Park City, Utah — It’s becoming tougher and tougher to find free parking at ski resorts in Utah. One of the best options during prior years was the Cabriolet lot at Park City Mountain Resort, which offered free parking and relatively convenient access to the lifts at the Canyons Village. That’s no longer going to be the case there due to recent developments.
Yesterday, Park City Mountain Resort announced that parking in the Cabriolet lot will go from being free to costing $29 daily for the 2026-27 season. The move is intended to reduce the number of cars on the road, increase carpooling, and encourage more people to ride the buses. For those who like to ski on the Canyons side in the morning, there will be a parking season pass.
If you’re stingy like Mr. Krabs, there are some workarounds. The first workaround is that the surface lot next to the parking garage will remain free. However, you’ll have to get up early to secure one of the limited spots. The second option is to arrive after 12 p.m., which gets you free access, even to the new garage. The third option is carpooling with four or more people, which gives you free access at any time. Farther-away parking lots, like the one at Park City High School, will also still have free parking.
The new parking garage is currently under construction. Part of it opened this past winter, but it was still free for patrons. They closed the parking garage again in March to resume construction. The full parking garage and the Cabriolet’s replacement (a ten-person gondola system) will debut during the 2026-27 season.
The move ultimately seemed inevitable, as parking garages don’t come cheap. In Utah, Solitude considered a parking garage in the past but decided against it due to the cost. Developed by TCFC (the master developer of the Canyons Village), the project needs a way to recoup its costs. Frankly, this is not as bad a parking policy as I was expecting. I do wonder if it will become a year-round price to go there, as that would make parking there less attractive.
This follows the introduction of paid parking reservations in Mountain Village in 2022. This added $29 parking reservations to the lots around the Park City side of the mountain. Like on the Canyons side, you can park for free there after 12 p.m.
Remarkably, what’s known as one of Utah’s most expensive ski resorts, Deer Valley, is now the only one with consistently free parking at its two core base areas. However, that could also change in the future if the Snow Park base village is built.
Image/Video Credits: Park City Mountain Resort, AGG-DEA
