Data reveals Park City Mountain’s open terrain hits seven year low during strike

Historical data reveals that with a 42" average snow pack for last week, 34 lifts and 177 trails (50% of the mountain) should have been planned to open, compared to just 18% actually available.

PARK CITY, Utah – Holiday visitors to Park City Mountain Resort are voicing frustration as limited open terrain coincides with the Park City Ski Patrol Union’s ongoing strike against Vail Resorts, Inc (NYSE:MTN). During one of the busiest weeks of the year, guests endured hours-long lift lines, compounded by weather-related delays despite much-needed snowfall.

Historical data reveals that with a 42″ average snow pack for last week, 34 lifts and 177 trails (50% of the mountain) should have been planned to open, compared to just 18% actually available.

TownLift’s analysis of seven years of 5 a.m. operational tweets shows that last week saw the fewest lifts and trails planned to open relative to snowpack depth in recent history.

In December, as the strike was looming, Deirdra Walsh, VP & COO for Park City Mountain told KPCW there would be no impacts to mountain operations, should the Park City Ski Patrol Union decide to strike.

The Data

Every morning of winter operations Park City Mountain shares an operational update including a 5 a.m. snow report with planned trail, and lift openings to the account ParkCityMtnAlert on X (formerly Twitter) platform.

TownLift analyzed seven years of 5 a.m. snow reports for December 27 – January 2, the strike’s first week. The table below averages out the resort reported totals for each week day and compiles a year over year view with a seven year average.

Data Variability and Averages
For the last three seasons, base depth has been reported from Mid-Mountain, while earlier reports used Jupiter and an undisclosed location in 2020/21. TownLift’s snowpack analysis focuses on the last three seasons but includes all available data. When multiple base depths were reported, the highest base depth value was used. Notably, once base depth reaches a certain level, trails and lifts tend to open more quickly and broadly. For consistency, data for December 27 to January 2 was averaged to account for anomalies such as power outages or storm days.

Snowmaking capacity varies each year based on temperature, and significant investments in snowmaking capacity are not reflected in these reports.

We have made the spreadsheet of data extracted from the daily mountain operations updates publicly available here, you can clone your own version for individual analysis. If you come up with something interesting lets us know tips@townlift.com

Snow Pack the week of Dec 27 – Jan 2 for the last 7 years.

The average reported snowpack for the week of December 27 to January 2 over the past seven years is 42 inches. Coincidentally, the snowpack during the first week of the ski patrol union strike matched this average, sitting just below the trendline for average snow depth over the same period. Notably, the average snow depth for the week this year was 10 inches greater than the same week last year at 32″.

Average percent of lifts & trails open for the week of Dec 27 – Jan 2

Not taking snow pack into consideration this is the percentage of available trails and lifts that were open for the week on average over the last 7 years. Last season the resort had 46% more terrain open and 24% less snow ( 32″ base  vs 42″ base this year) for the same week of operations. Noting the undisclosed base depth location in 20/21, the only week with less lifts and trails open was the 20/21 season when the reported average base depth was 20″ vs the 24/25 season with just over double that average base depth with 42″.

Open Trails VS Snow Pack Depth

The greater the gap between the red and blue lines indicates the typical number of trails open relative to snow pack depth. In the 2023/24 season, with a 32″ average base depth, 135 trails were open. The closest comparison is the 2020/21 season, which had 58 trails open—just slightly below this year’s 63—despite a reported base depth of only 20″ (location undisclosed), less than half of this season’s depth.

Trails Open Per Inch of Base Depth

By dividing open trails by base depth, we calculate the average number of trails open per inch of snow pack base. In 2022/23 (65″ base) and 2023/24 (32″ base), the averages were 4.8 and 4.3 trails open per inch of base, respectively. This year, with a 42″ base, the resort reported a record low of 1.5 trails per inch of base.

Long Lines, Lifts & Trails not opening

As the strike began on Dec. 27, Walsh said, “We want to reassure skiers and snowboarders, our employees, and this community that despite the union’s actions, Park City Mountain will remain open with safety as our top priority, and all planned terrain will be open thanks to patrol leaders from Park City Mountain and our other mountain resorts.”

A Jan 3 Instagram update from the resort says “While we haven’t been able to open all the terrain we would like to, we are pleased to have opened 30 new trails this week, with more on the way. We want to thank our guests for their patience and reassure you that we are opening the terrain we can safely open with the team members we have each day.”

Representatives from Park City Mountain and Vail Resorts have not yet responded to multiple request for comment on impacts to operations as a results of the ski patrol union strike.

Guests and locals have filed countless complaints in regards to the limited trails and lifts that the resort has been able to open during the strike including 100’s of emails received by TownLift.

Parkite, JF Lanvers shared with TownLift in a letter address to Kirsten Lynch, “I quit skiing Park City Mountain on December 27 as no more terrain opened up in spite of all the new snow we received. I now feel that I am not getting the value I was due when I purchased my pass in May,”

Seven Years of Tweets for December 30