As construction continues at Deer Valley Resort East Village, developers at Extell are turning their focus to the intricacies of staffing for once the project is complete, starting with hiring a general manager for the entire area.

“The village is coming to life,” said Kurt Krieg, Extell’s executive vice president of resort development. “This is an incredible opportunity for someone to lead and cultivate a sense of place.”

Extell plans to hire a general manager at the end of this year or early next year. Once hired, the general manager will have roughly 18 months to prepare before East Village is fully opened for the 2028-29 winter season.  

Krieg said the general manager will mediate between Deer Valley, each of the hotels, homeowners associations within the village and retail operations. Krieg compared the manager’s responsibilities to that of a mayor.

As of now, East Village is expected to employ 50-70 full-time staff in the core area once completed. Krieg said the number of part-time staff will be determined by details related to features such as the ice skating rink or firepits, which are further down the line of development. 

Wasatch County Councilor Erik Rowland, a Military Installation Development Authority liaison, estimated 6,000 workers will be employed at the East Village within the next decade. That number estimates how many people will work within the entire East Village area during peak season. 

While East Village is developing for guest experiences, Extell is making progress on construction to support employees’ needs at Marina West. 

The area, which is on the other side of U.S. 189 from East Village, next to Jordanelle Reservoir, is set to include different types of housing from dorms to condos, childcare services and what Krieg described as “community retail” like grocery and convenience stores. Close to 1,000 parking spaces are planned for the hotel areas, which will be accessible to employees. 

Krieg said Extell has conducted market research in the Deer Valley demographic and by analyzing similar employee housing areas to make an optimal plan before construction advances.

The land used for the Marina West development is under Wasatch County land use authority, so any plans will go through normal county approval processes. On the west side of U.S. 40, the land for the East Village area is under MIDA authority. Rowland explained MIDA has its own approval processes separate from the county.

Rowland said the county is still waiting for a finalized proposal from Extell, which will come after market research is completed.

“(Extell has) been open and very willing to talk to the county,” Rowland said. “We want to keep that relationship and make things best for the community.”

The goal, Krieg said, is for employees and guests to experience and enjoy Deer Valley and the Wasatch Back in the same way.

“It’s important to us that (resort staff) are able to come and participate, because that’s what creates a sense of community,” Krieg said. “We value and really are looking to these employees to provide the experience that others haven’t recently. We need this energy.”

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Deer Valley installed the final lift of its Expanded Excellence plan this week as the parts for the Hail Peak Express lift were flown into place by helicopter early Wednesday morning. 

“We’re getting really excited for winter,” said Garrett Lang, senior director of mountain operations at Deer Valley Resort.

Hail Peak is the 11th new lift in Deer Valley’s East Village expansion since 2024. The new lift will open seven runs and 200 new acres of beginner, intermediate and advanced terrain. With the addition of Hail Peak, Deer Valley now has 32 lifts in operation throughout the resort.

The seven new runs off Hail Peak will feature a mix of beginner, intermediate and advanced groomed terrain. Lang compared the area to Flagstaff Mountain, for people familiar with the western side of the resort.

Deer Valley adds to its collection of over a dozen Doppelmayr high-speed detachable quad lifts with the Hail Peak Express. The new lift can move 2,400 skiers per hour through its 86 carriers. The slightly smaller Neptune Express can move the same number of people with 74 chairs, and the longer Pioche Express lift moves 1,800 people per hour.

The chairs on Hail Peak Express, along with the other lifts in the east expansion area, are designed to be more comfortable with higher backs and smoother suspension. 

Its proximity to the East Village parking lot makes Hail Peak a great candidate for early morning runs or as a location to start out the ski day before exploring the rest of the mountain. Parking at the East Village lot is free all day in its 1,200 spaces. Lang said the resort’s complimentary trams will run from the parking lot near the lift to transport skiers closer to the hub.

The installation of Hail Peak marks a milestone in the resort’s expansion. After three years working on mountain developments like its new lifts, the resort will now focus on finishing the East Village and Park Peak lodges. 

“We’re excited for, hopefully, a great snow year so we can really showcase what we have to offer and what this expansion is truly capable of,” said Riley Elliot, communications manager at Deer Valley Resort.

The resort has plans for the rest of the mountain, but there’s no set timeline on when those developments would start.

Alterra Mountain Company, Deer Valley Resort’s parent company, announced on Sept. 9 its investments for the 2026-27 season across all resorts total over $350 million. The improvements to snowmaking systems and the addition of the Hail Peak Express lift are the primary focuses this season at Deer Valley.

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The expansion of Deer Valley’s East Village has helped improve the fire mitigation and response systems across the resort’s 4,500 acres. Upgrades to snowmaking infrastructure, including remote system control, are part of the multi-organization collaborative project. 

Max Bervy, an assistant project manager with Extell Development, led the efforts to enhance fire response systems in the East Village development plans.

Because of the high elevation and dry climate, wildfires are a significant risk to ski resorts in Utah. Eagle Point Resort in Beaver, Utah, won’t open for the 2026-27 season because of wildfire damage.

Bervy was inspired by resorts in the South Lake Tahoe region, near where the 2021 Caldor fire tore through. The resorts temporarily converted snowmaking infrastructure for use by wildland firefighters, allowing the resorts to preserve most structures and land. 

Over the past few weeks, crews from the Wasatch Fire District visited the expanded area of the resort now in their jurisdiction. Firefighters are learning to adapt the water systems to their gear and are understanding the layout and terrain of the mountain.

“With the complexity and capacity that our snowmaking system has, it was kind of a no-brainer,” Bervy said.

Snowmaking infrastructure has long been an option for firefighting resources, but without an automated system it would take more time to set up hoses where they’re needed. 

Deer Valley recently upgraded its snowmaking systems across the East Village side to allow remote access to the whole system. Now, senior snowmaking manager Brett Hawksford can control the resort’s water system using an app on his phone. The system also has an increased water storage capacity and updated pump systems.

Wasatch County Fire District Chief Eric Hales said the technology upgrade will make it more feasible to use snowmaking systems as a primary firefighting response. 

Hales said the snowguns themselves likely wouldn’t be used for initial fire attack, but they can be used to moisten the land and air so potential fires don’t spread.

Once water is pressurized and flowing through the pumps, fire response crews around the mountain can use the snowmaking infrastructure as hydrants. With this system in place, crews don’t have to navigate tanker trucks up the narrow and steep roads if a fire were to break out on the mountain. 

Specific access roads for fire crews and helicopter landing zones were built into the resort’s design. Deer Valley and Extell also fitted side-by-side vehicles to serve as small fire trucks to access more remote areas of the mountain, if needed. 

Firefighters will carry adapters so their equipment can connect to the pipes on the mountain. Once the water is flowing through the pump system, they can essentially use the snowguns as fire hydrants. 

Because Deer Valley now spans two counties, the project requires collaboration between Extell, the Resort, Wasatch Fire District, Summit County firefighters. Chief Hales explained they have to coordinate with Ski Patrol, too, and transport with ambulances and medical helicopters. 

“We really wanted to get everyone on the same page and build a standard operating procedure,” Bervy said. 

Before the Deer Valley expansion, Wasatch Fire District operated within a small area of the resort. But with the opening of the East Village, the Fire District will operate within the new mountain terrain and more urban-style buildings. 

Fire District Battalion Chief RL Duke said one of the biggest differences his team will see with the expansion is the response to structure fires. The firefighters usually respond to smaller single-family homes, but now they’ll have to be ready for larger structures, including high-rises. 

When working in tall buildings, firefighters typically have to carry in their own oxygen in tanks. The tanks provide about 20 minutes of clean air. This makes it harder to fight fires since they have to leave the building to get clean air.

With the new development, Hales has advocated for the standardization of Firefighter Air Replenishment Systems, or FARS, being built into each building in the East Village. 

“Firefighters need two things: water and air,” Hales said. 

The buildings supported by FARS will have air hoses in their stairwells, alongside the existing water hoses.

“We’re able to hook into this air system that’s breathable air and we can refill those bottles,” Hales said. “We can keep that firefight and our folks a lot safer up there without having to bring additional equipment and resources to those various floors, which takes a lot of time and energy and manpower to do that.”

The East Village buildings will be the first in Utah built with FARS. Hales said the fire department has worked to add FARS in fire code standards for all high-rises in the area.

Other developments around the resort include drainage infrastructure that returns water from the snowmaking system to the Jordanelle Reservoir and Provo River, as well as treatment centers that clean lead and arsenic from the water. A 10,000-gallon water storage pond is being built that will provide water for firefighting helicopters if needed.

Fire mitigation isn’t new at Deer Valley. 

Jacob Ringquist, the resort’s slope maintenance manager, used to work as a wildland firefighter, so he cares deeply about protecting the forest. 

The difference between firefighting and slope maintenance is “proactive versus reactive,” he said. 

Most of those proactive efforts happen outside the ski season. This summer the resort used goats and sheep grazing to eliminate vegetation that ignites easily. The team is also collecting wood for pile burning, which will happen later this fall. 

The resort can still use its snowmaking systems for fire response and mitigation; it’s just more “hands-on,” Ringquist said.

“A better, healthier forest that’s more fire resilient (is) also better skiing,” Ringquist said. “As we grow and expand our footprint and what we manage, we’ll keep expanding our crew and what we do to be good stewards of the land.”

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As construction shapes Deer Valley East Village, another piece of the long-term vision will soon welcome its first guests.

Canopy by Hilton Deer Valley, the first Utah location for Hilton’s Canopy brand, is scheduled to open this summer. It will be the third hotel to debut in Deer Valley East Village following the opening of the Grand Hyatt Deer Valley and Pioche Village. 

With the opening expected at the end of July, the property will serve locals as well as visitors, said Kat Barrett, vice president of commercial services at Extell. 

Located at the base of Deer Crest with the Jordanelle Express Gondola steps away, the four-story 180-room hotel includes four dining venues, an indoor pool, hot tub, sauna, steam room, cold plunge and fitness center, a game room, meeting spaces and skier services.

Extell Development Company owns the Canopy Deer Valley as well as the neighboring Grand Hyatt Deer Valley and is also developing the Four Seasons and Waldorf Astoria hotels at the new base area.

It will also be the second property managed by Extell’s own recently created hotel management arm, Barrett said, with a few other properties in the pipeline.

“(Canopy) hits this upper upscale positioning in this market, which I think is a huge opportunity, because there’s not a lot of upper upscale inventory,” said Barrett. “It’s luxury or maybe it’s mid-scale product, so it’s going to open up doors for people who wanted to travel here.”

The hotel is also significant for the 12-year-old Canopy by Hilton brand itself as the first property to come online with its new face, including a logo and updated color palette.

Of the 180 guest rooms, 96 are king rooms, 74 are queen-queen rooms and 10 are suites. A king room with a small balcony is expected to start around $300 per night during the offseason before increasing to $800 during peak ski season.

While Canopy is positioned within Hilton’s upper-upscale portfolio, Barrett said the brand is similar to boutique-style hotels by creating a sense of place.

“As part of the Canopy branding, it’s local, it’s a sense of home,” she said. “Every Canopy hotel has a bed canopy, and the inspiration behind that is we’re bringing you under the canopy, so we’re showing you things local, we’re showing you our home.”

Not only does that come through in the design elements, but also in the retail items that will be available for purchase and the dining concepts. 

Artwork and furnishings reference skiing and Utah’s mountain landscape. Rugs resemble aerial views of ski trails, while whimsical collage-style artwork includes images such as a hand mixer whipping up a snowstorm and an oversized tea bag steeped in a mountain lake.

“A lot of the colors that you’ll see here are reminiscent of ’60s, ’70s ski culture,” Barrett said. “Everything has texture to it, color, a different finish, so if you’re here four or five nights, you could technically be sitting in a different seat and having a little bit of a different experience.”

For the namesake bed canopies, a large weave of colorful straps extends up and over the bed, reminiscent of backpack straps, Barrett said. Historical influences also appear throughout the restaurants, like a decorative rope installation in the three-meal restaurant that pays tribute to the area’s ranching and mining history.

The hotel’s culinary program will be led by Executive Chef Scott Rackliff, whose resume includes hospitality brands like Pacific Hospitality Group’s Meritage Collection and Michelin-starred restaurants such as Eleven Madison Park in New York City. Rackliff recently moved to Park City from Huntington Beach, California, after growing up in New Hampshire.

“It feels like coming home, coming back to nature, and in the mountains,” Rackliff said.

The property will feature four separate food-and-beverage concepts designed to serve hotel guests and local residents.

A grab-and-go café in the lobby will offer coffee, pastries and sandwiches during the day before transitioning to desserts and sweets in the evening.

The main restaurant is an Italian brasserie featuring an outdoor pizza oven, Italian cuisine and flatbreads. The concept was developed with consulting chef Daniele Uditi, founder of the Los Angeles restaurant Pizzana.

On the other side of the lobby’s two-way fireplace, a lounge provides another casual gathering space, while the fourth-floor restaurant will focus on elevated American comfort food paired with mountain views.

“It’s rustic American comfort food, but with lots of inspiration from what we have here,” Rackliff said of the upstairs restaurant designed with a-frame ceilings and a large vintage fireplace. “So there’s bison on the menu, we’ll play with some elk probably on specials and stuff like that, and then game meat.”

Among his favorites planned is a duck confit sandwich, with a traditional duck leg confit pressed and grilled until the skin becomes crisp, served with arugula, sweet and pickled cherries, fennel seed and mustard seeds on a pretzel bun. There will also be classics like a Salisbury steak made from Wagyu beef, potatoes, charred carrots and a mushroom demi-glace.

“One of my favorite things is comfort food, just try and give it that Michelin-star twist,” Rackliff said. “To me Michelin isn’t about actually getting the damn star. I don’t really care. But if you embody those criteria into what you’re doing, you’re going to have a great restaurant.”

That approach also includes sourcing ingredients locally whenever possible.

Rackliff said the kitchen has some budding partnerships with local purveyors like PaMaw’s Organic Farm in Daniel for produce and Heber Valley Artisan Cheese for regional cheeses. The plan will be for all four dining outlets to open with the hotel, and increase hours as the busy season arrives.

As the team puts the final touches on the property, Barrett said the excitement is growing.

“It’s so rare, at least in hospitality, that people get to be part of an opening,” she said. To commemorate that, each staff member involved is gifted a Canopy-branded hard hat.

Reservations are now open for stays starting Aug. 16. For more information, visit hilton.com/en/hotels/slcvepy-canopy-deer-valley.

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For most riders dropping into one of Deer Valley Resort’s mountain bike trails this summer, the work beneath their tires may go unnoticed.

The sculpted berms, smooth rollers and carefully shaped jumps are designed that way.

“Flow style” mountain biking — where riders move continuously downhill with minimal braking or pedaling — only works when thousands of hours of labor disappear into the background.

After a year of closures, construction impacts and one of the largest transformation periods in resort history, the crews responsible for maintaining Deer Valley’s summer terrain say reopening trails this season has been equal parts rebuilding project, engineering challenge and race against time. 

“I think of it as waking up the trails from their hibernation,” said Deacan Spierling, a bike patrol trail worker, as he used a shovel to pat down and smooth out the approach to a jump on the Tsunami trail. 

As the trails emerge from their winter slumber, timing and weather play a critical role in the process to get things ready for opening day, crews say. 

“If people aren’t up there riding them, nature tends to take over a little bit,” said Dan Ward, the resort’s mountain bike trail supervisor, while walking between work zones on the upper mountain.

That takeover comes quickly, he said.

Grass creeps into trail corridors. Fallen trees accumulate. Winter runoff cuts channels into surfaces. Snow lingers long after lower elevation terrain has dried out. And after large-scale resort construction altered portions of the mountain, some trails required something more substantial than maintenance.

“The ski run construction totally eliminated probably about a quarter mile of trail right here,” Ward said, referencing the meadow section of the Tidal Wave trail. “We’re left with the task of redesigning and putting features back in.”

Throughout the upper mountain, crews have spent weeks reopening trail corridors, rebuilding jumps, reshaping turns and reconnecting trail systems before opening day which is scheduled for June 13.

Despite the workload, staff estimated roughly 90% of terrain was approaching readiness for the season by mid-May.

The work itself is considerably more technical than many riders may realize.

On jump trails, trail builders begin by measuring grades and estimating rider speeds before construction even starts.

A black diamond jump trail, for example, typically follows specific downhill grades that help crews estimate how quickly riders will approach features, explained Ward.

“There’s no school of mountain bike building a jump,” he said, noting that construction relies on testing, experience and repetition.

Crews build features, visually inspect them and eventually ride them repeatedly before public opening. Adjustments to takeoff angles, landing zones and speed control often happen multiple times before trails are considered complete.

“We’re not just throwing people at it willy nilly,” Ward said.

That process becomes more important on trails where mistakes carry consequences.

Some jump lines feature gaps ranging between roughly 25 and 35 feet and are ridden at high speeds.

“If you hit the jump and it puts you forward or back, there can be consequence to it,” he said.

Safety, workers say, shapes nearly every decision.

Many members of the trail crew also work winter ski patrol, creating a beneficial overlap between emergency response experience and trail construction.

Crews inspect trails daily, coordinate with bike patrol staff and intentionally build rest areas into trail networks where riders can stop before fatigue becomes dangerous.

“If people are just jamming the whole trail, they get fatigued, and that’s when accidents start happening,” Assistant Patrol Manager Steve Campbell said.

The result is a balancing act between progression and accessibility. Trail crews must create experiences that are exciting for experienced riders while remaining approachable enough for beginners and resort visitors.

That balancing act has become increasingly important as summer visitation changes.

Workers say demand for hiking continues growing alongside mountain biking, and resort leadership is increasingly focused on summer operations and expanding recreational opportunities.

New terrain under construction near Deer Valley’s East Village expansion will largely focus on cross-country riding, workers said, while hiking infrastructure continues receiving additional attention.

The growth comes as crews confront another challenge entirely: getting visitors to stay off trails before conditions are ready.

During spring melt, muddy riding creates deep ruts that significantly increase repair work.

Workers pointed to fresh tire tracks crossing still-soft sections of trail while explaining that early season riding often extends closures rather than shortening them as it can be difficult to smooth out those tracks.

This year, crews said conditions have helped.

Lower snowpack and earlier melt allowed workers to begin projects roughly three weeks ahead of anticipated schedules, particularly on the upper portions of the mountain, which, in the past, have not opened until a few weeks into the season.

Machines are operating seven days a week in some areas while hand crews move between maintenance projects across the mountain.

For riders arriving this summer, most of that work will remain invisible.

And that’s the point. Because the best trail work, the crew suggested, is the kind riders never notice at all. 

For those looking to improve their skills, learn the ins and outs of the mountain trail network or new to mountain biking, Deer Valley’s mountain bike school offers private lessons and a variety of bike clinics for all ages and skill levels. 

For information on lessons, see deervalley.com/plan-your-trip/bike-lessons.

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Tuesday marked 99 years since Heber City resident Ted Crittenden was delivered into the world in his grandmother’s Hoytsville home. There weren’t any hospitals nearby at the time, he explained. 

The soon-to-be centenarian celebrated the milestone by riding the Deer Valley East Village’s 10-passenger gondola with a handful of his five children, 36 grandchildren, 95 great-grandchildren and five great-great-grandchildren.

The 142-cabin gondola opened last autumn. Each of its 40 towers was flown in by a Chinook helicopter. It rises 2,570 feet over the course of the nearly 3-mile journey at 1,400 feet per minute.

Ted was impressed. 

“It’s an absolute miracle of engineering. To get all those poles and all those cables? I can’t believe it,” he gushed.

The gondola ride was facilitated through Ted’s son, Kendall.

Kendall is a Wasatch County Councilor and works regularly with representatives from the Military Installation Development Authority (MIDA), which has a foothold on development in the Deer Valley area. MIDA representatives came up with the idea because Ted is a World War II Navy veteran.

Ted was a 14-year-old student at North Summit High School during the attack on Pearl Harbor and signed up for the draft with several classmates three years later.

After turning 18, he joined the Navy and was shipped off to a boot camp in San Diego. That was in March 1945, six months before the war ended. 

When they arrived at the boot camp, Ted got quite a hoot out of the city boys’ gorgeous locks being shaved off.

“They wasn’t careful about it. These long curls would drop in their lap. It was quite funny,” he laughed.

After intensive training, Ted was loaded onto his first ship with an estimated 1,500 other soldiers.

As the ship traveled under the Golden Gate Bridge and into the Pacific Ocean, seasick crewmates were “puking everywhere.” Ted was unfazed.

About 18 days later, the ship made it to a U.S. base on the island of Guam, which had been recaptured from Japan the year prior. 

That was where Ted was stationed when the United States dropped its first atomic bomb on Japan in Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945.

“All we heard was that there was a terrible explosion. We had no idea the magnitude of it,” he said. 

At the time, he simply couldn’t believe that one bomb had destroyed an entire city. 

After Japan surrendered to the Allied Forces in September, ending the war, Ted stayed in Guam for 17 months, working his way up to a third-class petty officer. 

Following that, he was stationed on the destroyer USS Allen M. Sumner (DD-692), which embarked on a goodwill tour in February 1947 that began in Australia. 

“Oh, they did a hoorah there. They had a big paper that says, ‘The fleet’s in. Ladies, make the most of it,’” Ted recalled. 

The food in Australia was a marked improvement from the Navy diet of potatoes, beans and Spam. Ted and his crewmates also found weevils wriggling around in the bread they were served on multiple occasions.

“We used to hold it up at the light and pick them out, but pretty soon, we didn’t give a crap. Protein,” he joked. “A little cream or butter or something on them, and they went down just fine.”

Navy life was anything but glamorous. That was best exemplified by the hazing seasoned soldiers put rookies through the first time they crossed the International Date Line. 

Ted was forced to crawl through a garbage chute. Then, the onboard dentist “sprayed a bunch of crap in (his) mouth,” and his crewmates dunked him in a tub of water suspended on the side of the ship. 

There were elements of Navy life that were more breathtaking: watching flying fish gliding alongside the bulkhead using their batlike wings, and ginormous jellyfish dancing in a bay in China.

Ted’s service also took him to the Philippines and Japan before he left the Navy in January 1948.

Afterwards, he moved back to Hoytsville and quickly fell in love with his first wife, Pauline Brown, who later died following health complications related to a respiratory disease in 1983. 

Ted irrigated land for Pauline’s father, who was a Holstein cow breeder, and met her when they were both actors in a community play held by their Latter-day Saints ward. 

That thespian spirit never quite left Ted. He also acted in live performances as a Salt Lake Temple ordinance worker for 16 years. He knew almost all the parts of the performance — “even Satan” — which has since been replaced by a video.

Ted calls himself a jack of all trades, with a career and hobbies that have taken him on all sorts of adventures in Summit County. He lived in Hoytsville and Kamas most of his life until moving into Spring Gardens Senior Living in Heber City in January, where he lives with his second wife, JoAnn.

He worked for Mountain Fuel, the predecessor of Enbridge Gas, and was the head custodian at the Summit County Courthouse, roles he held for about a decade each.

He was also a small-time bobcat trapper and taxidermist. He even de-scented two skunks for his children to keep as pets. 

Fly fishing is his passion, and he even wrote a few articles with fishing advice for The Park Record.

He’s always been an artist, as evidenced by the doodles on postcards he sent his mother while he was in the Navy. He also got into photography in recent years and crafts his own frames from barn wood.

He was a milkman for 17 years and stumbled in the role of first responder several times while walking his route. For example, when a car went off the side of a hill, killing two parents and leaving their two children injured, he was the first on the scene, performing first aid.

Another time, a muscular man fell out of the top story of a bar, splatting on the ground. His friends remarked that he wasn’t much of a bouncer. That’s right, Ted is also an amateur comedian if he can find an audience that will endure his jokes.

His advice to younger people is simple: “Don’t have calluses on your ass. Get up and do something.”

Kendall’s suspicion is that his father has made it to 99 because he’s always been physically and mentally busy.

Ted’s daughter, DeAnn Witt, said her father would always do three miles of his milk route at the crack of dawn before coming home for breakfast. 

His mantra was, “You don’t get breakfast until you’ve earned it.”

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Extell Development Company has continued its fuels reduction program this season at Deer Valley’s East Village, a multi-year effort designed to reduce wildfire risk while improving long-term forest health.

The project, which began three years ago, so far has treated 75 acres of land and created nearly 52 miles of fire breaks, with more acreage scheduled for work this year.

Evan Conley, project manager for Extell, said the project started with the company’s goal of balancing infrastructure protection with ecological restoration.

“One of the reasons it started is the owner of the property. He looked up here and said, ‘Why are some of the aspen patches not as thick as others?’” Conley said. “We brought in experts to help us figure out, ‘Hey, what is this balance of what we want to do?’”

Utah Department of Natural Resources Forester P.J. Abrams assessed which areas of the forest required intervention, identifying where Extell could accomplish multiple goals in one go.

“He did some evaluations of different pockets of forest that needed an improvement from the health standpoint, and then coupling that, this is a great opportunity to create some of those fire breaks,” Conley explained.

The two main ways a fire could start at the resort would be a spark off U.S. 40, as well as a possible blaze in the nearby state park, Conley said. In these areas, fuel reduction would decrease the risk of a fire and improve firefighters’ ability to fight a blaze.

That’s why the project became partner-oriented, Conley said. Fire officials were brought in alongside foresters to assess how to best manage the property. They got a “wish list” from Wasatch County Fire District Chief Eric Hales and began working through some of those asks. 

Crews have relied on a mix of heavy machinery and manual labor to thin vegetation, Conley said, determined by the slope and access of treatment areas. In some cases, operators used a robotically controlled machine that cuts and grinds smaller fuels like scrub oak. In others, contracted hand crews from groups such as Apex Fire Preparedness have cut and pile excess brush and trees, which will be burned in the fall and spring.

“We’re hoping to be able to continue that pace on a year-by-year standpoint,” Conley said. “But that comes out to a pretty significant financial commitment. So it’s all as long as we can keep showing him (Gary Barnett) that this is great, not just from a fire standpoint, but from a forest health standpoint as well.”

This type of forest management and disturbance does help revitalize forests that otherwise rely on wildfire, Conley explained.

“What I think a lot of people don’t understand is that fire is so important for these ecosystems because it’s what cycles them through their growth,” he said. 

In a press release, Hales expressed a similar perspective: That fuel reduction allows people to restore balance.

“Many landscapes have evolved with fire, but decades of suppression have allowed dangerous accumulations,” he said. “This work is to mimic natural processes and make communities safer.”

Conley pointed out areas where their efforts had thinned forests, juxtaposed by nearby areas choked with brush, small trees and low tree limbs. 

“This is gorgeous when it turns the fall colors. But from a fire standpoint, this is what you don’t want to see, where there’s all these different levels of fuels — canopies touching, you have the low burning fuels up to the ladder fuels,” Conley said.

For the project team, the primary goal remains protection of lodges, homes, ski lifts, snowmaking equipment, and water storage tanks. The work is designed to create a “mosaic forest” where breaks in tree canopy and vegetation can slow the spread of flames.

This thinning also encourages new growth. Soil disturbance caused by equipment helps seeds establish, while removing competing species gives native aspens, Douglas firs and maples a better chance to take hold.

In one 24-acre section, Scott “Petey” Peterson, Extell’s project manager for construction, pointed out a swath of 100-year-old aspen trees.  

“If you look at the forest floor, almost all the green stuff that’s poking up down there are new aspen starts,” Peterson said.

That was one of the first areas they treated, aiming to revitalize the critical species in the area. When they first cleared the excess vegetation last summer, the hillside seemed almost barren, Peterson said. But now, seeing the rapid recovery of the trees, it’s one of their clearest examples of how effective this work can be.

The work requires regular upkeep, which is why Extell established a dedicated foundation to fund mitigation efforts, with money earmarked for the next 20 years, Peterson said.

“It’s probably, in reality, somewhere between 15 and 20 years of being able to go through all the forest areas,” Peterson said. “In the meantime, the goal is to be going back and doing maintenance within three years of the critical areas.”

Hales said this strategy of intentional, planned fuels reduction, is essentially “stewardship in action.” 

“Fire is inevitable,” he said. “The question is whether we let it shape us through catastrophe, or whether we shape it through stewardship.”

Conley said the project team hopes their work inspires others in the region to undertake similar efforts, and said that it’s personally been a source of pride.

“It’s little projects like this forestry one that really help keep the soul of what you’re doing at work,” Conley said. “You’re not taking care of a forest to make money, you’re taking care of the forest because it’s the right thing to do. So an opportunity to do that as a couple people that are frequent outdoorsmen, it’s nice to be able to take care of the land that gives us so much.”

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Grand Hyatt Deer Valley said Thursday it anticipates welcoming its first guests this November.

With that, the resort would debut Deer Valley East Village and give a first look at the new Deer Valley terrain.

The hotel will feature approximately 400 luxury accommodations, according to a press release, including 100 discounted rooms reserved nightly for service members, multiple food and beverage options and “one of the largest mountainside event facilities in the U.S.”

“Grand Hyatt Deer Valley is set to redefine alpine luxury, bringing year-round adventure travel dreams to life by blending bespoke elegance, extraordinary amenities and a warm, family-friendly atmosphere,” said Grand Hyatt Deer Valley General Manager Anthony Duggan. “Our commitment to community collaboration and connectivity will also help ensure that we remain rooted in the values that make Deer Valley so special.”

According to Deer Valley, the East Village expansion is North America’s “first luxury alpine village to be developed since 1981.” Extell Development is leading development of the base area, while Deer Valley’s Expanded Excellence initiative drives the terrain expansion.

Grand Hyatt Deer Valley, what Deer Valley names as the center of Deer Valley East Village, will offer access to 300-plus new skiable acres for the 2024-25 season, several debut ski runs and three new chairlifts.

Grand Hyatt Deer Valley has nearly 30,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor event space. The resort said it will be one of the biggest conference destinations in a mountain community in North America and the largest in Park City.

The hotel aims to be “the pinnacle of excellence for meetings, celebrations and events in cutting-edge conference facilities,” according to Deer Valley. It will have in-house A/V support, custom digital signage and an exclusive event entrance.

Chef Marc Marrone, Chef Viktor Merenyi and New York City Mixologist Frank Maldonado will work together at the hotel. Grand Hyatt Deer Valley’s signature restaurant Remington Hall will feature “rustic American fare,” while Double Blacks, the resort’s coffee shop from Park City Coffee Roasters, will offer single-source bean coffee, breakfast, croughnuts and more. The resort’s Living Room will offer a “family après vibe” and serve hot chocolate and pastries.

The hotel will also have a heated outdoor pool, three “oversized” hot tubs and a pool deck with mountain views and a nighttime entertainment program. There’s also a “modern” fitness lounge with views of Jordanelle Reservoir.

For families, there will be a dedicated Camp Hyatt Kids Club, including “Nap-working Events,” a Kids’ Happy Hour and a hangout hub for gaming and socializing. The hotel will allow dogs up to 75 lbs. and feature a dog run, a special dog menu and other unspecified dog amenities.

Reservations are now open for stays beginning Nov. 20. For more information and to reserve, visit grandhyattdv.com. 

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