Naming the Trails and Lifts of Expanded Excellence

Published October 20, 2025

Deer Valley Resort is in the midst of one of the largest ski area build-outs in the industry’s history. The trail designers, surveyors, lift manufacturers, and construction workers are tackling the hard stuff of cutting runs, pushing dirt, pouring concrete and stringing cable.

But there’s a softer side to Expanded Excellence that involves some complex branding. What do you name all those 100 new ski runs and 10 new chairlifts? That’s the question the Marketing Team, faced in 2024. The answer? Look to the past.

Silver and lead mining came to Park City in 1868. Prospectors and mine developers started filing claim names at that time. Before Deer Valley opened in 1981, owner Edgar Stern and his team were well aware of old tunnels and shafts on property when designing the resort. Someone came up with the idea of naming the proposed ski runs and lifts after old mining claims. Skiers ever since have enjoyed runs with colorful names like Big Stick, Know You Don’t, Solid Muldoon and Perseverance.

In 2024, the new ski runs and chairlifts were just dry alphanumeric codes on engineering maps. Alterra Mountain Company left branding to the local team, so Deer Valley’s team was free to continue using mining claim nomenclature. Time to look at a list of possibilities. The next step? Call the history buff.

A word of background: I’ve been a Deer Valley Mountain Host and Hiking Guide for nearly two decades. I have volunteered at the Park City Museum, read every book on Utah mining history I could lay my hands on, hiked much of the terrain that prospectors scoured, examined old mining structures, and written historical articles for the Park Record. History buff? Nerd may be the more accurate term. When Deer Valley’s Vice President of Marketing, Susie English, reached out and asked me for a list of mining claim names, I jumped at the chance to honor Park City’s mining past.

Sourcing the list took several weeks. Poring over a 1902 map by Robert Gorlinski and a 1932 map by Frances Collier (on display in the Park City Museum) yielded the majority of names. A couple of hours at the Utah State Archives in Salt Lake City, spinning through microfiche images of old records, uncovered another trove. The initial list topped 700 names.

Had other nearby resorts used any of the names? I circulated the list with fellow history aficionados, some of whom know our neighboring resorts very well. This review scratched a number of possible names.

The list got a look-over from Deer Valley’s ski patrol and mountain operations team. These people are on the resort’s walkie-talkie system every day. Two considerations arose, stemming most critically from Ski Patrol’s need for accurate information when responding to a potential accident. One, how easy was it to understand a name transmitted over the airwaves? Two, how similar, and potentially confusing, were the proposed names to existing Deer Valley trail names? One long-time patroller said, “Please, no more ‘Silvers’ and no more ‘Littles.’ We already have enough of them.”

Susie culled the list further by prioritizing strong, memorable names and deprioritizing those that have grown dated or lack universal appeal. Mining claims named after Civil War battles are an example here. Susie presented the revised list to Steve Graff, vice president of mountain operations. Steve and his team had already spent a lot of time in the new terrain and had some ideas on what names would fit.

“We focused on selecting names that matched the character and feel of each run,” Susie said. “It was a really fun, collaborative process! Because we had this amazing list to start with and a strong naming convention to follow, it made it much easier to name and get alignment from the entire team.”

These efforts already bore fruit in the 24-25 season, when the resort opened nearly 20 runs and three lifts in the first phase of expansion. Here are some examples:

The Keetley Express honors pony express rider and mining engineer Jack Keetley (and the town of Keetley, now submerged under Jordanelle Reservoir).
Lady of the Lake, Lakeshore, and Waterloo offer great views of the reservoir, and follow a water theme.
Yaup means to howl or emit long cries and probably speaks to the frustrations of owning an unproductive claim that does not make you rich. In contrast, the run itself is a short, sweet drop that is fun on a powder day.
The new longest run in Utah, Green Monster, gets its name from a mine in Wasatch County that has a verdant streak of malachite (a copper ore) coming down its cliffside face.
Perhaps the most improbable name is Age of Reason. Nonetheless, our guests have embraced the nomenclature and the run’s cruisability.

In a future blog post, we’ll preview some of the interesting names coming in the 25-26 expansion phase. Here comes the Revelator!

Michael O'Malley
Deer Valley Mountain Host

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