowds and you couldn't pay me the $110 to go there.

Plan A: Stay in Wyoming until you have to fly out of SLC. This really should be a no-brainer. If it's not broke, don't fix it.
The flawed alternatives if you return to Utah:
Plan B: Go back to Alta
Plan C: The Cottonwoods got 3 feet of snow this week. Snowbird/Brighton/Solitude have 4 foot bases now and the limited operation might be due to control work. Check each day to see if more terrain opens.
Plan D: Snowbasin is 59% open, will be much better than Park City. You didn't like what you saw at Snowbasin last week. That plus the pics and commentary in this thread should be enough deterrent from Park City. Forget about the $110. You still have Targhee and Jackson (and Alta, Snowbird and Snowbasin) on MCP.

And what about Big Sky (now 83% open) and Yellowstone? Aren't you still doing that? Seriously, spend the rest of your ski time at Big Sky, Targhee and Jackson. As discussed in the other thread, you've already spent ~$2K+ per person in transportation cost. Does it make sense to leave the place where you had

to partake in the $#!&show described in this thread???

MarzNC:

Yes, Park City was 18% open at New Year's 2020-21 and 15% in 2017-18. It's a really lousy advance commit choice for the holidays.
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Snowing again this morning at Targhee, although only light accumulation is expected.
 
Sbooker said:
It’s hard for me to face up to burning the cost though.
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No extra cost if you use second MCP days at Alta, Snowbird and/or Snowbasin.
Sbooker said:
I’ve got a dirty snowboarder in my crew.
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He can suck it up and ski as he did at Jackson.

Snowbird is up from 36% open yesterday to 52% today. Alta still has Backside and half of Supreme closed for control work today despite no new snow last 24 hours. No change to Brighton (51%), Snowbasin (59%) or Park City (21%).

It's still best to stay in Wyoming as long as possible. Hopefully you got a second MCP day at Jackson with the last shot of new snow.
 
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Sbooker said:
Great. I bought my first ever Vail product by way of an Epic day pass so I could tick off Park City when we are back in SLC in a couple of days. It was $110USD. Oh well.
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Can you get a refund? When I look at buying a Heavenly ticket for this Sat. they are only $269 which they say is a bargain compared to the $283 they'd charge for the 2 hrs 15 min left today. It also says "RISK-FREE REFUNDS
Request a refund before 5 p.m. on the last day of your ticket, and we'll refund you for any unused days."
 
tseeb said:
Can you get a refund?
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Very unlikely for an Epic Day Pass, which can be used at any VR resort that applicable for the option selected (holiday access, all destination resorts, etc.).

From my reading in the last few days, people who have been at PC are not being offered any sort of refund or consideration for the long lift lines and lack of open terrain.

Alterra and Vail Resorts have very different business models. The fact that Ikon includes a set of iconic independent resorts as "partners" such as Alta or JHMR, is one indication of the difference. Epic only has Telluride as a partner, all other resorts are owned/operated by VR. Sun Valley, Snowbasin, ABasin (before acquisition by Alterra) moved away from Epic a few years ago.
 
Tony Crocker said:
No extra cost if you use second MCP days at Alta, Snowbird and/or Snowbasin.

He can suck it up and ski as he did at Jackson.

Snowbird is up from 36% open yesterday to 52% today. Alta still has Backside and half of Supreme closed for control work today despite no new snow last 24 hours. No change to Brighton (51%), Snowbasin (59%) or Park City (21%).

It's still best to stay in Wyoming as long as possible. Hopefully you got a second MCP day at Jackson with the last shot of new snow.
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While I am on a ‘commission only’ arrangement so can take as much time off work as I like Kylie has a regular salary type job so has to get back so she doesn’t use all her leave allowance as we go to Europe in March. Tom also has to go back as he starts an apprenticeship next week.
 
Obviously dates to fly home are fixed, unless you’re a couple of nutcases who delayed 2 days to get that ski day in Africa.:D

Sbooker’s flexibility is to ski more days in Wyoming and fewer in Utah.
 
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