How Top North American Ski Resorts are Dealing With Long Lift Lines and Crowded Slopes
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Tourism Whistler
Ski season in the western United States and Canada doesn't look like it did a decade ago. Despite the fact that climate change has made snowfall far less predictable, resorts have never been more crowded. This is partly because so many of the region's best mountains now accept the multi-resort Epic and Ikon passes, making it cost-effective to spend more days at more destinations, and also because the COVID-era uptick in the sport has endured. Long lift lines and packed runs, as well as sold-out slope-adjacent hotels, are now the norm.
Not surprisingly, increased skier circulation and expanded amenities top the list of improvements for many resorts. Utah's Deer Valley has launched its East Village project, a massive multiyear undertaking that will more than double its existing terrain. Skiers this season can experience a taste of the 3,700-acre expansion, including three new chairlifts and 300 more skiable acres. At Montana's Big Sky Resort and farther north at British Columbia's Whistler Blackcomb, new six- and eight-person chairs will trim minutes off wait times—no small thing when temperatures can dip into the teens. Colorado's Cooper Mountain, and Utah's Alta Ski Area and Snowbird resort, along with Idaho's Sun Valley, have also added new lifts.
In addition to shortening lines, some new chairs are bringing skiers to formerly hard-to-reach terrain, another way resorts are trying to disperse the crowds. In Alberta, Lake Louise Ski Resort opened up the previously boot-pack-only West Bowl terrain via the Pipestone Express lift. At BC's Sun Peaks Resort, the new West Bowl Express, three years in the making, will transport skiers to the mountain's highest skiable terrain. Expanded amenities are also popping up across the West, including more on-mountain restaurants and lodges as well as more places to stay nearby, like the 381-room Grand Hyatt Deer Valley, which debuted in November, and the long-awaited 63-room inn at Utah's Sundance Mountain Resort, which will open later this winter. This season millions of eager skiers and snowboarders are ready for the next powder dump. Happily, the resorts of the West are too.
This article appeared in the January/February 2025 issue of Condé Nast Traveler. Subscribe to the magazine here.
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