Vail Sun Down Express: A Game Changer for the Back Bowls
The Sun Down lift provides direct access to some of Vail’s best advanced-level Back Bowl terrain.
Background
For the 2022-23 season, Vail brought additional lift service to its famed Back Bowl terrain. This massive, high-end Colorado resort installed the Sun Down Express chair, offering a second high-speed quad option out of the High Noon area and providing direct lift service within the Sun Down Bowl for the first time. The resort installed this lift concurrent with a replacement for the Game Creek Express lift, which brought six-pack lift service to that area for the first time.
While Vail technically hasn’t added any new terrain with the Sun Down upgrade, the new lift setup brings noteworthy updates to the Back Bowls guest experience.
Vail’s Back Bowl trail map, with the Sun Down Express lift highlighted in red.
The Experience
The Sun Down installation has significantly altered the traffic flow in the Sun Up and Sun Down Back Bowls. While lapping Sun Down took at least two lifts in previous seasons, this area is now directly lappable and functions as its own terrain pod. It’s now much easier to spend time in some of Vail’s best advanced and expert bowl terrain, which makes the resort feel bigger.
The Sun Down Bowl and adjacent trails are now directly lappable with one lift ride.
The Sun Down installation has significantly altered the traffic flow in the Sun Up and Sun Down Back Bowls. While lapping Sun Down took at least two lifts in previous seasons, this area is now directly lappable and functions as its own terrain pod. It’s now much easier to spend time in some of Vail’s best advanced and expert bowl terrain, which makes the resort feel bigger.
The Sun Down lift is a massive relief for the High Noon chair, which is no longer the dreadful chokepoint it used to be on peak days. Lines are much palatable than they used to be, rarely building up to any notable level. Sun Down functions as a more expert-oriented lift than High Noon—the only runs directly serviced by the new lift are black diamonds, and it sees slightly less traffic than High Noon as a result.
Vail’s Sun Down lift picks up right next to the popular High Noon chair, providing significant relief for this area.
The convenience of the new lift does bring a few consequences for the Sun Down zone. Sun Down was historically one of Vail’s least touched terrain areas thanks to the isolation of its terrain, but as one might expect, the handier lift setup means the area gets tracked out faster. That said, the Sun Down zone still boasts a substantial quantity of terrain, and some areas at the far end of Ptarmigan Ridge are still isolated and traversable.
Additionally, the Sun Down Catwalk, which essentially every run in the Sun Down zone filters into at the bottom of the terrain pod, has seen a substantial traffic uptick as a result of the new lift setup. This trail is not ideally designed for the flow of visitors it now receives, and guests will find congestion near the bottom of the trail, even on less busy days.
The Sun Down Catwalk has seen a large traffic uptick since Vail introduced the Sun Down lift.
So while the Sun Down Express technically doesn’t bring any new runs, the new lift allows much more convenient access to the wide-open bowl terrain it serves. And while we might advise Vail to revisit the design of the Sun Down Catwalk to spread out crowds, the new lift also helps greatly with shuffling up guests in this area of the resort. The vast majority of guests spending time in this area will notice a material difference from the upgrade.
Considering a ski trip to Vail this year? Check out our full Colorado ski resort rankings, as well as our comprehensive Vail review from the 2021-22 season (a refreshed 2022-23 review will be out shortly). You can also check out our Vail review in video form below.
