Park City Mountain Base Area Sunday, December 29th at 11am Photo: Park City Mountain Webcam
With an average snowfall of 42 inches last week, 34 lifts and 177 trails (50% of the mountain) were scheduled to be open, but only 18% were actually available, according to historical data.
Park City, Utah – Vacationers at Park City Mountain Resort are complaining about limited open terrain, which coincides with the Park City Ski Patrol union’s ongoing strike against Vail Resorts ( NYSE:MTN ). During one of the busiest weeks of the year, guests endured hours-long lift lines, compounded by weather delays despite a much-needed snowfall.
With an average snowfall of 42 inches last week, 34 lifts and 177 trails (50% of the mountain) were scheduled to be open, but only 18% were actually available, according to historical data.
An analysis of seven years of 5 a.m. service tweets by Town Lift found that last week had the lowest number of lifts and trails scheduled to open relative to snow depth in recent history.
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In December, as the strike was looming, Deirdre Walsh, Park City Mountain’s vice president and chief operating officer, told KCPW that even if the Park City Ski Patrol Union decided to go on strike, the mountain’s operations would not continue. He said there was no impact.
data
Each morning of winter operation, Park City Mountain shares updates on the 5 a.m. snowfall and planned trails and lift openings to the account ParkCityMtnAlert on the X (formerly Twitter) platform.
Town Lift analyzed seven years of 5 a.m. snow reports from Dec. 27 to Jan. 2, the first week of the strike. The table below averages resort-reported weekday totals and summarizes year-over-year changes, including seven-year averages.
Data dispersion and average
For the past three seasons, base depth has been reported from Mid-Mountain, while previous reports used Jupiter and an undisclosed location in 2020/21. TownLift’s snow analysis focuses on the past three seasons, but includes all available data. If multiple base depths were reported, the highest base depth value was used. In particular, trails and lifts tend to open more quickly and extensively once the base depth reaches a certain level. For consistency, data was averaged from December 27 to January 2 to account for anomalies such as power outages and stormy days.
Snow-making capacity changes from year to year depending on temperature, and significant investments in snow-making capacity are not reflected in these reports.
A spreadsheet of data extracted from daily mountain activity updates is published here. You can clone your own version and analyze it separately. If you come up with something interesting, please let us know at tips@townlift.com.
For the past seven years, snow has fallen during the week of December 27th to January 2nd.
The average snowfall reported for the week of December 27 to January 2 over the past seven years is 42 inches. Coincidentally, the snowfall during the first week of the ski patrol union strike matched this average and was just below the trend line for average snow depth for the same period. Notably, the average snow depth for the week this year was 10 inches greater than the 32 inches for the same week last year.
Average percentage of lifts and trails open for the week of December 27th to January 2nd.
Not accounting for snow, this is the percentage of available trails and lifts that were open per week on average over the past seven years. Last season, at the resort 46% more terrain Open it and 24% less snow (32 inch base and 42 inch base this year) operating in the same week. Noting that base depth locations for the 20/21 season are not public, the only week that lifts and trails were not open was when the reported average base depth was 20 inches.20/21 21 seasons vs. 24/25 seasons with just over twice the average base depth. 42 inches.
Open Trail vs. Snow Depth
The larger gap between the red and blue lines indicates the typical number of trails open depending on snow depth. The 2023/24 season saw 135 trails open with an average base depth of 32 inches. The closest comparison is the 2020/21 season, which is slightly less than this year’s 63 courses despite reportedly having a base depth of just 20 inches (location not disclosed), less than half that of this season. 58 trails were open.
Trails open every inch of base depth
Calculate the average number of open trails per inch of snow base by dividing open trails by foundation depth. In 2022/23 (65 inch base) and 2023/24 (32 inch base), the average was 4.8 and 4.3 trails opened per inch of base. This year, the resort used 42 inches of base and reported a record low of 1.5 trails per inch of base.
Long lines, lifts and trails not open
“I want to reassure our skiers and snowboarders, our employees, and this community,” Walsh said when the strike began on Dec. 27. “Despite the union’s actions, Park City Mountain remains committed to safety as our top priority. We will continue to operate taking into account all planned terrain.” We will be open thanks to patrol leaders at Park City Mountain and other mountain resorts. ”
“While we weren’t able to open all the terrain we wanted, we’re excited to open 30 new trails this week and plan to add more in the future,” the resort’s Jan. 3 Instagram update said. ” states. We appreciate the patience of our guests and want to reassure them that we are exploring safe territory with our team members every day. ”
Representatives for Park City Mountain and Vail Resorts have not yet responded to multiple requests for comment about the impact on operations as a result of the ski patrol union strike.
Guests and local residents have filed countless complaints about the limited number of trails and lifts the resort has been able to open during the strike, including hundreds of emails received by Town Lift. Included.
Parkite JF Lambers told Townlift in a letter to Kirsten Lynch: Now I feel like I’m not getting the value I expected when I purchased my pass in May. ”
