Park City vs. Vail: An Exhaustive Comparison

As somebody who lives in park city, this video is pretty accurate

Assuming no traffic, PC is only 20 minutes from slc airport. I live in PC, I know what I’m talking about

Park City or Keystone?

Can someone explain the chair lift going over a main road?

I've been to both several times, and your report reflects my experiences there accurately. Nice job presenting the facts.

Not sure how you could possible rank Vail and PC the same for snow. On an average year they see roughly the same amount of snow (with Park City averaging about 20-30 more inches per year), but Vail is just consistently in the 200-250" range year after year, whereas Park City (and Utah in general) are prone to more massive swings, with the worst year in Utah being roughly the bottom of a typical year in Colorado (175-200"). But Vail's best season in the past 10 years was 313". Park City has double that this year, and neighboring mountains are outpacing PC by 200+ inches in the Cottonwoods since storms sit there. And a bad season at Vail you're SOL. A bad season at PC and you just go to the Cottonwoods instead where there worst season in the past 10 years is on par with Vail's best season in the past 10 years.

Don't get me wrong, I love the Colorado mountains, they offer amazing terrain and that aspect of Vail is far and away better than PC. But the snow quality in Colorado compared to Utah is just a different ballpark. I'd give Vail a 5 or 6 here and keep PC at an 8.

I also will add the trek to get to Vail is what turns me off the most. From SLC it's a quick 45 min drive to almost a dozen world class mountains. From Denver it's an excruciating drive always in traffic and the roads are awful.

Also the inaccessibility of PC's off-piste terrain means it's a great option on otherwise meh days. Still doesn't compare to the back bowls at Vail, but the hiking issue dissuades a lot of people from skiing much of the truly challenging/very fun terrain.

Park City is 30 minutes from Salt lake airport. Not 1 hour.

i go with vail, it is just such a beautiful magical town, its isolation isnt really an issue for me since it is in close proximity to every other skii resort!

love the vids

canada 🇨🇦 >>

Not a fan of the snow in Utah. Every time I go I’m skiin on trees and rocks

in this video we compare two completely overrated shitty resorts. which one is worse? who cares?

I’ve skied PC a ton, and Vail a little. The main thing I didn’t like about Vail was the parking.
Regarding lines, the only problem I’ve had is getting up on the Canyons side, where’s there’s only two ways up, a gondola and bubble chair, so if it’s crowded it can back up, or if the gondola isn’t working, or there’s high winds. But other than that, I haven’t experienced any waits on the chair lifts (but I avoid the times when it’s most crowded).

In terms of skiing, an advantage of PC (and I suspect Vail is the same), it’s so big, you can find many runs of what you like. I like trees and bumps that aren’t too difficult, so I don’t have to ski in survival mode, and there are plenty of runs like that. I really like that it’s 3 miles away and I don’t have to pay anything for parking.

I've skied Park City for about 25 years and I've spent a lot of time at Vail. I'd say the Canyons side of Park City is a mess. I found Vail to not have much good expert terrain. I found Vail fairly boring. However, I think you really need to know the mountain at Park City to really appreciate it. I think two really bad things happened at Park City. The first was being purchased by Vail, which is terrible at managing resorts. The second was merging with the Canyons which really didn't help at all. Having lived in Glenwood Springs for a while, I disagree that Vail has better snow. Colorado generally doesn't compare to Utah for snow. The worst thing to happen to skiing though, are the Epic and Ikon passes. Pretty much destroyed local skiing.

not the vail gondola lines this year

Great comparison! Really love your vids.

Just a suggestion for future vids; compare the ski towns / apres ski of various CO resorts. Also a video on less traveled ski resorts that don’t belong to the Epic or Icon pass.

Canyons is a long way from ParkCity.

Park City is possibly the worst destination area in North America!

Lake Tahoe better with Heavenly cause there is the blue lake to look at.

Vail is much better than PC, no doubt...however, when the storms roll into Utah, and even though PC gets half the snow AltaBird gets, PC does get better dumps than Vail, unfortunately.

Skied Colorado, Utah, California, Idaho, Big Sky, Whistler Blackcomb, Switzerland, France & Italy but there’s nothing like Vail out there.

Park city isn’t the world class and Vail is at least 2 class ahead and it’s not that park city is bad just Vail is way ahead.

I have to disagree with your assessment of Vail’s terrain in comparison to Park City. The depth and variance of difficulty of Park City’s terrain far outclasses Vail. Vail is an overwhelmingly intermediate mountain while Park City boasts better runs that cover the entire difficulty spectrum. You talked about Jupiter bowl and how hard it was to get to, but barely touched on 9990! 9990 beats out anything Vail has difficulty wise with the easy expert lift access except maybe Sundown Bowl. While I agree that the choke points in Park City are super annoying, the same thing ends up happening in Vail but worse because everyone wants to get to the same terrain. Vail’s better layout also comes with a price: half of its terrain is catwalks or roads to get to chairlifts. Not to mention 2/7 of the Back Bowls need the best conditions to be skiable. One of them (Inner Mongolia) is unskiable 100% of the time because its too flat to get proper speed during its best conditions. If you’re an intermediate skier, you’ll have a blast. But if you’re an expert skier, it won’t take long for you to be bored of the constant catwalks and roads and pissed at the crowds. Chair #26 has great cruiser terrain though, I usually hang out there. Sorry for the rant lol.

Both money hungry resorts that won’t to suck up every penny you got. Go somewhere that’s owned by the locals

My kids are starting to share my passion for skiing. Still small ages 6 and 4. We live in Midwest and have skied most resorts in the Michigan/Wisconsin area. As we all know skiing is not the cheapest hobby especially if you have little kids tagging along. I love your videos and appreciate all the detailed and HONEST deep dives you put out. With that being said I want to plan an epic family ski trip in the upcoming season (23/24). What would you say would be the best and most pocket friendly way 💰 to make this a possibility? Which ski pass/destination would offer the best experience for the entire family? Personally I love skiing out in Utah but I’m not married to it and would be open to any advice and suggestions. Thank you for your videos!

In Vail, rich people go there or outside the US, like the wealthy white Mexicans. In Park City, it's average white folks. Nothing is wrong, but it depends on what you're looking for during your ski trip.

Park city is not scenic that to me is the biggest drawback

As a snowboarder I think Powder Mountain and Brighton are good choices. When I went to Utah the Canyons had hikeable back bowls. Kinda funny sign "warning entering back country not patrolled death can result. Then said have fun" I liked that.

oh wow, PC and canyons are connected now? didnt know that. i had a park city season pass in 2005, was a great mountain. the run down from the top to the bottom at the end of the day was always an epic long run, great place.

Park City is trash bro 😂

I lived in Park City for years and it has a certain something that doesn’t really show up in statistics- you really have to experience it.

The "Town" of vail is a glorified Truckstop. Beaver Creek is only 10 miles away and about 10 minutes on a normal day.

There is almost always powder if you go out of bounds on the catwalk on 9990

Vail is also close to Breckenridge, Beaver etc

Your videos are well done. I just subscribed to your channel yesterday and I absolutely love the channel so far.

My 2 favorite resorts along with Heavenly & Jackson Hole.

I liked PC but there is no comparison with skiable territory. PC is good, Vail is amazing. I'm not sure of any top to bottom run at PC that compares to any of the many at Vail.

You forgot to mention that you are more likely to see a Kardashian at Vail.

One big PC advantage is that if you are on a limited budget (think less than $500 per night), you can stay in Salt Lake area and get a nice hotel with a reasonably priced restaurants and lots of activities besides skiing. It only takes about 30 minutes to drive up the canyon from say the Zoo or the Sugar House area. And if you are in SL area and Little Cottonwood gets a powder day by PC does not it is about 30 minutes to get to Alta or Snowbird. If your budget allows for $1k+ per night, Vail is probably a better option.

I've been to both at least 30 days. Some thoughts.
Park in the garage under the Town lift at PC. Always a spot and you do not have to walk.
Ski PC one day and Canyons the next (park there). This mitigates lift problems.
Vails back bowls are unique in skiing. On a powder day this is where to be. Also Sprint to Blue Sky in the morning and ski down the back bowls. The crowd won't catch up for at least a couple hours.
Front side of Vail is mostly ho-hum and the back bowls get rough if its been a few days since the last snow.
The town of PC is WAY better than artificial Vail Village.
If you ski difficult terrain the Alta/Snowbird combo is in a class above either of these for terrain and snow quality.

Please consider doing a video on Mt Bohemia in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

I prefer vail much much much more… park city can never seem to consistently keep their terrain open.

Park city will be too much of a desert soon for tourists to ski

The reviewer is obviously a skier. Snowboarders stay away from Vail. My buddy and I went to Vail for the first time since we started snowboarding 20 years ago and we will not be back. Too many cat-tracks and flats!!

I have been to Vail not PC. I’ve seen PC from the road—I ski mostly LCC and BCC. Vail is a better place to ski than PC. Vail back bowl is awesome. On powder days stick to front side cause everyone is in the back bowl. I probably shouldn’t have given away my pow secret for Vail.

Saw way too many permanent snow/ice making machines so no to both. Any resorts that have permanent ice makers on the slopes use them far to often so the snow will always be garbage

Like others have corrected, the drive from SLC to PC is 35 minutes, even during the winter. On its best day, the trip from Denver airport to Vail is over 2 hours. This is a huge thing to consider and something most don't realize. While it isn't the point of the video, the nightlife and town experience of Park City is far superior to Vail.

Lmao, snowmass is above vail. Snowmass.. ha

I'd rather ski Whistler/Blackcomb