Eden, Utah — After approval from Cache County, Powder Mountain will build four new chairlifts this summer.
Utah Public Radio reports that the Cache County Council voted 4–3 to approve two new lifts at Powder Mountain. This move allows Powder Mountain to swerve past the typical zoning procedure laws to start construction immediately on two new chairlifts that were previously announced. Powder Mountain claimed that these steps needed to be skipped in order to complete them in time for the 2024-25 season. These approved projects are the new Lightning Ridge and Raintree lifts, the latter of which will be only available to private members of the ski resort. The Lightning Ridge and Raintree lifts weren’t a part of their master plan, thus needing approval from Cache County.
Next season, Powder Mountain will transition from a public to a semi-private ski resort. The Hidden Lake, Lightning Ridge, Saddle Horn Sundown, Rope Tow, Sunrise, and Timberline lifts will be open to the public, while the Marys, Raintree, and Village lifts will be only for private club members.
To pay for the $100 million investment that new owner Reed Hastings is putting into the mountain, Powder Mountain is about to get a lot pricier. Club membership fees will cost between $30,000 to $100,000. The price for an adult season pass for this upcoming winter is a whopping $1,649, a substantial increase over the past few years.
Powder Mountain’s chief development officer, Brooke Hontz, defended this pricing hike by pointing out their uncrowded guest experience:
“The experience you have is far greater than any dollar amount that we could put with that.”
In terms of the progress on their other two chairlifts, PowMow has made decent progress so far this summer. The video above shows the work done so far on Timberline. Dissasembly on the Paradise chairlift began last week, as the parts will be saved for a future lift project. A video update on the Paradise high-speed quad project will be coming in the near future.
Image/Video Credits: Powder Mountain
