The once sleepy ski area in Eden, Utah will grow dramatically this winter with the addition of a high speed lift and new terrain. Leitner-Poma of America will supply the yet-to-be-named six place chair, which will move 2,500 skiers per hour and service approximately 50 acres of terrain the first season. When completed, the expansion will more than triple skiable terrain with 300 new acres. “The pioneers who started Nordic Valley dreamed of sharing this amazing terrain,” said Brandon Fessler, Nordic Valley general manager. “Our team has worked hard to realize that dream, and we cannot wait to share it with our guests, our friends and our neighbors this winter.” The lift will rise 1,400 vertical feet in just 4.2 minutes with a slope length of 4,213 feet. It will become the first six passenger lift built by Leitner-Poma in Utah.
Fast-growing Mountain Capital Partners took over operations of Nordic Valley in 2018. This expansion project will be located entirely on private property, though more lifts could eventually be added on Forest Service land at higher elevation.
MCP is also partnering with Leitner-Poma to add a base-to-summit Telemix at Arizona Snowbowl this summer. The two projects combine to form the largest lift investment in North American skiing for the 2020/21 season. While some resort groups have paused expansion capital due to the pandemic, Mountain Capital Partners and select others continue to forge ahead.
Nordic Valley expects to open the new six passenger lift early this winter, increasing its vertical drop by 65 percent.
Lift Blog 
Wow, that came out of nowhere for such a tiny place with three 40-year-old fixed grips. Have you seen their master plan of where these 40 new runs and new lifts will go?
There is certainly room in the market in Utah for more inexpensive family ski terrain catering to locals, with the traffic in the Cottonwoods getting really bad and Park City going quite a bit further upmarket in recent years. Eden is half an hour from Ogden and the population of Utah has grown by 50% in the last 20 years.
Poma didn’t build a lift in Utah for 20 years and now has two of the highest profile ones of recent years alongside Supreme at Alta.
LikeLike
Skiing in Utah has just become a joke, sure I love skiing but almost everything if not everything is aimed more towards tourism than locals
LikeLike
What’s the incremental cost to build this as as a 2500pph six pack instead of a quad, since all the infrastructure, towers, concrete, grading, etc is all new anyway?
LikeLike
I can’t imagine it would be much since LPOA generally uses the same terminals for quads and six packs now. While the larger track width, grips, and haul rope add some cost, using 30% fewer carriers could offset some of that cost.
LikeLike
I remember speaking with a Ragged Mt., NH staff person at the Boston Ski Show, I think 11/2000. They were installing the first 6 Pack in the state. He said, it is only $60k more than a HSQ, since they won’t have the full number (possible) of carriers. “But we get much publicity for “only 6 Pack in NH”. I don’t know if that is true 20 years later, but there’s a thought.
LikeLike
I assume it’s the same logic Hunter used for the Northern Express two years ago: you get the capacity of a 2,400 pph high speed quad, but with larger intervals between chairs (nine seconds instead of seven seconds).
LikeLike
9 seconds instead of 6 seconds
LikeLike
It seems pretty late in the season to start a construction project. I wonder if some of the components came from a deferred contract this year?
LikeLike
I flew over NV on June 25th and work had already started on both terminal locations.
LikeLike
More than likely. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is lift was slated for Keystone or Okemo.
LikeLike
I wondered that as well. Reminds me of Delta, and their strategy of buying ‘strategically priced’ aircraft (planes being retired early by other airlines, etc).
There was almost certainly excess capacity at LP this summer due to deferments. Smart move for LP and MCP.
LikeLike
The locals are NOT happy. The infrastructure is not in place to support high skier volume in Liberty and Eden. The roads are narrow, and parking could be a problem. I really want my quiet home valley to remain quiet. If you want the big stuff, go up to my beloved Snowbasin or even Powder Mountain. Keep Nordic a small family style mountain operation. But as I said in another post, the staff at NV are awesome awesome people.
LikeLike
Utah has never cared about having the infrastructure in place. It sucks. An alternative to Grand Amerika and their antiquated operation strategies or Summit Group and their rich white people Instagram dreaming is cool, though. Hopefully Weber County can sort it out.
LikeLike
I’ve worried the past few years about how aggressive MCP has been with investment. Particularly given that they focus on “discount” mountains, I worry that they won’t make their money back.
LikeLike
I’m guessing they will make their money back on Snowbowl but not sure about Nordic.
LikeLike
MCP is owned by a billionaire and I think his investments are for the love of the sport and not the bottom line.
LikeLike
And yet that ancient double chairlift is still going to be operating this winter? Boy that seems really weird. I think they should’ve replaced the double first. Am I missing something?
LikeLike
Lift 1 should be operating this winter. The chairs were removed for NDT when I stopped by.
LikeLike
And it’s not “ancient”, just a nice, silver-fox-esque Hall. Why does everyone on here think that chairs hafta be brand new? Chair 1, along with the two remaining Thiokols to the north and south, is a rad chair.
LikeLike
Nordic Valley plans to replace Lift 1 soon.
LikeLike
Nordic is too low and is oftentimes barren of snow even mid-winter. They can’t build much higher for they will quickly build to the summit, which is still too low. It’s also too warm to make snow. Why put in a new lift & expand terrain? What am I missing here?
LikeLike
I wonder that too. That seems to be the case for most of the recent MCP acquisitions (e.g., Hesperus, elk ridge, pajarito). They must get these marginal properties so cheap that the economics somehow work out. Or their few snow-sure, high volume areas like snow bowl and Brianhead are subsidizing them. For whatever reason. I wonder what their bankers say?
LikeLike
And is it me or are those triple chairs in the pictures?
LikeLike
They are 6 pack carriers, I sat in one of the new chairs recently. The photo I took (The one under the map) really doesn’t show the scale very well.
LikeLike
Curious how long it takes to clear a trail. They had a pic of the liftline cut but no trails cleared yet. Can you imagine a 6 pack serving 1 trail and a connector.
LikeLike
i live really close to nordic, same with snowbasin and powder mountain. glad to see the small hill grow a little bit
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think it is amazing to watch nordic grow since I was a kid
LikeLike
It really helped, great effort, we also work on that product.
LikeLike