Jillian Vogtli is stoked. We’re skiing Deer Valley’s brand new terrain, but it’s not the fresh corduroy beneath our skis that has the two-time Olympian excited. No, the freestyle skier, known for her gutsy aerials during Olympic and World Cup freestyle events (she was the first woman to perform a cork 720 in the Olympics), is excited about the bright, colorful halo wrapping around the sun. “It’s called a sun dog,” she tells me as she pulls out her phone to take a picture. “It’s a sign of good luck.”
I already feel lucky. It’s been a slow start to winter for the vast majority of the Rocky Mountains, and Deer Valley is no exception, receiving only a fraction of their normal snowfall during November and December. It was a warm, slushy Christmas. I’ve had this trip on the books for two months and thought I was going to have to cancel it, but a series of storms brought cold weather and more than 20 inches of fresh powder the week before I showed up. The timing was perfect as the shift in weather allowed Deer Valley to open some of their brand new terrain for the first time just as I stepped off a plane. Now, I’m getting a tour of the new slopes from Vogtli. New terrain + Olympic tour guide = winning. So seeing a sun dog seems par for the course right now.
Calling Deer Valley’s expansion a bunch of “new slopes” is an understatement. This winter, Deer Valley is debuting 2,000 acres of new terrain, with almost 100 new runs. All of this is serviced by 10 new chair lifts and a brand new 10-passenger gondola. It’s the largest expansion in Deer Valley’s history, doubling the size of the resort and giving skiers lift access to four new peaks. With this added terrain, Deer Valley has grown to 4,300 acres of skiing with 202 runs and 31 lifts. That new gondola runs three miles from a burgeoning base area, called East Village, to Park Peak, at 9,350 feet. From Park Peak you can head west, into the existing slopes of Deer Valley, or ski east into the new goods. This isn’t an expansion. It’s basically a whole new resort.
Skiing with a Two-Time Olympian
Vogtli is showing me around the new side of the mountain as part of Deer Valley’s Ski with a Champion program, where guests get to spend a half day or full day with one of seven Olympic skiers. It’s like having your own personal guide to the mountain, but that guide is one of the best skiers in the world.
“My goal with this program is give skiers an experience they’ll talk about for years to come,” Vogtli says.
We start in the heart of Deer Valley, on the 9,400-foot Bald Mountain, and dig into fresh powder on the black diamond Stein’s Way, a steep, high-alpine run that delivers big views of the Jordanelle Reservoir below and surprisingly deep powder considering the early season drought. We connect one black after another on the edge of Bald Mountain until we slide onto The Green Monster, one of the signature runs in the new expansion. It’s a three-mile long cruiser that wiggles around the flanks of a handful of summits, dropping more than 2,000 vertical feet in a very casual “out for a Sunday drive” sort of way. Eventually, it delivers us directly to the base of the new expansion, the East Village.
Eventually, East Village will serve as the center of operations for Deer Valley. Picture a modern ski village, complete with hotels, restaurants, shops, a lodge…Right now, there’s a large parking lot and several cranes rising into the sky doing the heavy lifting for that development. If all goes well, East Village will debut next winter, easing much of the maligned traffic in the heart of Park City.
There are already 1,200 new parking spaces in East Village, so locals can skip the crowd at the current base of operations, Snow Park Lodge, and hop on the East Village’s gondola or high speed six-person chair and get right into the new expansion.
There’s a lot of blue terrain in that new acreage, and we spend a fair amount of energy bombing down wide groomers, enjoying the pristine corduroy that Deer Valley has become known for since first opening in the early ‘80s. Deer Valley is famous for these expansive blue groomers—think corduroy for days—so it makes sense that there’s plenty more to be had with the 2,000 new acres. Intermediate skiers won’t lack for new candy on the east side of Deer Valley, but it’s the skiers on either end of the spectrum (beginners and experts) that will be the happiest with the new expansion.
As if having a three-mile long road cruise in the Green Monster wasn’t enough entertainment, beginners have an entire area dedicated to them at the top of the expansion, off the west side of Park Peak. Green Monster starts here, traveling all the way to the base of the resort at East Village, but so do several shorter green runs, carving around the treeless summit first, where they deliver big views of the Wasatch Range on the horizon, before breaking off into smaller runs between the trees. All of that green goodness bottoms out at a six-pack high speed lift with heated seats and a bubble enclosure to cut through the wind. Beginners can run laps on this terrain until their legs turn to jelly, and they can do it in style—with high alpine views and a heated ride back to the top.
“It’s the sort of experience that makes people fall in love with skiing,” says Vogtli.
High-Alpine Beginner Zones to Expert-Only Redemption Ridge
It really is. Towards the end of my weekend, I spent an entire afternoon riding the heated six-pack and cruising the various beginner slopes. I also find some fun, intermediate bump runs between the greens that keep me entertained, but it’s the scene that gets me. Those views, the comfy ride to the top—how could you not fall in love with skiing if that’s your introduction to the sport? In my opinion, these high-alpine beginner zones are the best development at ski resorts in recent history. Most new skiers are relegated to the bottom of the hill without any views at all. Deer Valley’s Park Peak is different. Beginners get to partake in the fun.
As good as the new beginner terrain is, it’s the advanced skiers that have the most to get excited about. Off the east side of Park Peak is Redemption Ridge, a long, bowl-shaped mountain with half a dozen snowy fingers dropping off the ridgeline and divided by thick stands of trees. Deer Valley has plenty of black diamond runs scattered throughout the resort, but this is an entire playground completely dedicated to expert skiers. And it’s big terrain, too, with more than 2,000 feet of sustained vertical coming off the ridge and a mandatory cornice drop for most lines.
“It’s steep and hairy,” Vogtli says. “There’s nothing else like it in Deer Valley, and it gives expert skiers something all their own.”
Redemption Ridge isn’t open on the days that I’m at Deer Valley (not enough snow has piled up yet), but management hopes to have the terrain open by the end of January. After hearing Vogtli talk about Redemption Ridge, I’m glad it’s not open. I would probably try to ski it and probably find myself in way over my head making survival turns down a steep face. The sun dog delivers luck to me yet again.
Instead of shredding the gnar, I spend the rest of my time at Deer Valley sticking to the blue groomers and the occasional bump run, working on a few pointers that Vogtli gave me about my form. On my last day at Deer Valley, I try to cover the entire expanse of the resort, skiing as much terrain as I can from the new East Village to the heritage terrain on the far western border of the property at Empire Canyon. Moving between the new and old sections is seamless. Everything ties in together perfectly, so navigating the new, larger mountain isn’t difficult. But I can’t cover it all. Not in one day. My will is strong, but my legs are weak. Suddenly, Deer Valley is too big.
When You Go
Ski
Everyone should ski Green Monster for a solid top to bottom introduction to the new terrain. Beginners should run laps off of the Pinyon Express on the west side of Park Peak. Experts should run laps on Revelator Express on the east side of Park Peak. Intermediate skiers look to Big Dutch Peak, a smaller mountain closer towards East Village that has several blue lines that all funnel down to the East Village Gondola. Personally, Humbug, a blue that was full of bumps, was my favorite run of the new terrain. But it’s hard to beat the powder that gathers on Stein’s Way and Perseverance Bowl, off the flank of Bald Mountain.
Stay
Next winter, you should be able to book a room at the soon-to-be-opened Four Seasons in the heart of the new East Village. Until then, check out The Lodges, which puts you within a half-mile shuttle ride of Snow Park Lodge in the older side of Deer Valley.
Eat
The food at Deer Valley is shockingly good, and Park City in general has a solid culinary scene. If I’m going to recommend just one restaurant, it’s Tupelo, a farm-to-table gem that eschews the hustle of Main Street for a mostly locals vibe on the outskirts of town. I sampled a broad swath of the menu and loved every bite I took. The elk rigatoni is a no-brainer if you’re looking for something hearty, but I could’ve stacked a few small plates together (roasted beet salad, fried oysters, potato leek soup) and been perfectly content.
Drink
Utah’s craft beverage scene is blossoming, and I love the new ciders from Dendric Estate. I’m not a cider guy, but their Dry Cut is so bone dry, it comes across more like a prosecco than a cider. Dendric Estate doesn’t distribute widely yet, but you can get it at Tupelo and several other restaurants around Park City.
Graham Averill is Outside magazine’s national parks columnist, but he likes to pretend he’s a ski bum when the temperature drops. He recently wrote about his favorite hot springs near winter adventure.
The post I Skied Deer Valley’s All-New Terrain with an Olympian. It Was As Epic As it Sounds. appeared first on Outside Online.
