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Everything to do inside of Park City proper.

Park City Mountain Opening For The 2019/2020 Season This Friday

Map of the Canyons Base area part of Park City Mountains Ski area, the map shows the addition of a new chair lift to connect Tombstone area to the base area
Park City Mountain

Park City Mountain Resort is scheduled to open this Friday. The resort will add a lift, restaurant and a learning area, but skiing at Scotts Bowl will remain off-limits this year.

Park City Mountain’s Chief Operating Officer Mike Goar is back in Park City after a few years working at different resorts in Vails system. Goar was the general manager of the Canyons Resort from 2007 to 2015.

“I was here for a total of eight years, the last two years as a Vail Resorts employee,” Goar continued. “We bought Canyons in 2013 and I was here managing that resort for the next two years. Then I left to manage our Keystone Resort in Summit County, Colorado. I was there for two years and then the last two years overseeing our Tahoe region of Heavenly, Northstar, and Kirkwood.”

Goar says he’s thrilled to be back in Park City and equally excited to open the resort for the season this Friday. The resort will open the Park City Base on Friday and the Canyons side on Saturday.

“Park City we’ll open Payday and First time at a minimum and the associated terrain off of that,” Goar said. “The next morning on Canyons we’ll have access via Red Pine Gondola of course and then Saddleback and High Meadow.”

Friday morning will have a series of events including food, music, gifts and those battling to ride the first chair of the year. You can find out the rules for accessing first chair through a link on KPCW’s website.

Despite a warm spell in November Goar says they’re ready to open thanks to record setting snowfall and temperatures in October plus the work from the ir snowmaking teams.

This season Park City made a few improvements including the new “Over and Out” lift will transfer people from the bottom of Tombstone Express to the base of the Canyons resort.

“It’s a relatively small lift but one of the most exciting lifts and impactful lift projects I think I've ever been a part of,” Goar explained. “I mean getting back to the Canyons Base area at the end of the day it's busy as everybody's moving back. We can get a bit of a lift line at Tombstone. Now this lift would get you back into the base area in about seven or eight minutes including the skiing. It puts you right back to the front of the mountain.”

Another improvement in the Canyons area is the addition of a permanent building to house Tombstone BBQ. The restaurant has 50 indoor seats and expanded outdoor seating. The Park City side will see the addition of a First Time Park, patterned after the Canyon’s High Meadow Park. This will serve as a dedicated learning area featuring enclosed surface conveyors and beginner terrain. Last year Scotts Bowl located near the Jupiter chairlift was closed to vail skiers after the resort and the landowners failed to reach a new lease agreement. Although an agreement is still not in place, Goar is hopeful that one day that might change.

“As far as we know today it will be closed again this winter but continue to have conversations with them,” Goar continued. “And I don't know, I'm an optimistic person. And I think that at some point we all figure out a way to ski there again and we'll see what happens.”

Goar said there are not any additional lease issues that could impact other skiable acres in the resort as all other lease agreements have a large number of years left.

Park City Mountain will be the second resort to open this season in Utah, preceded only by Brighton.

KPCW reporter David Boyle covers all things in the Heber Valley as well as sports and breaking news.
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