Riding up the line.Last towers before the top.Summit station.Breakover towers and top terminal.View down line.The bottom terminal at Empire Lodge.Base terminal and lift line.Top station.Lift line.Bottom terminal in summer.Side view of the bottom.Upper lift line.Middle part of the line.Another view of the bottom.
It would be cool if one day you could ski between PCMR and Deer Valley using this lift and McConkey’s. I have to imagine that McConkey’s was built as a six pack with the though of a resort interconnect in the back of Powdr Corp.’s mind (former owners of PCMR before Vail). Besides that, McConkey’s rarely gets enough traffic to warrant a 6 person chair. With Vail and Alterra now owning the resorts, it’s unlikely at this point that “one Park City” will ever include Deer Valley. I’d love to be able to ski over to DV, but ski patrol watches the rope separating the resorts like hawks, and it’s not worth risking getting my pass pulled and/or a misdemeanor citation (Park City municipal code) to try it.
Misdemeanor to violate any closures. A boundary line is a hard closure for both mountains.
Basically, anytime there’s a rope, if you duck it, bad things happen to you, with very few exceptions.
Not necessarily true, as Alta and Snowbird have an interconnect and Alta doesn’t allow snowboarders. Deer Valley limits the number of skiers on the mountain and an interconnect would increase the skiers on the hill. They also want to seem more exclusive and don’t want all Park City skiing to seem as one homogenous experience. There are a few other reasons, such as company rivalries, but those are two of the primary factors.
Good comments here. I think skitheeast is absolutely right, I doubt Alterra and Vail will want to work together. Alterra is at this point in time Vail’s biggest and closest competitor. With regard to DV opening up to snowboarders, I doubt that will happen either. It seems like even with Alterra’s purchase of DV, not much has changed over there.
For many reasons, DV and PCMR are more strict about their area boundaries than some other resorts are. Skiing out of bounds is a big no-no in Park City. For the Ski Utah interconnect tour, they call Ski Patrol at DV/PCMR before ducking the rope, something that you don’t have to do at other resorts with easy backcountry access gates.
Also I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that resorts located in National Forest land aren’t allowed to outright ban backcountry, and a ton of resorts have to tolerate backcountry as a result. PC isn’t.
I’m a little puzzled as to why the paint scheme on Empire is different from Northside and Wasatch, let alone the other lifts. That said, I think the greater use of that deep green looks better than the others.
It’s been that way for 20 years until last season, when Carpenter, Silver Lake, and Wasatch were repainted to match Empire. Northside and the adjacent top of Quincy and Ruby still have the bottom 3 panels white. I agree the extra green looks better
Lift Blog 
This lift goes right up to the border with Park City, as Empire Bowl shares a boundary with the ridge trail off McConkey’s.
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It would be cool if one day you could ski between PCMR and Deer Valley using this lift and McConkey’s. I have to imagine that McConkey’s was built as a six pack with the though of a resort interconnect in the back of Powdr Corp.’s mind (former owners of PCMR before Vail). Besides that, McConkey’s rarely gets enough traffic to warrant a 6 person chair. With Vail and Alterra now owning the resorts, it’s unlikely at this point that “one Park City” will ever include Deer Valley. I’d love to be able to ski over to DV, but ski patrol watches the rope separating the resorts like hawks, and it’s not worth risking getting my pass pulled and/or a misdemeanor citation (Park City municipal code) to try it.
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If you have a pass at both, why wouldn’t you be able to duck the rope and ski between?
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Misdemeanor to violate any closures. A boundary line is a hard closure for both mountains.
Basically, anytime there’s a rope, if you duck it, bad things happen to you, with very few exceptions.
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The only way an interconnect will ever happen is if Deer Valley allows snowboarders, which they won’t (not that that would matter to me).
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Not necessarily true, as Alta and Snowbird have an interconnect and Alta doesn’t allow snowboarders. Deer Valley limits the number of skiers on the mountain and an interconnect would increase the skiers on the hill. They also want to seem more exclusive and don’t want all Park City skiing to seem as one homogenous experience. There are a few other reasons, such as company rivalries, but those are two of the primary factors.
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Good comments here. I think skitheeast is absolutely right, I doubt Alterra and Vail will want to work together. Alterra is at this point in time Vail’s biggest and closest competitor. With regard to DV opening up to snowboarders, I doubt that will happen either. It seems like even with Alterra’s purchase of DV, not much has changed over there.
For many reasons, DV and PCMR are more strict about their area boundaries than some other resorts are. Skiing out of bounds is a big no-no in Park City. For the Ski Utah interconnect tour, they call Ski Patrol at DV/PCMR before ducking the rope, something that you don’t have to do at other resorts with easy backcountry access gates.
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Also I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that resorts located in National Forest land aren’t allowed to outright ban backcountry, and a ton of resorts have to tolerate backcountry as a result. PC isn’t.
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Oh what an idea…..
Alterra ends up with Park City ski resort.
How would that be?
One giant Deer Valley Resort.
…..just imagine.
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There is a tour you can take to ski both plus some other resorts. https://www.skiutah.com/explore/the-interconnect-tour
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I’m a little puzzled as to why the paint scheme on Empire is different from Northside and Wasatch, let alone the other lifts. That said, I think the greater use of that deep green looks better than the others.
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It’s been that way for 20 years until last season, when Carpenter, Silver Lake, and Wasatch were repainted to match Empire. Northside and the adjacent top of Quincy and Ruby still have the bottom 3 panels white. I agree the extra green looks better
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