Is Park City Mountain cursed?

...Or is it poor management all over again?

The previous owners of the ski area, lost their business by missing on a lease renewal deadline and today, Park City Mountain Resort (PMC), owned by Vail Resorts had to close one area of its best high-elevation terrain as a result of a landowner unwilling to renew a lease.

It appears that for the current season, skiers will have less than the 7,300 acres of snow to play into, if and when the matter gets resolved. Clearly, PMC seems all but on top of its lease management! The net result is that Scott's Bowl and West Scott's Bowl, all the way to the Constellation zone, off Pinecone Ridge, are closed to the public.

The Silver King Mining Company owns that land(it seems to be, in fact, the company that developed The Colony, at the Canyons) . Its origins date to Park City's silver-mining era of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Its president is Jack Gallivan whose family has longtime ties to Park City.

Gallivan, said that the Silver King Mining Company controls approximately 1,000 acres of land in the Park City area and Big Cottonwood Canyon. The land involved in the former lease with PCMR covered approximately 115 acres, he said.


While it's partially located on the current “interconnect” itinerary between Park City and Big Cottonwood Canyon. He also said a portion of the property, located in an unincorporated area of Summit County, could be developed with houses, which in my opinion is an impossibility due to the fact that parcel is totally landlocked.

This closure is based on the loss of the lease "until further notice", that condition upon the situation getting resolved. Skiers can still access Pinecone Ridge terrain off the Quicksilver Gondola top station.

However the back-country accessible from PMC can only be entered from the resort’s dedicated exits at 9990 and Peak 5.

This incident further revealed that the rest of the Jupiter terrain is actually owned by Alterra Mountain Company (the resort's biggest competitor) and leased to Vail Resorts, so PMC better watch carefully this other one!