Park City Blog

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No King's Crown Park This Year, but We Have a Plan: B

— Posted by Park City Mountain Resort on January 24, 2012

Seriously, no King’s Crown? We know it’s hard to hear. It wasn’t an easy decision, nor was it made lightly, but we wanted to give some insight on the decision-making process.

Lower than normal natural snowfall means we've made snow on several runs where we typically don't. That has put us behind schedule on King's Crown snowmaking
Building King's Crown to our standards means around 200 hours of additional snowmaking
Looking at long-range forecasts, and the work remaining for our snowmakers, we could be into mid-February before we've made enough snow to start pushing on King's Crown
After the snow is made, our cat guys would still need a couple more weeks to build the park. That puts us well into March before we're able to open up the terrain.

After looking at this for a while we’ve decided to go with Plan B: putting the snowmaking guns back on Quicksilver, pronto! 50 hours of additional snowmaking on Quicksilver will give us a larger jump line in just a few weeks - a fraction of the time King's Crown would require.

We know it’s not what you want to hear. We will do all we can to continue to knock it out of the park in 3 Kings. We look forward to bringing King’s Crown back next season, better than ever.

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It was great to have Kings Crown open as a regular run this season instead of a terrain park. It is a great cruiser. In years past, seeing the amount of time and energy it takes to build that park, and the amount of people that actully use it, the cost is not justified.

— Posted by Cliff D on January 30, 2012 12:41 PM MST

I undertand that King's Crown is the most advanced of the terrain parks; however for us non park users, it is a beautiful run that we have discovered. That was the one GOOD thing that occured due to the lack of snow in the early season: opening up King's Crown as a run and NOT a terrain park.

We appreciate a " new " run off of the Payday chair !

Let's hope this is the only year that the park users have this happen to them ie. normal snow fall forever in our future....SAVE OUR SNOW & Global Warming etc. etc. etc. !!!!

— Posted by Jennifer on January 25, 2012 7:37 PM MST

Payday/Treasure Hollow/ Homerun are way too crowded - it is SO-OOO nice to have King's Crown back. The amount of time and effort that PCMR puts into the terrain parks is already way more than the percentage of riders/skiers who use it, way out of proportion. The parks get first dibs on pretty much everything. Pls don't build Jonesy's and don't build King's Crown. Concentrate on the regular folks for a change...!

— Posted by Laura on January 24, 2012 11:27 PM MST

I completely agree !

— Posted by Jennifer on January 25, 2012 7:23 PM MST

remember that 90% of the park skiers that paid for season passes bought them because Park City advertised Kings Crown terrain park. Also keep in mind that there are 16 lifts, 130 runs, and only 3 terrain parks. This year there are only 2 terrain parks. That means that while had a .7% increase in runs we had a 33% decrease in terrain parks. You might say "who needs 3 terrain parks". Well, park city focuses on progression so that skiers can become better safely. They have the ridge for beginners. three kings for intermediates, and kings crown for experts. Losing the most advanced terrain park hurts everyone.

ALSO, keep in mind that these days it has been found that teenagers pick the vacation destinations for their families. If park city can no longer market one of the best terrain parks in the world, these kids will convince their parents to go to Keystone or Breckenridge instead of Park City. This hurts the resort as a whole and also hurts you "regular folks".

— Posted by Josh on January 25, 2012 12:33 PM MST

The thing that sucks most about this is that now every single park (except ridge) is crowded onto a single lift. Even with the faster lift the park gets way way way too crowded. With Kings Crown way too many little kids are afraid to even go in there, you could go ride the park solo when 3 kings got too crowded. I agree, go make the park up on Jonesey's again. Higher elevation = cooler temps. Already more snow up there than on the lower mountain. The problem with not having Jonesey's is that in the spring the park on 3 kings melts out too quickly. GO BUILD IT!!

ALSO. There is no reason why you couldn't just set up a triple wide rail line all the way down kings crown. There are SO SO SO SO SO many rails just sitting up in the bone yard that will never be used. Go set 3 rail lines up on Kings Crown and build some bigger jumps in 3 Kings. That way its like you left an intermediate park on Kings Crown and have both an intermediate and advanced park line on 3 Kings!!!

— Posted by JOsh on January 24, 2012 10:54 PM MST

So for this year, go ride King's Crown the trial. It's a beautiful run!!

— Posted by Mark Huling on January 24, 2012 5:26 PM MST

I agree with Matt S. Jonsey's was one of my farorite terrain parks PC has ever built.

— Posted by Jimmy on January 24, 2012 5:17 PM MST

Thanks for the update. Any hope for Jupiter by early February? (fingers and all toes crossed!)

— Posted by David on January 24, 2012 4:32 PM MST

You're welcome David.
We've got a post going up shortly on the PCMR blog that talks about Jupiter. Hopefully it will open sooner than February, but it's been a really odd year for snow. We'll keep you posted!

— Posted by Park City Mountain Resort on January 24, 2012 4:37 PM MST

You can do Jonesy's park again. It was always fun to have a park on the back mountain and it was a medium size park that was a blast.

— Posted by Matt S. on January 24, 2012 1:03 PM MST