(Bloomberg Businessweek) —
It’s 55F and sunny as I slide into the black-and-green seats of Deer Valley Resort’s new Keetley Express chairlift. It’s mid-March—at least a month before barren earth will reappear through the snowpack in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains. But as the lift pulls higher toward Keetley Point, a phalanx of construction crews comes into focus. Piercing the snow are more than three dozen excavators, diggers and forklifts, the landscape newly dotted with rebar and concrete. Deer Valley’s multibillion-dollar transformation, I see, is officially underway.
By the time the lifts start spinning again this winter, those crews will have built 10 chairlifts and 2,300 acres of new ski terrain, more than doubling the size of a resort that already has plenty of luxury hotels, high-end shops and swanky restaurants. And that’s just the start. In the next several years, Deer Valley will have hundreds of additional homes, an on-mountain day lodge, 8 hotels, 42 retail shops, 32 restaurants and 7 cafes. It’s the largest ski-area expansion in US history.
Deer Valley is hardly alone. Utah ski resorts have invested $250 million in new chairlifts in the past 12 months—roughly half of what the entire country spends on lifts in any given year. That growth stands in contrast to more sober realities for the industry at large. US ski areas are losing about $252 million per year because of human-caused climate change, a recent study from the trade journal Current Issues in Tourism shows. The number of skiers in the country has practically plateaued since 2019.
Utah seems immune to much of this. The state notched a record 5.1 million skier visits during the 2018‑19 season. Every year since the pandemic-shortened season of 2019-20, it’s topped that record, with visits now hovering around 7 million per season, representing as much as $2 billion in spending. US skier numbers may be stagnant, but a larger share is choosing to come to the Beehive State.
“Utah is one of the fastest-growing states in the country, with an influx of young families, jobs and technology companies,” says Jared Smith, chief executive officer of Alterra Mountain Co., which owns Deer Valley as well as 17 other ski areas from California to West Virginia to Canada. In 2014, Utah began a $5.1 billion upgrade of Salt Lake City International Airport, which will be completed by the end of 2026, increasing the availability of nonstop flights. “It was an easy decision to take one of our premier destinations and expand it,” Smith says.
And the powder that skiers are coming for—“the Greatest Snow on Earth,” as the slogan goes—seems uniquely impervious to the existential threat facing so many other places. “Utah is one of the most climate-resilient states,” says Daniel Scott in Ontario. He’s spent 20 years studying climate risk for the ski industry as research chair for the University of Waterloo’s department of geography and environmental management. “There are winners and losers all over the world when it comes to climate resilience,” Scott says. “In the US, Utah is a winner.”
The state’s geological advantages include its peaks, springs and reservoirs. As in neighboring Colorado, Utah’s portion of the tall Rocky Mountains—which top out at about 11,000 feet—are at high altitude and cold enough to guarantee a long snow season. In the winter of 2022-23, when Wyoming’s Jackson Hole notched just 412 inches of snow, Alta got a record 903 inches. Over the past 10 years, neighboring resort Snowbird has typically stayed open for skiing well into May; twice it kept the lifts spinning into June. As winters become warmer, these contrasts will grow only more stark, and fewer mountains will be able to compete.
Unlike Colorado, however, Utah also has generous water rights that allow ski resorts to produce more human-made snow. That’s why Sundance Mountain Resort, for instance, was able to increase its number of snowmaking machines from 12 to 175 in 2021 alone.
Relaxed regulation helps in other ways too. In ruby-red Utah, getting construction greenlit is easy, even in naturally pristine places. “Utah is reasonably favorable to development,” says Gary Barnett, founder and chairman of Extell Development Co. “When you’re looking to do something, you want to know that it’s not going to take 10 years to get it done.”
Barnett is used to hearing “yes.” It was he who began buying up land on the eastern slope adjacent to Deer Valley more than a decade ago, the first steps to creating the expansion project I can see from the Keetley Express. It’s his land that’s being leased out for the resort’s future shops, restaurants and hotels, which include a recently opened Grand Hyatt and a ski-in, ski-out Four Seasons coming in 2028.
Back on the mountain that day in March, it’s Barnett’s partner at Deer Valley, Todd Bennett, the resort’s president and chief operating officer, who takes me down a series of freshly cut cruisers that snake across the new terrain. We trace big, lazy arcs through slushy snow down a run called Lady of the Lake, stopping so he can point out some of the more than 1,200 new Bluetooth-enabled snow guns, all drawing water from nearby Jordanelle Reservoir. “They can be activated and adjusted remotely,” he tells me, as if guaranteeing snow conditions were as easy as asking Alexa to turn on the lights. “Prior to the expansion we could do about 8,000 gallons a minute. This will double that.”
The mountain equivalent of urban planning also helps. As we carve our way toward the new Grand Hyatt, where the rooms start at a democratic $399 a night, Bennett explains how some of the lower trails tilt away from the sun slightly—a design meant to forestall melting and preserve the snowpack. “There’s a lot of planning like that to help skiers have a better experience,” he says. The subtext I glean is that these design tweaks work better in prolonging good conditions than compensating for bad ones. In other words, they might not work as well anywhere else.
Hours after that first ride up Keetley Express, I find myself back on the lift for a last lap. The clouds start to roll in, and the temperature begins dropping. I open my weather app to see snow on the horizon. “They’re saying we’ll get 20 inches out of this storm,” Bennett says. “Maybe more.”
Utah’s Winter Overhaul
Almost every Utah ski area is expanding terrain, modernizing lifts and upgrading snowmaking systems. Here’s how it all breaks down.
Alta Ski Area
Where: At the top of Little Cottonwood Canyon in the Wasatch Mountains, about 40 minutes from Salt Lake City.
What: In the last three seasons, Alta has invested in avalanche mitigation systems and, for beginners, two covered moving walkways at the Albion Base. This season will see improvements that speed up the Supreme chairlift, one of the main lifts on the mountain.
Beaver Mountain
Where: A family-owned, independent resort near Logan, in northern Utah’s Bear River Mountains.
What: A new day lodge called Marge’s Cabin, named for matriarch Marge Seeholzer, incorporates the historic fir siding of the original while adding more space for dining, retail and gear rentals.
Brian Head Resort
Where: In southern Utah, 2½ hours from Las Vegas.
What: Terrain and snowmaking upgrades have added glade skiing under the Wildflower lift, three new beginner and intermediate trails (bringing the total to 74) and enough human-made snow to open earlier in the season.
Brighton Resort
Where: Just 35 miles from downtown Salt Lake City, in Big Cottonwood Canyon.
What: In 2023, Brighton unveiled Crest 6, Utah’s fastest six-pack lift. Now it’s adding better snowmaking in the Snake Creek zone and slopeside cabins for ski-in, ski-out access.
Eagle Point
Where: High in the Tushar Mountains, about three hours south of Salt Lake City.
What: More than $200,000 in lift improvements will increase reliability and accessibility across intermediate and advanced terrain.
Park City Mountain Resort
Where: The iconic resort is 40 minutes from SLC.
What: Last season saw new Red Pine Gondola cabins deliver smoother, quieter rides with panoramic views. Now the resort is introducing the high-speed, 10-person Sunrise Gondola to speed guests to Red Pine Lodge’s newly improved beginner terrain.
Powder Mountain
Where: About an hour and 20 minutes north of Salt Lake, in the Ogden Valley.
What: In the last two years, Powder developed new cross-country and snowshoe trails, a warming hut and five new lifts for skiers of all ability. In 2026 it will add more than 1,000 acres of terrain in neighboring Wolf Canyon. Millions of dollars are also being poured into a new lodge, plus more terrain and lifts for exclusive private club members.
Snowbasin Resort
Where: An hour north of Salt Lake City, near Ogden.
What: In advance of the 2034 Olympics, at which it will host Alpine skiing, Snowbasin is overhauling many of its lifts. This year a revamped Becker lift will halve the time it takes to access midmountain expert terrain, moving 1,800 riders per hour. New RFID gate systems at all base lifts are expected to reduce wait times by as much as 25%.
Snowbird
Where: A mere 29 miles from Salt Lake City, right next to Alta.
What: In 2024 the original 1971 Wilbere lift was replaced by a high-speed quad. This season, Snowbird opens the Nest, a midmountain restaurant with sweeping floor-to-ceiling views of Little Cottonwood Canyon.
Sundance Mountain Resort
Where: Nestled at the base of Mount Timpanogos, an hour south of Salt Lake City.
What: A significant expansion began in 2023, with a new day lodge and beginner terrain. Now the 63-room, ski-in, ski-out Inn at Sundance will put guests right next to the Outlaw Express. The resort is also adding 50 skiable acres in the Far East zone, with 150 more coming next winter along the new Electric Horseman Express.
To contact the author of this story:
Gordy Megroz in New York at gmegroz@gmail.com
© 2026 Bloomberg L.P.
