1. History
    2002 Winter Olympics  2012 Litigation  Park City Mountain Resort under Vail Resorts 

2. Statistics
    Mountain information  Trails  Slope aspects 

3. Summer

4. In popular culture

5. References

6. External links

Park City Mountain Resort is a ski resort in the western United States in Park City, Utah, located {{convert|32|mi|0}} east of Salt Lake City. Park City, as the ski resort and area is known, contains several training courses for the U.S. Ski Team, including slalom and giant slalom runs. During the 2002 Winter Olympics the resort hosted the snowboarding events and the men's and women's alpine giant slalom events.

Opened in 1963, the resort has been a major tourist attraction for skiers from all over the United States, as well as a main employer for many of Park City's citizens. The resort was purchased by Vail Resorts in 2014 and combined the resort with neighboring Canyons Resort via an interconnect gondola to create the largest ski area in the United States at the time.^[1] It has since been surpassed by Powder Mountain in 2016.

During the ski season, most slopes and lifts are open from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

History

The resort was opened on December 21, 1963 as Treasure Mountain by United Park City Mines. This company was the last surviving mining corporation in Park City, and the resort was opened with funds from a federal government program meant to revive the economically depressed town. When it originally opened, it boasted the longest gondola in the United States, as well as a double chairlift, a J-bar lift, base and summit lodges, and a nine-hole golf course.^[2] The gondola was a four-passenger Polig-Heckel-Bleichert (PHB, a German aerial ropeway company). Its sister lift was built at Sugarloaf/USA in Carrabassett Valley, Maine, after top members of Sugarloaf's management visited Park City's lift.

When the slopes first opened to the public, a special Skier's Subway was used to transport skiers nearly {{convert|2.5|mi|km|1}} into the mountain through the pitch-black Spiro Tunnel on a mine train, where skiers then boarded a mining elevator that lifted them {{convert|1750|ft|m|-1}} to the surface, and from there they had access to the entire mountain.^[2][3] Aerial trams once used for hauling ore were converted into chairlifts. To this day, there are still more than {{convert|1000|mi|km|}} of old silver-mine workings and tunnels beneath the slopes at Park City Mountain Resort and its neighboring resort, Deer Valley.

Treasure Mountain's name was changed to the Park City Ski Area for its fourth season of 1966-67, and in 1996, became known as the Park City Mountain Resort. The resort had grown to include eight peaks and nine bowls, with {{convert|3300|acres|sqmi km2|1}} of skiing and 16 chairlifts.^[4] The resort has also developed summer activities including an alpine slide, alpine coaster, zip-lines, and several hiking and biking trails.^[5]

A sister ski area, originally known as Park City West and later as Canyons Resort, opened in 1968. Deer Valley Resort opened in December 1981, at the site of the former Snow Park (1946–69).

2002 Winter Olympics

During the 2002 games, the resort hosted the men's and women's giant slalom, men's and women's snowboarding parallel giant slalom, and both men's and women's snowboarding halfpipe events. The resort's Eagle Race Arena and Eagle Superpipe were used as the Olympics runs. Temporary stadiums were erected at the end of each run with spectator standing areas on each side, creating a combined capacity of 16,500 persons.^[6] Almost all available tickets for events at the resort were sold {{mdash}} 99.8 percent {{mdash}} to a total of 95,991 spectators.^[7] During the games, 96 percent of the resort was open for normal seasonal operations, making it the only venue to allow spectators to leave and reenter.^[6]

2012 Litigation

In March 2012, Powdr Corporation (owners of Park City Mountain Resort) announced that it had filed a lawsuit against Talisker Land Holdings, LLC (Talisker), the owner of Canyons Resort, as well as United Park City Mines Company, both partial land owners of the resort. The lawsuit filed by Powdr Corp. was in response to an eviction notice issue by Talisker, the entity that owns most of the land the ski runs are on, who had been leasing it to Powdr Corp. (a continuation of the lease made between Park City Mines and Powdr Corp. when Talisker bought the land from Park City Mines).^[8] Powdr Corp. claimed that they had initiated talks with Talisker to extend their lease to 2051, and that Talisker had refused to agree to the terms and threatened to close the resort. In response, Talisker claimed that Powdr Corp. had failed to agree to the new terms set down by Talisker, and that they have never threatened to close the resort. Powdr Corp. sued Talisker for $7,000,000 for compensatory and punitive damages for the threat of the closure of the resort.

Park City Mountain Resort had leased the land on which its ski runs are located for $155,000 per year, with an option to renew the lease for 20 years. In 2011, when this option came due, Powdr Corp. failed to renew the lease in a timely manner and sent a letter two days after the lease had expired. Eight months later, Powdr Corp. received a letter from Talisker that their lease had expired and they were to turn over the land and its improvements to Talisker. In 2013, Talisker leased Canyons Resort to Vail Resorts who then took over the legal action. Near the end of May 2013, an eviction notice was served on PCMR to vacate the leased land of the ski area.^[9] ({{cite court|litigants=Greater City Co. v. United Park City Mines|court=Summit County Utah|vol=120500157|date=20140521}}).

On September 11, 2014, Vail Resorts announced that it had purchased Park City Mountain Resort for $182.5 million, and that it would combine the resort with neighboring Canyons Resort over the summer of 2015 for the 2015-16 season.^[10]

Park City Mountain Resort under Vail Resorts

When the purchase was finalized, Vail added Park City Mountain Resort to its EPIC season pass program for the 2014-15 season.^[11] In 2015, the merger of PCMR with Canyons was undertaken by Doppelmayr USA as part of a project that built two new lifts and relocated a third. A new gondola called Quicksilver was built between the bottom of the Silverlode Express lift at PCMR and a point below the top of Iron Mountain at Canyons. The King Con Express high speed quad was upgraded to a high speed six pack, while the original King Con lift was relocated to replace the Motherlode triple chairlift. The upgrades on the PCMR side were done to alleviate expected congestion at Silverlode and King Con from the added interconnect gondola. The former Canyons Resort base area was renamed the Canyons Village at Park City and the entire combined resort now operates under the Park City Mountain Resort name.

Park City mountain resort is home to many ski schools run by the mountain, but is also home to privately owned ski schools. In 2017, the various individual clubs came together to form one organization - Park City Ski & Snowboard Club.^[12]

Statistics

Mountain information

• Base elevation: {{convert|6900|ft|0}}^[13]
• Summit elevation: {{convert|10000|ft|0}}
• Vertical rise: {{convert|3100|ft|0}}
• Total mountain peaks: 8
• Total skiable area: {{convert|7300|acre|km2|1}}
• Average Annual Snowfall: {{convert|365|in|cm|-1}}^[13]

Trails

• Total Trails: 348^[14]
  • Beginner: 15%
  • Intermediate: 54%
  • Expert: 31%
• Terrain Parks: 4
• Superpipe: 1
• Minipipe: 1

Slope aspects

• North: 43%^[13]
• East: 29%
• West: 24%
• South: 4%

Summer

During the summer the resort provides lift service to an alpine slide and an alpine coaster. Restaurants are also open during the summer, and will often have live bands and other activities. The resort creates and maintains its own trails and trail connections to the rest of the Park City area trail system. Activities at the resort include miniature golf, a climbing wall, and trampolines with a harness.

The resort offers lift-served access for hiking and mountain biking on the Crescent Lift, PayDay Lift, and Town Lift. Most trails in the area are family-friendly and not very strenuous. The majority of mountain bike trails are intermediate, with a small percentage designated as expert trails.

In popular culture

Park City is one of the featured mountains in the 2008 video game Shaun White Snowboarding.

References

External links

• Official website
• Ski Utah - Resort Profile

• 3dSkiMaps - Park City Mountain Resort 3D map
• ExploreUtah.org - Explore Utah
•   - Mountain Trails Foundation
•   - Trailforks Mountain Bike Trail Map

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