Utah's Deer Valley beckons skiers this season—here's why

“I sent 900 potential names for the new runs,” says Michael O’Malley, my ski guide. His kind, weathered face suddenly takes on a solemn look. The retired executive’s self-nominated task took weeks of research. “I waded through reels and reels of old microfilm and maps in the basement of Park City Museum looking for the names of mining claims for inspiration, and I’m delighted some suggestions made the cut, especially Green Monster. I’m now waiting to see if Ping Pong will be used for a mogul run.”

Former marketing exec Michael has been skiing in Deer Valley for 20 years, cementing the Utah resort firmly into the fabric of his life. That he was so dedicated to its growing identity — from former mining backcountry to an expanding modern ski town in need of names for its new pistes — was of little surprise. The upmarket destination’s exceptional service is one thing, but quite how genuinely the inhabitants of this resort in Utah’s high-mountain desert care for it is another.

Set 45 minutes’ drive east of Salt Lake City in the Wasatch Mountains, Deer Valley is high — very high. Sitting at 2,000m, its altitude can make it hard for the unacclimated to sleep and stay hydrated. But, on the plus side, it’s often exceptionally snowy. The ski-only resort is largely staffed by retired business execs, of which Michael is one. The theory being that someone who’s worked at the top knows more about service — and life — than a fresh-out-of-college ski bum.

Whether they’re ferrying guests around in spotless white Range Rovers, manning the ski lifts, shop and ticket kiosk or hosting skiers on the mountain, these retirees live and breathe Deer Valley and help provide the excellence on which it trades. In return for their unwavering service, they receive one of the world’s most prized season passes, worth $3,900 (£2,913; almost double the cost of a season pass in, say, the Trois Vallées in France).

Soon, that pass is set to take in even more ski terrain. Over the coming years, Deer Valley will grow from 2,342 skiable acres and 122 runs to a whopping 5,726 skiable acres and 238 runs across 10 mountain peaks with a second base, Deer Valley East Village, built entirely from scratch. It’s the biggest expansion of any US ski resort in more than 50 years and will make Deer Valley one of the largest in the country.

Riding a lift from the base up to Silver Lake Lodge, I’m forced to explain to Michael that, as a Brit, I’d like the safety bar down. I’ve never understood why skiers in the litigation-heavy US are happy to dangle freely from lifts. Our fellow passengers, two resort staff including a ski patroller, happily comply with a giggle and we soon arrive safely. With the runs not yet kissed by the sun, we start with two blues, Big Stick and Little Stick. These immaculately groomed trails cut through thick pine forests, with seemingly not a needle out of place.

Before arriving here, I’d presumed Deer Valley was one of those resorts to be seen more than skied. But after a few hundred feet, Little Stick rolls over a lip and the pitch steepens dramatically: a proper challenge. Applying sudden pressure to the edge of my ski, the binding releases and I fall, heavily, leaving me seeing stars. It’s an ironic example of that litigious US spirit writ large; ski hire shops often set bindings to release boots from skis more readily than in Europe — in theory reducing injury risk, at least for less dynamic skiers.

On the ride up I’d asked to ski hard. Taking me at my word, Michael — in his late 60s, two decades older than me — is nowhere to be seen. Retrieving my hurt pride and a ski that had gone awol, I find my smiling host waiting patiently for me in the sunshine beside the St Regis Deer Valley hotel. Like much of the accommodation in the region, the St Regis is ‘slopeside’. Perfect for pit stops, the large, imposing building is set at a not-insignificant altitude of 2,271m and has an inviting, sunny terrace. However, it feels a little too early for its signature 7452 Mary — a Bloody Mary named after the hotel’s altitude in feet — so I gather myself and we ski on.

A tale of two ski resorts

I’d started my trip warming up on the slopes in neighbouring Park City Mountain Resort, some three miles north. On a good snow day, this takes in the US’s biggest skiable area, at 7,800 acres. Many British visitors to Utah prefer to stay in Park City — drawn by its cool, younger vibe and diverse, all-abilities terrain — and take a day or two over in Deer Valley. The two resorts often share record levels of Utah’s trademarked ‘Greatest Snow on Earth’. Famously light and dry thanks to the desert conditions, snowfall here is sometimes around twice that of Rockies resorts in neighbouring Colorado. But the scenery and atmosphere of these neighbouring resorts couldn’t be more different.

While Deer Valley is wooded and bans snowboarders, Park City is more open, with treeless sunny slopes, and is staffed by a younger crew. The two are separated by a fence nicknamed the ‘DMZ’ (‘Demilitarized Zone’) by locals for what it represents: a divide between two rival territories. Deer Valley’s owner is the Alterra Mountain Company and Park City’s is Vail Resorts — two competing behemoths of the ski world that market the multi-resort Ikon and Epic lift passes respectively.

Somewhere between these two terrains, I find a historic silver mining town, the original Park City. Its Main Street, where Old West-style clapboard houses come in pretty colours, is lined with some 50 restaurants, smart homeware and jewellery stores ideal for aspirational window-shopping and — unexpectedly — three original works by Banksy. Founded in the late 1860s by prospectors, the town has a hard-living mining history but is now home to a rich arts and culture scene and the annual Sundance Film Festival.

The sun does always seem to shine here in this high-mountain desert, a balm for winter-weary UK souls. On the following bright December morning, I set out to explore Deer Valley’s slopes by myself. The pistes are impressively steep in places but gentle and wide in others, all cut through glades of birch or pine. I ski past luxurious private homes tucked away high up on the mountain and wonder which celebrities currently have a base here. Taylor Swift is rumoured to have set up home, as well as Lisa Kudrow, but since Deer Valley was the scene of Gwyneth Paltrow’s infamous ski accident and ensuing court case, her property here was sold some time ago.

Given the resort’s discreetly high-end vibe, I wonder how much the coming colossal expansion will commercialise and change things. I ride the Mountaineer Express chairlift to Little Baldy Peak, which sits at the edge of the new terrain. Here, I can see construction work at Deer Valley East Village, which will eventually contain at least seven new hotels. Part of the resort’s unique ski experience is that it offers a crowd-free guarantee — skier numbers are capped at 2,000 per day. I’m curious to know how this expansion will be managed when numbers rise to a 3,000-skiers-a-day cap after the works are complete, plus an influx of 2,000 more employees with, as yet, no obvious places to stay in-resort, which will put pressure on local roads and infrastructure.

Hoping for answers, I meet up with Garrett Lang, Deer Valley’s director of mountain operations, at the Silver Lake Lodge restaurant, which sits pretty on a plateau at the intersection of the lifts to Bald Mountain and Flagstaff Mountain, the ski area’s top two peaks. After a coffee break, we set off again to Little Baldy Peak. Here, we duck under a rope so that Garrett can point out the just-opened 381-room Grand Hyatt in the new base, along with the Keetley Express chairlift and the new terrain’s north-facing blue slopes, which will have a phased opening over the next few years. He also indicates the location of the Green Monster, as named by Michael; at 7.5km, this beginner’s route is unusually long for the US.

Warmer, drier starts to winter are becoming increasingly common in Utah, so snowmaking is key. Any mention of artificial snow fills most European skiers with dread, but I’m genuinely surprised by the lack of ice. Snow guns only work below freezing, or a top layer of watery ice forms. “We let the water leech out in the dry desert atmosphere for a couple of days,” says Garrett. “Then we plough, letting it sit for another night, and finally put the till [piste groomer] on it.”

December has been dry and warm here and all of the snow I’ve been skiing on is artificial. The result of Garrett’s work is remarkable; if it wasn’t for the surrounding green mountains, as yet to see proper snow cover, I wouldn’t know the stuff was man-made. We glide around the summit slopes over perfect powdery, dry pistes with no trace of ice — better than a lot of natural snow in Europe.

Because of the water rights it recently secured, Deer Valley can make more snow than Park City, and while I’m visiting, has more slopes open. Worried about being seen as an environmental bulldozer — traditional snow canons are carbon hungry — Garrett notes that 80% of the electricity used for making snow is renewable and that 80-85% of water goes back into the water table. But in the next breath, he adds, “the expansion here will never stop.” Case in point, Deer Valley will increase its car parking capacity from 500 to 1,200 slots in a space carved into the mountain beneath Little Baldy Peak rather than — as one might have hoped — improving public transport to bus in all those new workers, if not the guests, too.

I think back to my morning skiing with Michael, when we’d stopped for a creamy hot chocolate at Cushings Cabin (2,773m). Here, Deer Valley reveals the most jaw-dropping of its always-spectacular views — a panorama of big skies across what seemed like the whole of Utah’s peaks and plains — and he’d regaled me with tales of the landscape’s past. I was so enthused about the local history he’d recounted, I spent the afternoon in Park City Museum, immersing myself in the story of the area’s evolution from a tiny mining town.

Utah has never really been on the radar for British skiers, but it should be. Abundant snow (2022-23 broke records) plus plenty of sunshine, immaculate grooming and passionate service from the retiree staff-base all combine to give Deer Valley its distinctive, exclusive-yet-welcoming ambiance. Perhaps this expansion will bring a new wave of Brits to the American West.