Vail's coming to Park City...

I was surprised but not shocked when I heard yesterday that Vail Resorts would be operating Canyon Resort, here in Park City. Vail had tried to purchase that operation in 2009, only to be over-bid by Talisker its current owner. Talisker's timing couldn't have been worst, just in the middle of the financial crisis and dwindling visitations, plus couldn't really turn the Park West culture and perception of yesteryear into the Waldorf Astoria league...

This, I believe will be great news for Park City as it may pave the way to more integration between Park City Mountain Resort (PCMR) and Canyons; most likely an interconnect if not a total merger of the two. Under the new agreement, Vail will become PCMR new landlord and may accelerate the pace towards full integration of the two operations. This is partly because Vail won't be content to paying a $25 million annual rent if skier-days at Canyons stubbornly remain under 500,000. These numbers will have to shoot up to over a million and they will, shortly making our three resorts the biggest operation in North America and bringing the extra visitors needed to fuel that growth.

Gone will be the days when we skied Canyons and had the mountain to ourselves, but this will be a bonanza for the entire community except also for 4 pm traffic and late afternoon grocery and liquor shopping!