In Park City, what would be the best sight-seeing gondola ride? Our family wants to go up on a non-skiing day and maybe do some shopping or have something to eat, take some pictures and then ride back down the gondola.
Are there any Gondolas in the Park City area that would be good for this?
Canyons is also known as Park West according to my dad. I also got to ride Crescent this summer for the first time! Even better going down it! So awesome!
I have an idea for a new lift and I’m curious what people who know the mountain better think. I’ve been to Park City four times and I love it. One major criticism I see about the resort is the lack of lift served above treeline terrain. I have been thinking about a Square Top lift for a long time. I think that the best alignment would be from the point where End Zone spits out and Red Pine Road turns. Park City ski patrol would deal with avalanche control which would hopefully help with the many recent incidents. Also, given what the trail map looks like it may be possible to cut a trail all the way to Super Condor Express which would allow tons of amazing advanced skiing along the way below and a method of bypassing the extremely busy Red Pine area. This would also allow for much easier access the Red Pine Chutes. Wind would be a definite concern, but I think it won’t be as bad as, say, Imperial at Breck. What do you think?
Square Top is extremely avalanche prone. While it would be good for Park City ski patrol to perform avalanche control on the terrain, it would undoubtedly take a lot of maintenance, and I am not sure if it is worth it for them. I agree that bringing more lift-accessible terrain above the treeline online should be a priority, but I think there are other areas, such as Murdock Peak and the other terrain above Upper Boa, where it makes more sense.
Separately, I do not know if it is possible to ski from Square Top to Super Condor without a lot of traversing and little actual skiing. The resort trail map is not to scale.
Does anyone know the status of those two new lifts on the PC side? It seems like Vail is going to go ahead with this Sunrise Gondola idea and basically ignore the legacy PC side of the mountain, since those are the most needed upgrades have been rejected, and nothing seems to be changing even though the parking situation was better this year. What I really don’t understand is why the Silverlode lift wasn’t allowed to be built. Only a few more people would actually come to the resort if the new lift was built, and it just seems that the city of PC went too far.
I think rather than blowing millions of dollars on this they should just run a FGQ from Sunrise to Over and Out then upgrade Dreamcatcher and Pioneer with the leftover money. Heck, with the amount they’re probably going to spend, they could install the lift from Silverlode to Crescent too.
I wonder what they’re going to do with the ski school training area behind Red pine and also red pine in the rough being that that’s going to be in the way
Any idea what they use the gondola mid station for?
I tried a couple of times to work there in the last 90s and I asked what they had done with the old parts. They told me they stored the old lift components there in case something came about for future use.
Hey Peter so I went to Park City a lot this year (yes I run the skiliftguy Youtube channel) and I was able to note how many chairs there were on every single lift.
Great find! That’s the old Carpenter at Deer Valley though. You can also see the original Wasatch triple chair at 12:02. More Carpenter shots at 20:30 too, including a close-up of one of the chairs and grips. Homestake triple at 20:48
I will say, and feel free to comment on this, but how in the world will having a second gondola to supplement red pine work? I don’t mean capacity wise I mean, can in any universe that learning area handle more traffic? That learning area seems to be placed right in an intersection of traffic from BOTH OBX and Sunpeaks, not exactly conducive to learning. It seems like a big Vail moment of very poorly laid out mountains with heavy traffic but maybe I am wrong, I just genuinely cannot understand the thinking
I will agree, Sunrise Gondola seems a little shortsighted especially when there’s really only three other lifts that can be accessed from Red Pine Lodge. This may clear up the base area faster but what does this mean exactly for everything else? Chicane is already a crowded run, I really don’t think it can handle crowds coming from another gondola.
This would probably be way too much for Vail but I think they should have gone with a gondola back in 2019 going from the base of Sunrise to the bottom of Tombstone. Would be far more direct for those wanting to start their day in the White Pine Canyon area along with the obvious benefit of serving the same role Over and Out at the end of the day. I still wonder how wind resistant the alignment is for Sunrise Gondola, as it seems like the current gondola and OBX are always the first lifts to go on wind hold. Hoping for the best though, maybe Vail is planning on a reimagining of the entire Red Pine beginner complex?
Heck not even Chicane and people going to that side of the mountain, it seems like all the traffic goes to Tombstone, Saddleback and High Meadow. High Meadow seemed like one of the most crowded learning areas I have ever seen. I think they should try and utilize more of the terrain to the south, such Dreamcatcher and Dreamscape, these lifts could even then be used for an expansion above the bottom (or top depending) of flat iron.
Park City’s problem is just that it has too many people. At some point it doesn’t matter what they do. The comfortable carrying capacity is regularly exceeded, on the majority of days it feels like the mountain is being stretched past the brink. Of course there are areas that handle crowds better but as a whole it is kind of a mess. Skiing development at the Canyons is cornered in by real estate, making Tombstone as unavoidable of a choke point as Silverlode is for the Park City side. Lately, even Saddleback has gotten pretty bad crowds. Given that both Tombstone and Saddleback are the two main lifts that the Sunrise gondola will push even more skiers towards, l’m not sure this “upgrade” is a good idea. But it isn’t just lift lines and lift capacities that are overwhelmed, many runs can’t handle the traffic either, Chicane for example, as Utah Powder Skier pointed out, along with the entire High Meadow area and many of the runs in the Silverlode and Bonanza area are constant traffic jams on weekends, holidays, or whenever it snows. I think this is part of the reason the Silverlode/Eagle projects got blocked a couple years ago. Even if Silverlode was made an 8 pack, and if that helped alleviate some lines there, it would increase the uphill skier capacity to that area (which is already served by 5 lifts) and lead to further congestion and over-skiing on the runs. This is especially true when considering that the Eagle upgrade would divert even more skiers to the Silverlode area.
What seems likely to me is that the Sunnyside gondola will somewhat help to lower the ridiculous powder-day lines at Canyons base
(OBX and RPG regularly see 45min-1hr lines in the mornings after snow), but it might just push these lines to other places.
My point is, overall, the solution for Park City can’t come from a single (or likely even multiple) upgrades, and at this point, it would be difficult to do a redesign of the layout of the resort (especially Canyons side). The only fix I see is to somehow lower the number of daily skiers. This seems impossible under Vail ownership. Makes you think about how things would be different had POWDR renewed their lease 2 days earlier in 2011.
Hopefully I’m wrong and the Sunnyside upgrade magically fixes some problems.
The heavy condo and hotel developments that they built up over recent years in the formerly empty southern side of Canyons village almost certainly are a factor. Vail’s market goes well beyond skiing, and ski-adjacent real estate has proven to be a lucrative source of revenue for them.
The Sunrise Gondola is likely going to reduce lines at Canyons base but increase them at the Red Pine Lodge lifts and Tombstone. To offset this, a controversial idea worth considering would be shortening OBX to the mid-unload. That way, more skiers are pushed towards Sun Peak Express/Super Condor, which are both relatively underutilized, and away from more congested areas.
I think Park City should add in a high speed quad that would start at the base of Miner’s Camp, go down into Thayne’s Canyon, have a mid angle station with loading in both directions, and continue up the other side of Thayne’s Canyon before terminating adjacent to the Quicksilver Gondola’s mid station. The lift would look very similar to this one:
The lift would not only provide redundancy for the Quicksilver Gondola, it would also open up some new trails and allow the opportunity of skiing from the Quicksilver Gondola’s mid station to the Park City side. It would also put a much better use to the Quicksilver Gondola’s mid station.
A few new trails would be added to help the practicality of this lift, and would be lapable via this lift.
Here is the what the lift would look like on the trail map (Blue lines are new trails):
Lift Blog 
In Park City, what would be the best sight-seeing gondola ride? Our family wants to go up on a non-skiing day and maybe do some shopping or have something to eat, take some pictures and then ride back down the gondola.
Are there any Gondolas in the Park City area that would be good for this?
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Red Pine should be your first option.
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Canyons is also known as Park West according to my dad. I also got to ride Crescent this summer for the first time! Even better going down it! So awesome!
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I have an idea for a new lift and I’m curious what people who know the mountain better think. I’ve been to Park City four times and I love it. One major criticism I see about the resort is the lack of lift served above treeline terrain. I have been thinking about a Square Top lift for a long time. I think that the best alignment would be from the point where End Zone spits out and Red Pine Road turns. Park City ski patrol would deal with avalanche control which would hopefully help with the many recent incidents. Also, given what the trail map looks like it may be possible to cut a trail all the way to Super Condor Express which would allow tons of amazing advanced skiing along the way below and a method of bypassing the extremely busy Red Pine area. This would also allow for much easier access the Red Pine Chutes. Wind would be a definite concern, but I think it won’t be as bad as, say, Imperial at Breck. What do you think?
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Square Top is extremely avalanche prone. While it would be good for Park City ski patrol to perform avalanche control on the terrain, it would undoubtedly take a lot of maintenance, and I am not sure if it is worth it for them. I agree that bringing more lift-accessible terrain above the treeline online should be a priority, but I think there are other areas, such as Murdock Peak and the other terrain above Upper Boa, where it makes more sense.
Separately, I do not know if it is possible to ski from Square Top to Super Condor without a lot of traversing and little actual skiing. The resort trail map is not to scale.
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Thanks! I love the idea of a Murdock Bowl lift.
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Does anyone know the status of those two new lifts on the PC side? It seems like Vail is going to go ahead with this Sunrise Gondola idea and basically ignore the legacy PC side of the mountain, since those are the most needed upgrades have been rejected, and nothing seems to be changing even though the parking situation was better this year. What I really don’t understand is why the Silverlode lift wasn’t allowed to be built. Only a few more people would actually come to the resort if the new lift was built, and it just seems that the city of PC went too far.
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Article about PCMR’s proposal for Gondola to run next to Red Pine
https://www.ksl.com/article/50809720/vail-resorts-proposes-new-gondola-at-park-city-mountain-resort
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I think rather than blowing millions of dollars on this they should just run a FGQ from Sunrise to Over and Out then upgrade Dreamcatcher and Pioneer with the leftover money. Heck, with the amount they’re probably going to spend, they could install the lift from Silverlode to Crescent too.
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https://youtu.be/UU2cHssjaTk?feature=shared found this video of the canyons side of the resort
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This was during the 2002 Olympic games
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Gondola approved, with a catch.
https://www.ksl.com/article/50842147/park-city-gondola-approved–after-resort-pays-15m-bus-fare
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YESSSSSSSS! Now all that’s needed is for the area under the new gondola to be inbounds again.
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I wonder what they’re going to do with the ski school training area behind Red pine and also red pine in the rough being that that’s going to be in the way
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The towers for the mining tramway built in the early 1900’s are still standing:
Some of them are really tall
The midstation for the original gondola is also still standing
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They parallel the town lift, for anyone looking to go see them.
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Any idea what they use the gondola mid station for?
I tried a couple of times to work there in the last 90s and I asked what they had done with the old parts. They told me they stored the old lift components there in case something came about for future use.
I didn’t think that was likely, even back then.
It’s been 18 years since I was last rode PCMR.
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Hey Peter so I went to Park City a lot this year (yes I run the skiliftguy Youtube channel) and I was able to note how many chairs there were on every single lift.
Bonanza: 84
Daybreak: 105
Dreamcatcher: 145
Dreamscape: 95
Eagle: 92
First Time X: 32
Iron Mtn: 110
Jupiter: 136
King Con: 90
McConkeys: 71
Motherlode: 109
Ninety-Nine: 82
Orange Bubble: 181
Peak 5: 86
Pioneer: 158
Quicksilver: 60
Saddleback: 103
Short Cut: 58
Silverlode: 88
Silver Star: 82
Sun Peak: 60
Sunrise: 74
Super Condor: 103
Thaynes: 107
Timberline: 76
Tombstone: 123
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I think I found a video with the old Prospector YAN HSQ. 10:57 https://youtu.be/dbGyWbhakdw?si=xAEzQ_G4Qhhrs6uC
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Great find! That’s the old Carpenter at Deer Valley though. You can also see the original Wasatch triple chair at 12:02. More Carpenter shots at 20:30 too, including a close-up of one of the chairs and grips. Homestake triple at 20:48
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I wouldn’t ride a lift called slaughterhouse!
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I will say, and feel free to comment on this, but how in the world will having a second gondola to supplement red pine work? I don’t mean capacity wise I mean, can in any universe that learning area handle more traffic? That learning area seems to be placed right in an intersection of traffic from BOTH OBX and Sunpeaks, not exactly conducive to learning. It seems like a big Vail moment of very poorly laid out mountains with heavy traffic but maybe I am wrong, I just genuinely cannot understand the thinking
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I will agree, Sunrise Gondola seems a little shortsighted especially when there’s really only three other lifts that can be accessed from Red Pine Lodge. This may clear up the base area faster but what does this mean exactly for everything else? Chicane is already a crowded run, I really don’t think it can handle crowds coming from another gondola.
This would probably be way too much for Vail but I think they should have gone with a gondola back in 2019 going from the base of Sunrise to the bottom of Tombstone. Would be far more direct for those wanting to start their day in the White Pine Canyon area along with the obvious benefit of serving the same role Over and Out at the end of the day. I still wonder how wind resistant the alignment is for Sunrise Gondola, as it seems like the current gondola and OBX are always the first lifts to go on wind hold. Hoping for the best though, maybe Vail is planning on a reimagining of the entire Red Pine beginner complex?
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Heck not even Chicane and people going to that side of the mountain, it seems like all the traffic goes to Tombstone, Saddleback and High Meadow. High Meadow seemed like one of the most crowded learning areas I have ever seen. I think they should try and utilize more of the terrain to the south, such Dreamcatcher and Dreamscape, these lifts could even then be used for an expansion above the bottom (or top depending) of flat iron.
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Park City’s problem is just that it has too many people. At some point it doesn’t matter what they do. The comfortable carrying capacity is regularly exceeded, on the majority of days it feels like the mountain is being stretched past the brink. Of course there are areas that handle crowds better but as a whole it is kind of a mess. Skiing development at the Canyons is cornered in by real estate, making Tombstone as unavoidable of a choke point as Silverlode is for the Park City side. Lately, even Saddleback has gotten pretty bad crowds. Given that both Tombstone and Saddleback are the two main lifts that the Sunrise gondola will push even more skiers towards, l’m not sure this “upgrade” is a good idea. But it isn’t just lift lines and lift capacities that are overwhelmed, many runs can’t handle the traffic either, Chicane for example, as Utah Powder Skier pointed out, along with the entire High Meadow area and many of the runs in the Silverlode and Bonanza area are constant traffic jams on weekends, holidays, or whenever it snows. I think this is part of the reason the Silverlode/Eagle projects got blocked a couple years ago. Even if Silverlode was made an 8 pack, and if that helped alleviate some lines there, it would increase the uphill skier capacity to that area (which is already served by 5 lifts) and lead to further congestion and over-skiing on the runs. This is especially true when considering that the Eagle upgrade would divert even more skiers to the Silverlode area.
What seems likely to me is that the Sunnyside gondola will somewhat help to lower the ridiculous powder-day lines at Canyons base
(OBX and RPG regularly see 45min-1hr lines in the mornings after snow), but it might just push these lines to other places.
My point is, overall, the solution for Park City can’t come from a single (or likely even multiple) upgrades, and at this point, it would be difficult to do a redesign of the layout of the resort (especially Canyons side). The only fix I see is to somehow lower the number of daily skiers. This seems impossible under Vail ownership. Makes you think about how things would be different had POWDR renewed their lease 2 days earlier in 2011.
Hopefully I’m wrong and the Sunnyside upgrade magically fixes some problems.
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I completely agree with this, I was just wondering how vail thinks this is sustainable in any way.
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The heavy condo and hotel developments that they built up over recent years in the formerly empty southern side of Canyons village almost certainly are a factor. Vail’s market goes well beyond skiing, and ski-adjacent real estate has proven to be a lucrative source of revenue for them.
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The Sunrise Gondola is likely going to reduce lines at Canyons base but increase them at the Red Pine Lodge lifts and Tombstone. To offset this, a controversial idea worth considering would be shortening OBX to the mid-unload. That way, more skiers are pushed towards Sun Peak Express/Super Condor, which are both relatively underutilized, and away from more congested areas.
LikeLike
I think Park City should add in a high speed quad that would start at the base of Miner’s Camp, go down into Thayne’s Canyon, have a mid angle station with loading in both directions, and continue up the other side of Thayne’s Canyon before terminating adjacent to the Quicksilver Gondola’s mid station. The lift would look very similar to this one:
https://www.remontees-mecaniques.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=5523
The lift would not only provide redundancy for the Quicksilver Gondola, it would also open up some new trails and allow the opportunity of skiing from the Quicksilver Gondola’s mid station to the Park City side. It would also put a much better use to the Quicksilver Gondola’s mid station.
A few new trails would be added to help the practicality of this lift, and would be lapable via this lift.
Here is the what the lift would look like on the trail map (Blue lines are new trails):
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