Lift Blog

Three years into its ownership of Utah’s second largest ski resort, Summit Powder Mountain is making a statement by adding two Skytrac quad chairs to serve new intermediate terrain in Lefty’s drainage and Mary’s Bowl.  The new lifts are called Village and Mary’s and will access runs to the south of the existing boundary beginning this winter.  Powder Mountain already sprawls an impressive 7,000 acres but has just five lifts, four of them fixed-grips.  Expanded uphill options will be welcome news to skiers although these latest additions are mostly about access to Powder Mountain Village and 150 new home sites.  I reached out to Powder Mountain for more details about these lift projects and so far they have not gotten back to me.  Luckily public records from Weber County provide some info and pictures tell a thousand words.

Village Quad

Skiing off to the south from the Hidden Lake Express this winter you’ll find the bottom of the new Village lift part way down Lefty’s drainage.  The Village quad and its new sister lift will be the first just the third and fourth top drive lifts for Skytrac.  Rising 582 vertical feet, Village will sport 16 towers and a capacity of 1,500 pph to start.  The chairlift unloads on the ridge between Lefty’s and Mary’s at the heart of the forthoming village.  Construction began on the late side for a lift to 9,000 feet in the Wasatch but all concrete work is finished and steel is arriving.

Mary’s Quad

Another new ski run will descend northeast from the top of the Village quad to the new Mary’s lift.  This one will be of similar dimensions and unload on the Powder Mountain summit near the Sunrise lift.  From here, guests will be able to reach the Hidden Lake Express or Paradise quad and ski parts of Cobabe Canyon that previously required hiking.  The building permit application for Mary’s was dated July 28th and progress is a little behind where Village is but I’m sure the Skytrac crew will have both lifts spinning in no time.

Pow Mow privately owns approximately 10,000 acres and expansion into Lefty’s and Mary’s is only the beginning of new lift construction here.  Summit’s master plan includes at least three more quad chairs in the vicinity of the Village called Lefty’s, Vern’s and Earl’s.  That’s good news for Skytrac, which builds lifts entirely in nearby Salt Lake.