Deer Valley’s $500M Expansion Adds 3,700 Acres, 17 Lifts, and One of the Largest Gondolas in U.S. Ski History

In August 2023, Deer Valley Resort embarked on the Expanded Excellence initiative, a capital improvement project set to raise the Deer Valley experience across all parts of the resort, including the new East Village. Deer Valley is a skiers-only destination located in Park City, Utah, known for its luxury, service, food, amenities, and world-class skiing. Expanded Excellence will bring the addition of 3,700 skiable acres and 16 new chairlifts, including a two-stage gondola which will offer skiers both mid-mountain and summit options. 

Deer Valley’s terrain expansion was intended to debut for winter 2025-26 season. Beating its own timeline, Deer Valley Resort delivered by adding over 300 new skiable acres, three new chairlifts and 19 new runs all in time for winter 2024-25.  Among the key improvements is a new resort access point off Highway 40 with access to 500 new day-skier parking spots. This past season, the Keetley Express lift whisked people up from the new East Village base to Keetley Point, previously known as Sultan’s Nose. The terrain that opened last season offered guests a taste of the future expansion. The runs were mostly mellow greens and blues. The signature trail is a long blue run named Lady of the Lake. It spans 2.8 miles straight down from Keetley Point with gorgeous views of the reservoir and new East Village base. While 300 new acres is a lot, it is just a preview of what Deer Valley has planned, with 2,000 additional acres debuting winter 2025-26. No other ski resort has ever opened this much terrain in such a short time period. 

The flagship lift debuting in winter 2025-26 is the East Village Gondola. This lift carries skiers 2,570 feet from the newly opened East Village base to Park Peak at 9,100 feet. The gondola will have a mid-station at Big Dutch Peak. The East Village Gondola is two separate gondola systems put together giving the mountain operations team the ability to disable the upper portion in high winds and still operate the lower section. The East Village Gondola will drop skiers off at the brand new Park Peak and future Park Peak Lodge, set to open in winter 2026-27. The gondola will have 140 cabins, with space for 10 people per cabin. The gondola can transport 2,400 people per hour from base to summit. The lift is a Doppelmayr D-line, which like most other things at deer valley is luxurious. The D-line lifts offer a quiet and smoother ride than standard lifts. This lift features Direct Drive, which is a gearless rope system making the lift operation whisper quiet and more ecologically efficient. These lifts offer less maintenance and represent state of the art technology for the ski industry. 

The Pinyon Express lift, a six-pack heated bubble lift similar to Keetley Express, will open brand new terrain geared towards beginners at Park Peak. This D-line lift will likely be a main transporter for guests getting from the original Deer Valley to the expanded terrain. The lift will be serving beginner terrain at high elevation on the backside of Park Peak. This lift will serve one blue and a handful of green runs. Skiers will ride the lift 735 feet from the bottom where popular green runs Ontario and Trump join together all the way to the top of Park Peak (9,300 feet). This lift should alleviate congestion on Quincy Express by providing alternative green trails at high elevation.

If you skied Deer Valley last season, you may have noticed that to ski the Keetley terrain, you needed to take two lifts to enjoy the runs. This upcoming winter’s addition of Galena Express is going to address and fix that challenge. Galena Express starts where All Right meets McHenry, allowing skiers to lap Keetley Point’s signature Lady of the Lake or any other Keetley run using only one lift. The summit terminal of Galena is located adjacent to Keetley Express on Keetley Point. 

Two other new lifts will be called Neptune and Pioche, serving on-mountain luxury real estate. These two high speed quads are primarily residential access lifts, serving only some limited beginner terrain,  Located near the East Village base, skiers can ski down Daylight and pick up Pioche Express, landing at the top in a brand new area with easy greens and blues. Skiers can also reach this peak from the Neptune lift, which carries skiers up from the Pioche real estate development. From the top of Pioche or Neptune Express, skiers can ski down to the new Aurora chairlift (opened during the 2024-25 season) or Galena Express to get out of that terrain pod. Due to the lower elevation and direction this terrain faces, the snow quality may be worse than other parts of the mountain. At times during the season this area may be relying primarily on manmade snow. 

One of the most impressive lifts opening this upcoming season is Revelator Express, serving over 1,500 vertical feet in just a few minutes. Ski runs off Revelator will have long fall lines, including a glade run two times the size of X-files off Empire Express. Think of Revelator as Wasatch Express but with Empire-like terrain. From the summit terminal of Revelator, you can ski the signature run, Redemption, which is over twice as long as Stein’s Way. Due to its high elevation (9,354 feet) and north facing terrain, these runs will have prime snow conditions. This area should be great for expert skiers with gnarly, steep chutes, glades and long fall line runs. 

During the past two off-seasons, Deer Valley has been building 10 new lifts, adding 100 new runs and over 2,000 additional acres, effectively more than doubling the size of the historic resort. Once completed, with roughly 4,300 planned skiable acres across the entire resort during the 2025-26 season, Deer Valley would represent the 7th largest ski resort in the United States. If you think Deer Valley is done expanding, you couldn’t be more wrong. Deer Valley also plans to add around 800 additional acres of expert terrain, called South Peak. This expansion has been getting developed behind the scenes since 2013, but once Deer Valley was announced as the resort operator in August of 2023, it has been go-time. With 4,300 skiable acres planned by 2025–26, Deer Valley is undergoing a once-in-a-century transformation that’s reshaping the future of American skiing—and it’s not done yet.