From the start of the season, warm temperatures, limited snowmaking opportunities and a lack of natural snowfall have forced crews at Park City Mountain to rethink how they build and maintain the resort, adjusting daily to changing conditions.
“We’ve really had to get super creative with how we’ve been managing both the natural snow and the manmade snow,” said Lynn Offret, director of mountain operations, snow surfaces. “We’ve been really stretching ourselves to be as flexible and strategic as possible to keep the mountain open and operating safely despite the incredibly unconventional weather we’ve seen.”
So, mountain operations teams adjusted daily to manage inconsistent snow and keep terrain open, Offret said. In a typical year, sustained cold temperatures allow snowmaking crews to run around the clock, building a base early and expanding terrain steadily into December and early January.
But this winter that never materialized and high temperatures kept mountain teams from making snow during some of the most essential weeks of the year, limited to brief cold windows through mid-February, weeks later than usual.
“We had crews coming in early, staying late, basically working to maximize our cold weather windows that were few and far between,” Offret said. “Normally, we have cold trends that allow us to make snow 24/7, and that just didn’t happen this year.”
Even as snowmaking efforts ramped up, terrain remained limited early in the season, delaying openings and compressing the timeline for building out the mountain. Park City Mountain was forced to delay its season opening to Dec. 5, two weeks later than the initially planned Nov. 21 date.
Without consistent snowfall, crews turned to increasingly creative solutions to build and preserve terrain.
In the early season, that looked like track packing, where crews used snowcats to compact early snowfall and create a base that could hold what little snow did fall. As conditions worsened across the course of the winter, they relied on more aggressive tactics to maintain snow quality and keep key runs safe and skiable.
“Some of the really heroic efforts came with what we’ve affectionately come to know as farming snow — basically taking snow from one area and getting it to another area,” said Offret. “That’s the key to getting open.”
To keep critical routes open, crews moved snow from multiple runs and redistributed it where it mattered most.
“In order to keep Home Run open and operating as long as we did, we peeled snow off of Silver Queen, Payday, King’s Crown, and had our snowcats pushing snow down onto Home Run,” she said.
To move larger volumes of snow, crews outfitted snowcats with oversized bucket attachments. Offret said the buckets allowed them to carry snow across longer distances instead of just pushing it downhill, turning each cat into a kind of mobile snow hauler.
It was a solution she hadn’t seen used at that scale before, but one that became essential as crews worked to relocate snow from wherever it existed to wherever it was needed.
As conditions tightened, the priority shifted from expanding terrain to maintaining it and ultimately prioritizing the routes that allow the mountain to function at all.
These runs make up the connective infrastructure of the resort — the roads, traverses and beginner-access runs that link lifts, different terrain zones and base areas.
“They include runs that help us keep things like the Quicksilver Gondola connection, but also making sure that beginners were able to access lifts,” Offret said.
At times, keeping those routes open required constant intervention and all hands on deck. Ski patrol teams moved snow throughout the day, sometimes hauling it by hand in toboggans just to keep thin sections skiable until the groomers could start their work after closing.
“There were certain times where patrol would be moving snow just to make it through the day,” Offret said. “It truly was a full resort effort.”
That level of adaptation around temperatures climbing into the high 60’s by mid March required coordination well beyond any single team.
Groomers adjusted nightly to a snow surface that changed dramatically with each freeze-thaw cycle. Warm days softened the snow into slush, pushing it around and thinning coverage in high-traffic areas. Overnight, temperatures dropped and that same surface refroze into firm, uneven conditions, often locking in ruts, bumps and exposed patches.
As the surface changed by the hour, crews were constantly reassessing how to work the snow and where to focus their efforts.
“It definitely makes for much more challenging grooming,” Offret said.
Instead of following a consistent nightly plan, operators had to read each section of terrain individually, deciding where to break up hardened snow, where to preserve what coverage remained and where grooming might do more harm than good.
Veteran operators helped guide newer team members through the tough conditions, sharing techniques for managing inconsistent surfaces and preserving snow coverage where they could.
Crews also had to keep snow in place at lift entrances, exits and base areas where coverage melted fastest. At Town Lift, for example, they transported snow downhill in barrels loaded onto chairs to build ramps and keep the plaza loading areas operational.
Despite visibly thin coverage across more off-piste parts of the mountain, Offret said feedback from skiers has remained overwhelmingly positive — especially from those who have seen firsthand what it has taken to keep terrain open.
“It was so encouraging to hear from the guests how much positive feedback we did get up on the mountain,” she said. “It really helped to keep the team going.”
This Thursday, a cold front through northern Utah brought 6 inches of fresh snow to the remaining runs open on the Canyons Village side of Park City Mountain. As of Friday morning, six lifts and 10 runs were open at Canyons Village, with the added snowfall offering a chance to reset conditions for likely the last time this season.
Crews will use the new snow to smooth out surfaces, reinforce high traffic areas and maintain the limited terrain that remains open. With colder overnight temperatures, grooming crews have something fresh to work with this weekend.
“They’re going to be pretty excited to work with the natural snow that we get over the course of the day today,” Offret said Thursday. “Every inch matters.”
John Kanaly, Park City Mountain’s senior director of communications, added, “We understand that there is a passionate group of skiers and riders out there who want to make as many turns as possible in the season. We’re keeping the season going as long as we can for that passionate core group of skiers.”
In 35 years of working on the mountain, Offret said she had never seen a season like this one.
“As challenging as it’s been, it’s been honestly super fun working through whatever challenges Mother Nature sends our way. We’ve been pretty excited to keep taking it one day at a time,” Offret said. “I’ve never seen anything quite like this, but I am just super proud of the team for what we’ve been able to accomplish. And I hope we can keep it going for as many days as we can.”