Beyond the film festival—why Sundance is the ski resort to visit this year

“We’ve been skiing here since we were little kids,” says my chairlift companion, Devon. “We love it here.” I’m sitting on the four-seater Red’s Lift in Sundance Mountain Resort next to local brothers, Devon and Clovel Anderson, travelling the 2,515 metres up to Bearclaw Summit station on the slopes of Sundance’s highest peak, Mount Timpanogos.

Wearing matching woolly hats, goggles and walrus moustaches, the sixtysomething siblings are diehard Sundance fans. “It’s my therapy,” says Clovel. “Skiing here feels like freedom.” With empty slopes and serene views of the Heber and Utah Valleys, and the surrounding Wasatch mountains, it does feel a world away from some of the state’s mega-resorts. 

I had arrived in Sundance a day earlier, the last stop on a week-long road trip through some of Utah’s ski resorts including upscale Deer Valley and its neighbouring mega-resort of Park City, some 20 miles to the north. Despite being new to Sundance, like many, I was familiar with the name, despite knowing little about its ski area.

Until recently, Sundance was owned by American actor, director and producer Robert Redford, who died in 2025. Redford discovered the area in 1961 while driving his motorbike through Provo Canyon in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains, where he came across the pine-covered slopes of Mount Timpanogos. He immediately fell in love and purchased two acres of land for $500 (around £180 at the time).

Eight years later, with a healthy bank balance following the success of his 1969 film, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Redford returned, buying thousands more acres. He also purchased the small, mom-and-pop Timp Haven ski hill that had been established in 1944 by Scottish immigrant settlers, the Stewart family. Redford renamed the area Sundance after his character in the movie and vowed to “develop little, preserve much”, placing most of the land aside as a nature conservation. Today, over 70% of the resort’s land remains permanently protected.

A new chapter

My arrival in Sundance coincides with a new chapter in its history. In 2020, Redford sold the resort to two real estate investment firms, Broadreach Capital Partners and Cedar Capital Partners, with an understanding that the new owners would continue to respect its unique character and independence. Unlike many US ski resorts, Sundance is not part of the international Epic or Ikon lift pass networks.

And yet, there have been significant changes in the last few years including an expansion project that’s adding 165 acres of new terrain and debuting the resort’s first hotel. Previously, guests stayed at one of the self-catering log cabins clustered near the resort base. “This was always part of the plan,” says Leslie Brand, who heads up the marketing for these new Sundance projects. “But Robert Redford didn’t have the money to make all these changes himself.” 

The new Inn at Sundance Mountain Resort has only been open a few weeks when I check in. It’s a beautiful hotel, set at the base of the Outlaw Express lift — another new addition to the ski area — decorated with tributes to Redford, including a vintage Honda CL-350 Scrambler, a replica of the motorcycle he was riding when he first came upon Provo Canyon.

I’m shown to my room in the Ridge lodge, one of the Inn’s two low-slung buildings that sit either side of the North Fork Creek, and from my balcony, I have unobstructed views of the soaring, pyramid-like summit of Mount Timpanogos. It’s easy to see how Redford fell in love with the place.

I spend my first day exploring the ski area. With just 71 runs and six lifts across 540 acres, Sundance is tiny when compared with some of Utah’s other resorts — nearby Deer Valley has 4,300 skiable acres. But it’s also significantly cheaper, and it very much delivers when it comes to skiing.

At least it does during a good snow year. Unfortunately, my trip coincides with the state’s worst winter in nearly 30 years, and half of Sundance’s runs are closed — including those in the new terrain. From my perch on Red’s Lift, I can see what look like thrilling black and double-black chutes on the resort’s back mountain and vow to return to the slopes when they’re open.

But rather than fixating on places I can’t ski, I make the most of what’s open, bombing down the Bearclaw blue run, and making my way through the trees along Freddie’s and Holman’s Hollow black runs. At lunchtime I refuel at Bearclaw Cabin, a single-storey wooden hut named after the eccentric mountain man in Redford’s film Jeremiah Johnson, where I tuck into the house speciality, an enormous plateful of pork nachos.

More than a ski resort

That evening, I stroll from the Inn over to the Village, home to the resort’s two restaurants and handful of shops. I stop by the Owl Bar and enjoy a pre-dinner Gaucho — Sundance’s version of a spicy margarita — perched at the rosewood bar once frequented by the real Butch Cassidy and his gang of outlaws. Redford bought the bar in 1994 and had it shipped here from Wyoming. It’s a creative touch, but Sundance has always been more than just a ski area. It has welcomed artists, writers and filmmakers for as long as it has skiers and boarders. In 1981, Redford launched the Sundance Institute to champion indie films and filmmakers, and took over the Utah/US Film Festival, renaming it the Sundance Film Festival — although the event was always held outside the resort, largely in Park City. And now that, too, is changing. From 2027, the annual January festival will be held in Boulder, Colorado.

Taking time out from the slopes the following afternoon, I visit the resort’s Art Studio and Gallery where potters, painters and glassblowers are hard at work, joining Asia Raine for a jewellery-making class. Asia has been teaching at Sundance since 2020 but skiing here for much longer.

“You will always take something away with you, whether that’s the ski experience, a good meal or a piece of art,” she says, as she patiently guides me through the ring-making process. As I slip the newly crafted ring onto my finger, I certainly feel a union with these mountains. “It’s the Sundance way,” notes Asia.