Last call for the Cabriolet

Park City Cabriolet Chair Lift Photo: TownLift

For nearly three decades, the little lift that could hauled skiers, snowboarders, and everyone in between up to the Canyons base area. This weekend, it runs for the last time.

SUMMIT COUNTY, Utah — There is nothing glamorous about the Cabriolet. No heated seats, no panoramic gondola cabin, and a wobbly door that kinda closes most of the time. It creaks along above a parking lot and for a generation of Canyons skiers, that ride became one of the most familiar rituals in a Park City winter.

The Cabriolet Lift makes its final run this Sunday, March 29. Park City Mountain and the Canyons Village Management Association will mark the occasion with free donuts at the top terminal from 8 to 10 a.m. and a Cash Cab Giveaway where guests can win gift cards to Park City Mountain retail locations. The lift will run normal hours, 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Construction on its replacement begins the next morning.

A fixture of the Canyons experience

The Cabriolet has been the first thing you ride at Canyons since before Park City Mountain was Park City Mountain. Long before Vail Resorts absorbed the resort in 2013, before the historic merger with Park City Mountain Resort in 2015 created the largest ski resort in the United States, the Cabriolet was already there ferrying families, powder hounds, and first-timers from the free parking lot below up to the Red Pine Gondola and Orange Bubble Express.

For many locals, it is simply part of the routine. You park, you load up your gear, you ride the Cab. You watch the village come into view as you rise above the lot. On a bluebird morning, with fresh snow on the rooftops, it is a pretty good way to start a ski day. For kids growing up skiing Canyons, it was often the first lift they ever rode.

What comes next

The replacement, called the Canyons Village Skyway, will be a significant upgrade in nearly every practical sense. It will carry 10 people per enclosed cabin, feature floor-to-ceiling windows, and include a mid-station stop that gives homeowners and lodging guests in the mid-village area direct access for the first time. Like the Cabriolet before it, the Skyway will be free to ride.

TownLift first reported on the gondola proposal last July, when Park City Mountain held a public open house at the Grand Summit Hotel to gather community feedback. The plan was always tied to the parallel construction of the new Canyons Village Parking Structure, a five-level garage that will eventually hold more than 1,800 spaces and consolidate what is currently a maze of surface lots into a single arrival point. The first two levels of the garage opened this past season. The final three levels go up starting Monday.

Both projects are targeting completion before the 2026/27 winter season.

Gone, but not quite yet

If you have been meaning to take one last ride, Sunday is the day. Show up early for a donut, load up at the bottom, and let the old lift carry you up one more time. Watch the village rise beneath you. Remember what it felt like the first time you did this.

Park City Mountain has announced that March 29 will be the last day of operations at Mountain Village, while Canyons Village will remain open as long as conditions permit. It remains unclear how parking at Canyons will be handled once both the Cabriolet and the parking garage close for construction.

Canyons Growth

The consolidation of surface parking into a single structure and drop-off point has implications for Canyons’ development plans. By shifting parking from surface lots to the garage, it frees up land for additional development.

During a work session on the Canyons Specially Planned Area and its development agreement, Summit County Deputy County Attorney Dave Thomas said the resort core is about 53% built out and the broader SPA is roughly 40% to 45% complete.

“So you’re only seeing half the development out there,” Thomas told commissioners.

Canyons Resort less than half built, with major growth still ahead