Park City Mountain is taking another swing at upgrading two lifts at its Mountain Village base in the heart of Park City.
The Vail Resorts-owned ski area on Tuesday filed two conditional use permit applications with the Town of Park City seeking to upgrade its Eagle and Silverlode Express lifts, a city spokesperson confirmed. For three years, the lifts had been caught in a legal tug-of-war between the resort, city officials and residents until the Utah Court of Appeals ruled against the resort last August.
This time around, though, it appears sentiments toward the project might be starting to thaw.
“Park City Mountain is an important community partner,” Park City Mayor Ryan Dickey said in a statement to The Salt Lake Tribune, “and we appreciate their continued desire to invest in the on-mountain experience to benefit both locals and visitors.
“As with any proposal,” he added, “the City will carefully review the details through our established process and land management code.”
Park City Mountain’s decision to revisit the lift projects stemmed from complaints the resort received about long lift lines, according to Deirdra Walsh, the ski area’s vice president and COO. Walsh addressed the matter in an op-ed that appeared Wednesday in the Park Record.
This is an effort “to give people what they want,” Walsh wrote, “less time waiting to get up onto this massive mountain.”
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Park City skiers crowd the slopes as patrollers officially go on strike early Friday, citing unfair labor practices and marking the latest chapter in the union’s negotiations with Park City Mountain and its owner, Vail Resorts on Friday, Dec. 27, 2024.
Park City Mountain has 7,300 acres of lift-served terrain, the most in the country. All together, the resort has 43 lifts leading to 341 runs. Last summer, it upgraded its Sunrise lift out of the Canyons Village side of the resort, making it a 10-person gondola. The resort also has plans to install a gondola to replace the Cabriolet lift from its new parking garage to the Canyons Village base.
Canyons Village has been the focus of most of the resort’s money and energy in recent years while it waited for its appeal of the Park City Planning Commission’s decision to play out. The Snyderville Basin Planning Commission oversees developments at Canyons Village.
The dispute over the Eagle and Silverlode lift upgrades started in 2022 when Park City Mountain was approved for a conditional use permit that fast-tracked the project. A group of citizens appealed the decision to the Park City Planning Commission, saying the upgrades — particularly those planned for the Eagle lift — did not conform with the 1998 development agreement between the town and the resort.
At the crux of the matter was a disagreement over Park City Mountain’s determination of how many people the ski area could handle on its 10th busiest day — known as its Comfortable Carrying Capacity — and the amount of parking the resort would need to meet that demand if it upgraded the lifts.
(Julie Jag | The Salt Lake Tribune) The Cabriolet Lift on the Canyons Village side of Park City Mountain ski area takes a patron back to the parking lot on March 13, 2020. The resort has plans to replace it with a gondola.
The planning commission agreed with the citizens in a 3-1 vote. Park City Mountain sued. Last year, the state appeals court upheld Third District Court Judge Richard Mrazik’s 2023 ruling in favor of the commission’s decision.
After the appeals court’s ruling, Walsh promised the resort would resubmit its applications for the lifts. During a shareholder report in October, Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz reaffirmed that declaration. He added that, if approved, the lifts would be installed for the 2027-28 season.
No timeline has been set for reviewing the applications.
The Silverlode Express, near mid-mountain, would transform from a high-speed six-person chairlift to a high-speed eight-person lift if its permit is approved. If it had been installed when initially planned, the new Silverlode would have been the first eight-person lift among Vail Resorts’ roughly 40 ski areas.
The upgrade to the Eagle lift is more involved. As proposed, the 30-year-old triple chair would be combined with the defunct Eaglet lift. The top terminal would be relocated and Eagle would be reincarnated as a six-person lift. That realignment was at the center of the complaint that the project does not comport with Park City Mountain’s master plan, as laid out in the development agreement.
In a letter shared with The Salt Lake Tribune, the citizens who initially pushed back against the approval of the administrative permit said they support Park City Mountain’s latest permit application submissions. They added that they feel “cautiously optimistic” that the resort’s submission of conditional-use permit requests — rather than seeking the less rigorously reviewed administrative permit — “signals a willingness to follow the same rules that apply to everyone else.”
However, they also urged Parkites to keep a close eye on the permitting process.
(Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune) Park City Mountain Resort employees move parts designated for the resort's new Eagle lift, Thursday, July 7, 2022. The lift was never upgraded after residents blocked the resort from being able to install the lift because of discrepancies in resort capacities by two firms.
“If the resort cannot demonstrate full compliance with the Development Agreement as it exists today, permit applications should not advance,” the letter said.
“Alternatively,” it said, “if Vail Resorts believes the Development Agreement no longer reflects current conditions or operational needs at Park City Mountain, we support opening a transparent public process to amend it before pursuing additional permits. Proceeding out of sequence only creates legal risk and uncertainty for everyone involved.”
Park City Mountain will host an open house to explain its plan for the Eagle and Silverlode lifts on Feb. 4 from 5-7 p.m. at the Legacy Lodge, located at the Mountain Village base.