Visitors to Park City’s Canyons Village will soon have a third out-of-base lift option. Today the Canyons Village Management Association board voted to sign a joint funding agreement with Vail Resorts for construction of a new 10 passenger gondola linking the south end of Canyons Village to Red Pine Lodge. Canyons Village has seen immense growth in recent years with new hotels, commercial space and employee housing opening while lift investment lagged. Once the project is complete, Park City skiers will be able to choose between the new Sunrise Gondola, the existing 8 passenger Red Pine Gondola and four passenger Orange Bubble Express chairlift at Canyons Village. The new machine will provide a much-needed out-of-base capacity and create a second downloading option for end-of-day egress.
The 6,512 foot long gondola will replace the Sunrise double and run along an undulating alignment crossing the existing Over and Out quad. 10 passenger cabins will carry riders 1,103 vertical feet between the village and mid-mountain. The bottom terminal will be located near the new Pendry hotel and the top will sit near the Saddleback Express and High Meadow Express lifts.
No manufacturer has been announced but lift equipment is expected to cost $18 million with an additional $9 million non-lift costs. The Canyons Village Management Association will fund up to $9.24 million of the $27 million total, though Vail Resorts will own and operate the gondola. The agreement between the two parties stipulates the new lift is to be completed within 36 months. “Park City Mountain and CVMA are pleased to be moving forward together toward this important future investment,” the two parties said in a statement. “A future gondola will enhance the Canyons Village experience and contribute to the operation of a world-class resort. Today’s CVMA board vote was one step in a process we are excited to continue as we partner to reimagine Canyons Village as a world-class destination.”
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Is the project approved by the forest service/population ?
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Park City is on private land so no Forest Service approval required. Hopefully the town planning issues that derailed Silverlode and Eagle don’t apply this time. A new Sunrise lift has been planned for many years.
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From what I understand the Park City Planning Commission doesn’t have jurisdiction over that particular area. It is technically outside of Park City city limits. In contrast, most of what used to be PCMR before the merger is located within city limits.
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The Canyons Village portion of Park City is in Summit County, not Park City. The Snyderville Planning Commission and Summit County will have the deciding vote. So far, they haven’t had any issues with approving new lifts/upgrades (Quicksilver gondola, upgraded High Meadow, Over and Out).
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It’s just kinda a real estate lift no one will use unless you are staying in the vicinity. I did ride the Sunrise lift once while staying at the Hyatt at it’s base. Not a great layout over there.
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I don’t get the poo-pooing of this. Base capacity is and has been a huge issue.
Ummmmmmm….lots of guests and property owners stay in the vicinity of this, particularly people whose properties fall within the jurisdiction of the CVMA, and hence will be providing part of the funding. Many of the properties utilize the Village connect shuttle, which has a drop off at the Pendry. This should hopefully ease some congestion.
Not to mention it’s not that long of a walk from the top of the cabriolet to the proposed base, so if you come up and see long lines at the orange bubble and Red Pine, you at least have another option.
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It’s about a 930 ft walk from the Cabriolet to the base of Sunrise (so expect similar for the gondo). Compare that to roughly 600 ft Cabrio > Orange Bubble. So, really, not bad.
Especially on days like the ones I was there and the lines were 30 mins+ out-of-base on Red Pine (10-20″ dump days). And unlike the Bubble, there will be folks who won’t see the new gondo or know the path (it’s not that complicated…) so I’d expect faster queue times!
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I like this a lot. For all the parking issues on the PC side, helping improve access to the Canyons side should encourage more people to use this portal. Also might help them get the Eagle and Silverlode upgrades through because it shows they trying to address underlying issues.
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I’m curious how traffic this season went at the Park City base area compared to the previous year, most of the local coverage of ski traffic was laser-focused on the Cottonwoods, barely a peep for other ski areas.
I only made it to DV / PC a couple of times this season and I just parked at canyons village or took the bus from a park-and-ride so I didn’t really get the full traffic experience, anyone have thoughts on this?
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Traffic was significantly improved in Old Town due do the parking changes that were implemented.
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all I know is that the 21/22 season was a huge mess Friday-Sunday morning with gridlock traffic going to the PCMR base on 224. PCMR parking would fill up before 8 am and then canyons parking would fill up. So different from the 18/19 season. Because of the awful traffic, I just ended up getting a pass at the Cottonwoods this past year.
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One snapshot: I was there Jan 8-11, 2023 (Sun-Wed on snow). Basically post-holiday, but it snowed a LOT over those days. I managed to score a parking spot Sunday afternoon at the Cabrio as people were already leaving, but used the bus from my Kimball Junction hotel the other 3 days — because it was clear parking was going to be a mess at both bases. Busses were jam-packed to/from PC base all the way to/from the Junction transit center, though traffic itself moved fairly well on 224 and in central Park City.
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Any idea when they’ll start construction?
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Next summer they will start preliminary work and full gondola construction will be done the year after I think (pending approval)
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It’s interesting how PCMR seems to view the lower slopes on the Canyons side as little more than end-of-day ski-down runs.
In the early 90s, Wolf Mountain had five lifts serving various aspects of ‘Lookout Peak’. By the late 90s, ASC had consolidated to three lifts (not counting Shortcut), but two of them were quads instead of doubles.
But Raptor was moved and never replaced, and acreage above Sunrise has been removed from inbounds terrain (there was a large glade called “Lost World”.
Now, after this ‘replacement’, only the mid-station on Orange Bubble will provide lappable skiing in this area.
You could imagine alternatives to this approach. For instance, they could replace the Cabriolet, Sunrise, Over n Out, and Timberline in one go with a multi-stage gondola, like the Breck Connect. This would really do a number of redistributing skiers, including day-trippers. Or if that seems far-fetched, a detachable chairlift to lookout peak, crossing the gondola, with a mid-station near the current unload.
My guess is this came down to ability level. There is basically just one tiny corridor of beginner skiing at the Canyons, and it’s off High Meadows. They wanted a direct link from the hotels to the ski school. Which is, like, fair I guess.
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It comes down to 3 factors: elevation, beginners, and the resort’s gravitational center.
1) Canyons Village is at ~6900 ft (the bottom of the Cabriolet is at the advertised ~6800 ft). Red Pine Lodge, sitting at over 8000 ft, is just much better positioned as a base area, as it receives more snow, has less snowmelt, and has an earlier window for snowmaking. All of these factors are especially crucial in a warming climate when Vail intends to open in November each year.
2) Canyons Village has no beginner slopes, whereas Red Pine Lodge does, and it is very likely beginner skiers will be using this lift given the surrounding real estate includes a lot of rentals and hotels.
3) Even though the southward terrain expansion started under ASC, the gravitational center of Canyons was somewhere between Lookout Cabin (the top of the slopes above Canyons Village) and Red Pine Lodge until being acquired by Vail. Now, the entire complex has two centers, one on each side of Quicksilver, which gives an overall center somewhere around the Dream Peak trail complex. Given the point of the gondola is to get skiers out onto the mountain to start their day, it makes sense to distribute them closer to this point rather than have them lap the Canyons Village terrain.
With all of that being said, I am a bit concerned about the lack of uphill capacity from Red Pine Lodge after this installation. No capacity is listed, but 10 passenger cabins imply this lift will have about ~3000 pph (on top of the 2800 pph from Red Pine Gondola). Saddleback and High Meadow have a combined uphill capacity of 4800 pph, but those lifts are mainly for lapping and do not go anywhere. People looking to go elsewhere will flood down Chicane and overwhelm Tombstone and Timberline. They should really look into building a simple fixed-grip from Red Pine Lodge to the top of Tombstone to ease congestion and allow people to bypass Tombstone/Timberline.
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Couldn’t agree more with all of this. Chicane will be even more of a nightmare than it already is, and the Tombstone chokepoint will continue to get worse. Need at least lift up to top of Tombstone or further up on Fantasy Ridge starting from Red Pine. This will also increase the need to create another means to get back west to Red Pine from the Dream/Peak 5 area – hopefully they can find a path among the McMansions.
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I agree, chicane will be a mess. I think the alignment of Sidewinder Express should be directly to the top of Tombstone however, as fantasy ridge is and probably forever will be expert terrain.
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I haven’t skied PCMR a ton, but when I’ve gone, both Sun Peaks and Super Condor felt very under-utilized. Pushing everyone up to Red Pine Lodge means the natural flow is just town to Tombstone. Adding some out-of-base towards Lookout and those pods might help redistribute flow.
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The reason it feels that way is because they are under-utilized. Both existing lifts out of Canyons Village naturally push skiers towards Red Pine Lodge and points further south, and it is a pain to get back north to Super Condor once on that side of the resort unless you take a lift designed to look like nothing more than a way back to the base (Over and Out or Short Cut). If spreading people out was the singular goal, Orange Bubble Express would need to be cut short to its mid-station to force people to either lap or go to Sun Peaks/Super Condor. However, this would obviously be unpopular, as people want to head towards Red Pine Lodge and the thousands of acres of terrain further south.
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Red Pine Gondola is not even close to 2800 PPH. You should check your numbers.
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Peter’s spreadsheet has the capacity listed at 2800 pph. That’s the design capacity, so it probably doesn’t reach near that in normal operations given its age and hours, but it technically is 2800.
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I think a good option to allow relief to the crowding at the Canyons base and make it easier to access the new gondola would be to relocate the double to the main base in an alignment somewhere up to the sunrise run. They could also run this new lift early or late.
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They need a 6 pack lift that can go up/down and not be shut down by the wind. Currently, the gondola and orange bubble get placed on wind hold which pushes people to PC or people waste time and stand in line.
Canyons side has become impossible.
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Every conversation I’ve had with Vail people over the last few years has included comments about wind holds and the need for the new lift to be much more wind resistant. I don’t know if they are going to follow the natural slope of the mountain or if the heavier weight of the 10 person gondola will provide this, but I have to believe that it had to be part of the consideration for this gondola.
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Looking at the diagram of elevation it certainly seems as though this new lift will hug much closer to the terrain. Looks like it drops significantly and rises again as it goes through the canyon. I am sure wind was one of if not the biggest considerations for this gondola. They need to egress and ingress High Meadow when the wind gets bad. My only concern is the section where the new lift crosses over and out. This section isn’t crazy windy, however, the gondola will have to be quite high off the ground for a brief segment.
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This will be a very welcomed addition alongside the Red Pine Gondola cabin upgrades. Eventually OBX will need to be higher capacity as well but this still helps a lot. Now the question of LPOA or D-Line…
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I’m not sure why they ever installed over and out if there was a plan for this. They should just install a high speed 6 or 8 pack from sunrise to tombstone and have it upload and download. Another gondola would mean all 3 base lifts can’t run in high winds. That’s been a real problem over there, not very smart.
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Park City now has a page on their website about this project. https://www.parkcitymountain.com/the-mountain/about-the-mountain/sunrise-gondola-project.aspx
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I’m told this project has been awarded to Leitner-Poma.
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That’s very surprising considering how many of Park City’s recent projects over the years have been Doppelmayr.
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Interesting! Wonder what will get upgraded next on that side..
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