Snowbasin Middle Bowl Express Lift Nears Completion
Pictured: The outgoing Middle Bowl Triple chair in March 2021.
Snowbasin’s new Middle Bowl Express six-pack is nearing completion, as evidenced by a tweet recently put out by the resort. This new lift is replacing the Middle Bowl Triple chair, and will provide access from the mid-mountain to the top of the Needles area. The lift will end slightly higher up than the old triple in order to provide easier access to the Needles Lodge.
Our Take
On the surface, Snowbasin isn’t bringing high-speed lift service to any new terrain, and one could look at this investment as just an upgrade to a helper lift. But anyone who’s spent time at the resort will know that the new Middle Bowl Express is a crucial piece to enhancing the resort experience.
Given the sheer length of Snowbasin’s top-to-bottom runs, many guests find it more convenient to lap shorter pods instead; however, several lifts that service these pods, including Becker, Middle Bowl, and Porcupine, are currently slow, fixed-grip triple chairs with agonizingly long ride times. The irritating experience here just results in guests avoiding these lifts altogether and leads to the underutilization of some really enjoyable terrain. However, the upgraded Middle Bowl Express should finally provide somewhat of a remedy, offering desirable lappable access to key higher-alpine intermediate and advanced trails.
Snowbasin’s Needles area is arguably the most popular at the resort, and the helper lifts that have historically supplanted the Needles Gondola have been too slow and long to be desirable—and to provide sufficient relief to that lift. But the Middle Bowl Express, along with the already-existing Wildcat Express six-pack, will work together to finally offer a high-speed alternative to the gondola for getting from base-to-summit. Additionally, the new Middle Bowl lift will finally provide a second desirable path up to the upper-mountain Needles Lodge, with its terminal relocation likely to help shift traffic there.
We’re excited to visit Snowbasin this winter to assess the lift, crowd flow, and lodge access impacts for ourselves. For more on Snowbasin and the Utah resort landscape, check out our Snowbasin review and Utah rankings.
