Deer Valley Resort today detailed plans to open a two stage gondola and eight chairlifts for the 2025-26 season in phase one of Expanded Excellence. Deer Valley also revealed the new village portal along U.S. Route 40 will be named Deer Valley East Village. Previously known as Mayflower, the expansion is a collaboration between Deer Valley owner Alterra and Extell Development Company of New York. In August, the two companies came together and announced all new terrain would become part of Deer Valley rather than a separate ski resort.
Deer Valley East Village will cater to both day skiers and destination guests. The project includes a skier services facility with ski school, children’s programs, rentals, retail, and dining options along with 1,200 new skier parking spaces. The village will also be home to the upcoming Grand Hyatt Deer Valley and two additional hotels totaling more than 800 rooms.
A burly 10 passenger gondola will anchor mountain expansion, traveling from the East Village to 9,350 foot Park Peak. This 15,000 foot long lift will feature an angle station on Big Dutch Peak, servicing a variety of trails which return back to the village. Two six place chairlifts are also planned to terminate near the gondola on Park Peak, one for beginners and the other geared toward intermediate and advanced skiers. The larger of the two, Park Peak Express, will feature a mid-loading station for repeat upper mountain skiing.
Also opening by the 2025-26 season are two lifts on Sultan’s Nose unloading near Deer Valley’s existing Sultan Express and Mayflower. One of these lifts is a six pack from the new village and the other a high speed quad starting mid-mountain. Finally, four quad chairlifts are planned on the lower reaches of the expansion servicing the East Village, Marcella and Velvære communities. Many of the lift alignments have already been cut and graded and lift construction is likely to begin this summer. Deer Valley has not yet announced a manufacturer for the nine lifts in phase one.
While the majority of terrain will open in 2025-26, full buildout will continue over several years. Future phases will see three additional connector lifts to legacy Deer Valley terrain, two quad chairs on Hail Peak, two quads on South Peak and a high speed quad on Big Dutch Peak. In total the expansion adds 16 lifts and more than 3,700 acres to Deer Valley. Upon completion, the resort will offer over 5,726 acres of skiable terrain accessed by 37 chairlifts serving 238 runs.
“At Deer Valley Resort, we are proud of our legacy as a top-tier ski destination, and we’re staying true to our founding principles set over four decades ago,” said Todd Bennett, President & COO of Deer Valley Resort. “This expansion improves our resort’s accessibility and enriches the guest experience with additional world-class amenities. We will honor our history and strengthen our ties to the community as we expand over the next several years.”
Lift Blog 
I’m guessing the fixed grip lifts will likely be Skytrac lifts while the detachables will probably be Doppelmayr lifts.
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Recently I talked with someone who works at Doppelmayr USA and she told me Doppelmayr just barely won the contract to build all of the new 16 lifts, the biggest contract in Doppelmayr’s history. Some lifts, likely the main 10-person gondola will be D-Line
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Correct me if I am wrong here, but I believe Rhosa Khutor for to Sochi Winter Olympics was the largest contract in Doppelmayr’s history?
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WOW! is this the biggest expansion in American ski resort history? I skied deer valley alot when i was younger, and i remember liking it but also sort of feeling like it did not offer enough expert terrain, once this expansion is completed i will try to head over there as fast as i can, this looks awesome!
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I think deer valley saw how well becoming a massively huge and massively expensive resort worked out for big sky, and now they are trying to cut into some of that market share
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Could not be further from the truth.
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I am surprised that the current Mayflower lift at Deer Valley is not getting upgraded as part of this.
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Does it really matter if theres 3 lifts that go to the top of Bald mountain that can access the same terrain?
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It does not need to be upgraded. It services a limited amount of terrain and there is redundancy to Bald Mountain via Sultan, Wasatch Express, Sterling, and a new lift being built in phase 2 from the backside of Bald Mountain.
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A couple things here. First, it probably makes sense for you to disclose that you’re a paid spokesmodel for Deer Valley. Nothing wrong in that, but important from a transparency standpoint.
Second, I disagree with the idea that Mayflower doesn’t need to be upgraded given the current plan. Mayflower and Sultan are almost certainly the two most impacted lifts at DV from this expansion. Until Phase 2 is delivered at some uncertain/unannounced time in the future, you won’t even be able to get to Wasatch and Sterling unless you go all the way around via Homeward Bound, so those lifts shouldn’t be mentioned as part of the solution for Bald Mtn access from East Village. Sultan is the only rational way to access Bald Mtn from East Village and will likely be an immediate pinch point requiring an upgrade to a 6-pack. Mayflower is going to be this fixed grip oddity serving as the donut hole amidst a ring of high speed lifts/gondolas, seemingly intentionally disconnected from the surrounding terrain/pods. Sort of surprised that’s being built in as a feature rather than a bug. There are easy opportunities to enhance connectivity for this pod by, for example, linking it to the Park Peak pod off the backside of Bald Mtn. or by bringing the base terminal down into the draw between Big Dutch Peak and Sultan’s Nose so that it could take traffic and distribute it higher up/around Bald Mtn. Net/net, I think the idea of just leaving Mayflower as is, isolated from all that surrounds it, doesn’t make much sense and that actual skier flow/traffic will ultimately force their hand on this decision.
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I don’t want them touching my beloved mayflower lift. It’s slow, and no one skis it. So I’m all for it!
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It would be a travesty to upgrade the best lift on the entire mountain. Not everything needs to be a high speed lift!
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Um…where is everyone going to park? I’ll be interested to see how the snow holds up at the lower elevations since not every winter will resemble the 22-23 season. Regardless, that’s possibly the most acreage of skiing in one town in the United States…
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I think the snow will hold up just fine. Snowbasin is pretty low elevation and they do fine. Woodward Park City again does fine at low elevations, although they’re pretty much north-facing and they have good snowmaking. This Deer Valley West expansion base in particular does have some lower elevation slopes that do get some southern exposure, but it’s nothing a robust snowmaking can’t fix.
As far as parking there’s the new base right off the highway. It should flow pretty good as compared to going through Park City traffic.
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There will be over 1,200 new day skier parking spaces available at East Village.
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How many day skier spaces will be lost when Snow Park gets “transformed” in the next couple of years? 182% terrain increase and less than a 1,200 net parking spot increase (and no word on public transportation) seems like a loss for day skiers. Will be nice to skip the PCMR traffic taking 189
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Unsure as the plan for Snow Park is not yet finalized and still very fluid.
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I think the overall idea is to reduce the number of day skiers arriving by private vehicle. For starters, the bed base is growing, so much of the increase in capacity will come from those now able to stay on site. The free Park City bus network is also extensive enough to accommodate most local residents, and those coming from I-80 can park at a convenient park and ride at either Kimball Junction or Jeremy Ranch. Those coming from points south will still drive to the resort, but they will now be directed to park at East Village right off of US-40 and be able to avoid driving in Park City altogether.
Whether it’s the Cottonwoods or Park City, there needs to be a larger shift toward public transportation, as the mountains all have capacities above what can be brought in on single-occupancy vehicles due to simple physical size constraints.
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Maybe with this they can expand their offerings of downhill winter sports to include SNOWBOARDING.
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I’m pretty sure Deer Valley’s long and glorious tradition of being a skiers only mountain will continue to stick. Snowboarders have plenty of terrain they can enjoy next door at PCMR.
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“What is this snow-boarding you speak of?” asked Esquire Sampson IV, who was standing near the Silver Lake Express chair and said he’d recently completed construction on his “ninth or 10th” home, a slopeside mansion at Deer Valley. “Is that the thing where the fellows strap both feet to one board? And at Deer Valley? Sounds like bringing a bottle of 2010 Chateau Lafite Pauillac to a 2016 Petrus Bordeaux party. Can you even imagine?” He then chuckled, blew his nose on a white leopard pelt, threw it into the garbage, and skied away.
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Sounds like a lovely man. Much rather have that than snowboarders that stop for a group session in the middle of the slope.
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I thought Snow-Boarding was banned under the Geneva Conventions.
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On any given day at DV a good amount of “skiers” there are primarily snowboarders trying out/learning skiing
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I’ll believe this gets built in its entirety when I see it; this would take an absurd sum of money to finish as depicted.
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The majority of the trails are already cut, the East Village is being built right now, and lift construction begins this spring. Deer Valley and Alterra have an absurd amount of money.
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Will this become North americas largest ski resort?
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No. Will be 4th behind Whistler, Big Sky and Vail.
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5th
Powder Mountain*
1. Whistler
2. Park City
3. Palisades Tahoe
4. Big Sky
5. Deer Valley
6. Vail
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Thank you for the correction. Knew Vail didn’t sound right.
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It might actually all get put together… this means Heber will become a legit ski town. It will be faster to drive to Heber than to Main Street from that exit. And I would consider parking at “East Village” even if I was coming over Parley’s… to not have to deal with the town traffic. Really, Utah County will flock to this entrance too. It will be a huge win if employees can be based out of this portal instead of Snow Park. So many more options is awesome.
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I agree that developing a big base area *outside* of Park City proper will make it a far more attractive place to start the day than to drive to Snowpark through park city while in conflict with local and PCMR/Canyons traffic. I know Snowpark will slightly reduce its parking capacity and move it all underground in the long-term, but the parking at the new east village will more than make up for it. Parking early at Jordanelle and bypassing Park City entirely is already a great hack to avoiding traffic in town, there’s also satellite park & rides like Richardson Flat nearby that already have direct bus service to Snowpark on busy days, they could easily reroute to the new base area. Park City already has a superb bus network and getting as many cars *out* of the core will let Deer Valley reduce congestion while simultaneously increasing its capacity with such a massive expansion.
My big question is what kind of lift fleet is Deer Valley buying here. High speed quads are the 737s of the ski industry, they work fine but in the 40 years they’ve been around lifts have advanced quite a bit. If this is supposed to be a modern ski area you have to think they’re at least considering nice-to-haves likes bubbles, bigger chairs or the other high-end stuff you see in Europe.
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Agree with this take 100%. East Village will be the faster way to/up the mountain for everyone skiing at DV who doesn’t already live in Park City. There is a real potential here to remove most single passenger vehicles lining the road to Snow Park. Will be interesting to see if the city leaders have the foresight to take that next step and invest in gondola based transportation from town to DV as has been muted at various points.
As for the lift point, the new plan already indicates at least 2 new 10 passenger gondolas and multiple six packs (3-4?) in places where they make the most sense (high capacity or high wind lines), so I think they are investing as one would expect in this day and age.
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Very curious what the sales tax ramifications will be for the town of Park City with the new canyons gondola and mayflower development potentially shifting a decent percentage of base area traffic out of the city limits. Are sales tax liabilities tied to the physical address the dollar is spent/used or do the city and county (and soon to be Wasatch county) have some sort of agreement in place?
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Have they released what the new skier caps will be, or any suggestions of how they may scale up? Have to believe it will end up closer to 8-10k. I also wonder if they ever consider restricting where you will be able to start, ie, certain slots are only valid out of the new base,
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