Snow Park: Breaking Trail for Deer Valley

In 1946, Park City got its first ski resort when two friends, Otto Carpenter and Bob Burns, leased some land from a mine company and built what they called Snow Park. It stood where lower Deer Valley Resort is located today. With permission, they borrowed the name for the resort from a local ski club called the Snow Park Ski Club. Burns and Carpenter had little money, but they had most of the skills to build it themselves. Burns was a machinist and Carpenter was skilled in working with wood. The initial ski lift was a T-bar, but it failed to work properly on the steep slope covered with deep snow. By the second season they had converted the T-bar to a one-passenger chair lift, powered by a Ford truck engine. With a play on Carpenterâs name, the lift became known as the Ottobahn.

Using recycled wood, the two friends built a warming hut where the wives of Burns and Carpenter made and sold hamburgers,chili, coffee, hot chocolate, soft drinks and candy. The hut also had a pot bellied stove to help skiers warm up and dry off. The tiny family ski resort was open only on weekends and holidays, charging $2.50 for adult and $1.00 for children. However, an eager boy or girl was never turned away from a day of skiing.

A second less intimidating chair lift was installed in 1949 to serve a beginner skier area called the Play Pen. The lift was appropriately named the Play Pen Express. Snow Park soon became the center of winter sports in Park City, which it remained until Treasure Mountains Resort opened in 1963.
In 1954, Burns decided to spend more time in his machine shop and sold his interest in Snow Park to Carpenter, who immediately installed lights for night skiing and began hosting tubing and skiing parties for groups. In the late 1960s Carpenter was encouraged to expand Snow Park, but when the mine
company would not renew the lease on the land, Carpenter quietly closed Snow Park in 1969. Deer Valley ResortÕs Snow Park Lodge, the Carpenter Express and the Burns Lift are the only reminders of the earlier resort. The free-style aerial event of the 2002 Winter Olympics will take place near where the Ottobahn lift once operated.

For more information about Snow Park, the other ski resorts and the history of winter sports in Park City, visit the new exhibit at the Park City Museum or call 649-7457.