Vail Resorts Just Announced A Massive Series of Infrastructure Upgrades for 2022-23. Here Are Our Initial Thoughts.

Horrendous lines for Park City’s Silverlode lift in March 2021. This chair is scheduled to be replaced with Vail Resorts’ first-ever eight-pack for 2022-23.

Vail Resorts just announced a series of comprehensive investments across all of its resort regions, including 19 lift upgrades and one lodge upgrade. Destination resorts affected include Whistler Blackcomb, Keystone, Vail, Breckenridge, Park City, Northstar, Heavenly, Stowe, and Mount Snow. Below, we’ve compiled our initial thoughts on how these investments will impact the overall mountain experiences for each of these resorts.

Whistler Blackcomb

Creekside Gondola Upgrade

The current Creekside Gondola isn’t bad, but it’s weird that the cabins have room for only six rather than the typical eight. This upgrade will bring the lift to the 8-seat capacity of a traditional gondola, and we expect reduced early-morning lines from this setup.

Big Red Express Upgrade

The existing Big Red Express high-speed quad holds down the fort on upper-mountain Creekside terrain, but with expanded capacity on the lower mountain Creekside Gondola, it’s only natural that Big Red receives an upgrade as well. The increased six-pack capacity should make lines move faster, lessening the need for guests to ski to the out-of-the-way Olympic mid-station to avoid crowds.

Keystone

Bergman Bowl Lift

Keystone’s high-alpine environment will finally see direct lift service from this project, addressing one of the resort’s major shortcomings. This project is certainly a net positive, as the relatively mellow footprint serviced by this proposed six-pack lift will provide beginner and intermediate bowl terrain for resort guests, transforming Keystone from an also-ran in the high-alpine game to a major player. This terrain is already accessible within resort boundaries by hiking or snowcat; one small drawback of this plan is that the terrain in this area may become less fun for advanced and expert guests, as it will receive regular grooming and much more skier traffic.

Outpost Restaurant

We’ve always found Keystone’s Outpost restaurant to offer a convenient, mid-mountain stopping ground, but as the only true indoor dining option in that area of the resort, it could always use some more capacity. Looks like this plan will provide that, although the Keystone area that could really use some facility investments is the Outback zone.

Missed Opportunity: Wayback

The Wayback lift is one of the major negatives in Keystone’s lift system. The only way back from the Outback area is through this fixed-grip quad, an unbelievably slow lift that somehow hasn’t been upgraded over the years. There are no lodges or facilities at Outback, so anyone trying to escape an influx of bad weather or just needing a break will have to bear through this lift. We’re surprised that an upgrade here has taken a back seat for so long.

Vail

New Sun Down Lift

One unfortunate side effect of Vail’s current Sun Down Bowl setup is the lack of lift redundancy; if you reach the bottom, the High Noon Express lift is currently the only way out. This new high-speed quad, which has yet to receive a name, will provide much-needed backup on busy days.

Game Creek Express Upgrade

Vail’s Game Creek high-speed quad is the resort’s only remaining 80s-era detachable lift, and the area it serves has no lift redundancies. The lift has reached the end of its useful life, and while the crowding situation isn’t quite as critical here as at the Sun Down Bowl, it makes sense to provide a capacity upgrade with the replacement.

Missed Opportunity: Cascade Lift

The Cascade quad, which provides service from Cascade Village, is the only fixed-grip chairlift left at Vail that doesn’t have a high-speed alternative. While most guests would only ride it once a day (if at all), an upgrade here would make getting to and from Cascade Village much more enjoyable.

Breckenridge

Rip’s Ride Upgrade

A Breckenridge Peak 8 downside has always been the lack of direct high-speed access to beginner terrain, and this high-speed Rip’s Ride replacement will finally provide a remedy for this situation, offering quick and easy access to a dedicated learning area. The upgrade will also provide a third high-speed lift route out of the crowded Peak 8 base, with available trail routes to Peak 9 for intermediate and better visitors. Some may be disappointed that Chair 5 is not the lift receiving the high-speed treatment, given the larger portion of terrain that lift services; the much more beginner-centric nature of the Rip’s Ride lift line may explain the resort’s rationale.

Park City

Silverlode Upgrade

The Silverlode lift is one of the worst chokepoints at Park City, providing the only convenient access to upper-mountain Park City-side areas for Quicksilver gondola riders coming from the Canyons side. We imagine this capacity upgrade will go a long way towards reducing lines, although we’d go as far as to say an entirely new helper lift may be warranted to fully fix the situation.

Eagle Lift Upgrade

The proposed Eagle six-pack, which replaces an existing triple chair, will provide a third high-speed lift route out from the Park City base. While we don’t know the new alignment for this lift yet, we imagine the upgrade will offer a more direct, desirable link to the King Con area, likely relieving crowds across the other two major lifts there.

Northstar

Comstock Upgrade

The Comstock lift provides the only high-speed access to the Northstar’s summit from the resort’s front side, and the lift becomes somewhat of a chokepoint during peak times. The issue is especially acute during early-season holidays if the back side isn’t open yet. Of all the lifts at Northstar, Comstock is probably the one that could most use a capacity upgrade; however, we wonder whether an re-aligned lift route and high-speed upgrade for the Rendezvous chair—which would provide backup for the existing Comstock lift—would be a better investment.

Heavenly

Boulder/North Bowl Upgrade

Heavenly’s current Boulder/North Bowl lift route is one of the most egregious of any North American destination resort, with a nearly 20-minute combined fixed-grip lift route required to get out of the Boulder base. This upgrade, which should replace both lifts, will be a huge relief for the resort’s lower-elevation Nevada side, providing much faster lift service and making the area much more desirable to spend time in.

Stowe

Mountain Triple Upgrade

Stowe’s existing Mountain Triple helps relieve crowds on the Fourrunner Quad. It doesn’t service nearly as much terrain as that lift, but it provides direct access to beginner terrain. This might explain the rationale for why Stowe is upgrading this lift over the Lookout Double, which extends up a much higher percentage of the mountain but only services intermediate and higher terrain; the decision was likely made along the same thought process as the choice by Breckenridge to upgrade Rip’s Ride instead of Chair 5.

Mount Snow

Sundance/Tumbleweed Replacement

Mount Snow’s front side already has three high-speed chairlifts on it, but the resort has been getting so much traffic in recent years that a fourth isn’t exactly a terrible idea. We’re expecting this lift to relieve traffic on the three existing major chairs, and the new path will likely provide a faster, more desirable route to reach Carinthia. However, it doesn’t seem like the new lift will feature bubbles, meaning that the Bluebird Express chair will likely still see large crowds on cold days. Additionally, one might wonder if the investment would have been better spent on a capacity upgrade at Carinthia, which has seen really bad lines in recent years.

Sunbrook Upgrade

Mount Snow’s Sunbrook fixed-grip quad has been one of the most overdue lift replacements in all of Vermont, currently taking nine agonizing minutes to lap some modestly long blue runs. This upgrade is sure to bring much happier guests in this area, and we can’t believe it wasn’t done sooner.

Final Thoughts

It seems that Vail Resorts did well through the pandemic, and the company is now able to channel some of that success into massive investments that span nearly its whole portfolio of destination mountains. It’s not every year that such a large number of ski resorts see major investments like these, and it’s hard to overstate the significance of some of these plans. Some resorts on this list, such as Heavenly, are slated to receive significant upgrades for the first time in more than a decade. Once the 2022-23 season rolls around, we look forward to returning to each of these resorts to reassess the mountain experience.