Ski The Canyons Big Mountain Area
Eight Peaks, Long Trails and Powder, Close to Salt Lake City
Skiers looking for space should look to Canyons' 3,700-acre, 155-trail winter snow sports paradise for the best expert and intermediate trail and slope experience
A day is not enough time to savor the trails, steeps, cliffs and slopes of Canyons. Canyons is big, its trails long, and its challenge hard to beat. This is not a place for beginners or for tentative intermediates, but for confident intermediates and experts it is a Park City must ski. With 155 trails served by 17 lifts on 3,700 skiable acres it is the reason people come to the west to ski.
Arrival is easy, park in the outer lots, grab your equipment and take the "cabriolet" -- a stand-up series of gondolas that whisk skiers from the Base Camp to the bottom of the slopes. Buy your ski passes before boarding.
For openers take the Flight of the Canyons Gondola, a spectacular ride up over an open area and across a canyon to the Red Pine Lodge area. Here you can pick up the Saddleback Express quad to an altitude of 9,100 feet. A couple of nice intermediate ranked trails lead from the top. Glade runs through aspens are on the south slope. For experts there are the lift line (Super Horse) and Elk Ridge, which gives access to a number of gladed and steep black trails on the north side of the peak.
Intermediates should look to the left at the top for Snow Dancer, the easiest way down. Or for a longer and more challenging run, take Kokopelli off to the right. Three spurs off of it are all blue, but take the straight-ahead Main Line back to the lift line, or, better yet, take Echo on the left side of the trail.
Echo will lead you down onto the double-blue Flume to the vase of the Super Condor Express quad and access to the top of Murdock Peak, Its north side is mixed intermediate and expert slopes and its south slopes offer a series of aspen-lined double-black glades and trails.
A beautiful cruising run, perhaps a mile and a half or longer, Upper and Lower Boa and Willow Draw can be a great ride, depending on conditions. If the Boas's are not groomed, you'll have that distance of bumps and moguls. For experts: look on the right side for Canis Lupus, an exciting natural halfpipe through a canyon.
To get to the other peaks, take the Golden Eagle double off of Willow Draw, then the intermediate Doc's Run back to the bottom of Flight of the Canyons Gondola. Take it back to the top and then Chicane (blue) to the Tombstone Express 6-pack. That lift opens up new areas, such as blues and double blues as well as north and south slope blacks.
It also allows access to the Ninety Nine 90 Express, and the highest point in the resort. The trails and glades from the top here are all blacks and double blacks. To the right there are a number of double blacks down through the conifer forests of the north side while on the left 94 Turns, Talus Garden and Aspen Grove are wider, more open expert trails.
To the left of the base of the Ninety Nine 90 Express, the Peaks Express quad leads to another peak (9,300 feet) with some intermediate trails and the wonderful expert ranked Mystic Pines and Abyss black-diamond glades and trails. Take the blue Harmony trail to the Dreamscape lift and Dream Catcher lift, on the area's southern most peak.
Access to Canyons is via Salt Lake City airport and Interstate 80 Take exit 145 (Route 224) to Park City. Free Public bus service to the ski area is available from bus stops close to most Park City Hotels.
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