Counting down the days until Alta's 88th season.
Fall Snowliage on October 4th | Photo: Rocko Menzyk
Following a busy summer season, the temperatures and the leaves are dropping and we are less than a month from the start of our 88th winter at Alta Ski Area. The first few weeks of October blanketed the slopes of Alta with almost two feet of top-to-bottom snowfall. It won't be long until the mountains welcome us back to the one-of-a-kind feeling of skiing fresh snow with family and friends.
Opening Day is Friday, November 21st—conditions permitting.
✔ Your Preseason Checklist
Fall is a great time to catch up on some offseason project updates and do a little preseason preparation as we start counting down the days until first chair of the 2025–26 season.
1. Reload Your Season Pass
There's still time to join our 88th anniversary season. From Alta Family Packages to pay-as-you-ski Alta Gold Cards to reloadable Powder and 10-Day Cards, we have a variety of season pass products that will fit you and your family's winter wish list. Grab your friends and link some powder 8s this winter in celebration of 88 years of skiing at Alta.
2. Secure Your Parking Reservations
Beginning December 12th. parking reservations will be required at Alta every Friday–Sunday & Holiday Periods from 8am–1pm. For qualifying Alta Season Passes, parking reservation codes were sent via email on October 14th—check your inbox.
3. Plan Your Trip
Bring your family. Bring your friends. Or just bring yourself, and experience a natural mountain environment with a rich history of deep powder. Alta boasts a collection of unique, independently owned lodges, condos and vacation homes with incredible views and ski-in/ski-out accessibility.
4. Enroll in the Alf Engen Ski School
The Alf Engen Ski School is offering a full slate of lessons, camps and programs for the 2025–26 season. Our Kid's Season-Long Programs, Adult Camps and Women's Camps are filling up quickly and reservations are now open Adult and Kid's Class Lessons. Adult Day Camps and Season-Long Program registration will be available in mid-October.
A few highlights from the 2025–26 Alf Engen Ski School course catalog:
- Tele Time—new for the 2025–26 season
- Adult Learn-To-Ski—a four-week program for the first-time skier
- Silver Skis—a new five-week program for ages 60 and up
- Beyond the Blues—five-week programs for intermediate skiers on Thursday afternoons.
- Alta Peruvian Lodge Women's Camp—a new four-night, three-day ski camp through the Peruvian Lodge
5. Gear Up at the Alta Ski Shop
Preseason is the best time to get geared up or tuned up at the Alta Ski Shop. Take advantage of preseason deals on last year's demo skis and outerwear. Or snag some Alta-branded swag.
The Alta Ski Shop in the Albion base area is now open daily from 9am–4pm >
6. Start Your Alta Story
We are currently accepting job applications for the 2025–26 season. Join independently-owned Alta Ski Area for our 88th winter and start your own Alta story with a team of passionate skiers.
7. Get Involved with the Alta Community
Alta Ski Area and Alta Community Enrichment (ACE) are hosting some great community events this fall.
- Alta Birding Hike | November 6th
- S'mores and Snow | November 15th
- Welcome to Winter | November 18th
- Alta Ski Area Opening Day | November 21st—conditions permitting
Alta Community Enrichment Events
8. Start Practicing Your Powder 8s
The 2025–26 season will signify a memorable milestone for Alta Ski Area and we hope you join us. We cordially invite you to bring your family and friends and celebrate 88 years of timeless turns. Join us in paying homage to Alta’s rich history for our 88th winter by visiting your favorite powder stash and leaving powder 8s in your wake.
Alta Ski Area Summer & Fall Updates
This summer and fall have been one of the busiest offseasons in recent memory as our teams have been working on a handful of projects across departments and around the mountain. We've also been busy logging long days in the field to meet our revegetation and reforestation goals while engaging with the community through environmental education and summer stewardship events.
Supreme Lift Realignment
The United States Forest Service has authorized Alta Ski Area to modify the alignment of the existing Supreme lift. The Supreme lift was dismantled and realigned to create a new, straighter alignment that eliminates the eight-degree bend present in the existing lift line. The top and bottom terminals were pivoted but remain in their general locations.
September 10th: Supreme lift towers were installed | Photo: Adam Fehr
The realignment project was completed on October 4th—one month ahead of schedule—and the Supreme lift is expected to open for Alta's 2025–26 ski season.
Albion Day Lodge Expansion & Albion Dry Storage Facility
The Albion base area received a bit of a facelift this offseason. The Albion Day Lodge is halfway through a two-year expansion project. The full effects of the project won't be realized until the 2026–27 season, but we are excited about the new facility. The expanded Albion Day Lodge will provide additional indoor and outdoor restaurant seating, new seasonal locker space, increased indoor and outdoor seating for Alta Java and new employee housing.
September 9th: Albion Day Lodge expansion project | Photo: Lexi Dowdall
On the north side of the Albion Parking Lot, skiers will notice a new dry storage facility. This new storage facility will eventually replace Alta Ski Area's down-canyon storage warehouse, eliminating plenty of trips back and forth from the Salt Lake Valley.
Snowmaking Lines Along the Transfer Tow
A collaborative effort between Alta Ski Area and the Town of Alta, our teams spent countless days and weeks digging trenches to upgrade existing snowmaking lines between Albion and Wildcat base areas. Our current snowmaking system had reached end-of-life status and needed an upgrade.
July 6th: Digging trenches for the snowmaking lines project | Photo: Lexi Dowdall
Working with the Town of Alta, we are currently installing new snowmaking lines, a new snowmaking reservoir system, culinary water lines, communication lines and power lines for the Town of Alta.
September 11th: The snowmaking project continues as the colors change | Photo: Adam Fehr
Unearthing Alta's Mining History
The snowmaking upgrade project also unearthed mining era artifacts from the original Town of Alta. The terminus of Little Cottonwood Canyon was a silver mining hotbed in the 1870s and the original Main Street of the Town of Alta runs parallel to the Transfer Tow. While the Transfer Tow is in an ideal spot to connect Alta's base area, it sits under the same avalanche paths that decimated the original town multiple times in its 50-year existence.
As silver prices and the mining-era population waxed and waned, the avalanche problem held steady and the Town of Alta was relocated. The original Main Street was abandoned and Alta was essentially a ghost town by the early 1900s. As skiing and reforestation efforts helped resurrect Alta, the bountiful snowfall and decades of intentionally-triggered avalanches continued to push what was left of Alta's mining era further underground.
We were very excited to work with the Town of Alta, US Forest Service, State Historical Preservation Office, Utah Cultural Site Stewardship and other entities to help uncover archaeological artifacts from the mining era Town of Alta.
September 6th: Archaeology open house along the Transfer Tow | Photo: Rocko Menzyk
On Saturday, September 6th, Alta Ski Area helped host an archaeological open house where community members, employees and the local media had the opportunity to observe some of the artifacts while participating in the archaeological work. We hope to display some of these artifacts for Alta skiers.
The High Traverse Project
Completing a two-year project, a crew of eight employees spent six weeks widening the High Traverse between Upper Sunspot and Jake's. This hand-cut traverse will hold more snow earlier in the season and during periods of increased skier traffic and wind erosion. It will also provide a dependable traverse to the grassy slopes of Greeley Bowl during low snow periods.
July 29th: Hand cutting the High Traverse | Photo: Duke Grewe
Wyssen Towers in Devil's Castle and Sugarloaf Peak
Alta Ski Area installed four new Wyssen Towers between the far wall of Devil's Castle and Sugarloaf Peak. These additions to Alta's network of Remote Avalanche Control Systems (RACS) should assist Alta Ski Patrol with avalanche mitigation efforts, snowpack analysis as we evaluate potential Castle openings between storm cycles.
Repurposing Timber with the Trail Crew
Between the final chair of the 2024–25 season and before the snowpack melted into Little Cottonwood Creek, our trail crew went to work removing hazard trees—those that need to be removed for safety or ecological reasons—and trees from the new Supreme lift line. The felled trees were moved across the spring snowpack to the Alta lumber mill located near the Jump Hill at the intersection of Snake Pit and Lower Albion Meadows Trail.
September 3rd: Repurposing timber at the Alta sawmill | Photo: Adam Fehr
The trail crew is still in the process of milling lumber that will be used throughout Alta Ski Area in myriad on-mountain projects.
- Snow fences and bridges
- Albion Day Lodge expansion
- Alta Ski Shop shelving and wainscotting
- New benches and tables
- Mulch
Summer Stewardship and Environmental Education Events
To meet our Summer Stewardship goals, the Alta Environmental Center (AEC) and partner organizations enlisted the help of over 200 volunteers over multiple Community Volunteer Days and Employee Planting Days. In total, more than 2,000 people participated in 20-plus Environmental Education events, creating awareness with our community and the next generation of Alta skiers.
Revegetation Projects
During the warm and dry days of June, July and August, the AEC team was able to plant this year's crop of over 11,000 native plant seedlings in previously disturbed areas of the mountain. This summer's planting efforts were focused on Upper Sleepy Hollow and Sleepy Hollow runs near the top of the Supreme lift. These slopes were regraded in the summer of 2022 and 2023. This summer's revegetation efforts are part of Alta Ski Area's commitment to plant 1,000 native plant seedlings per acre, per year, for three years in disturbed terrain.
August 14th: Planting native plant seedlings on Employee Planting Day | Photo: Lexi Dowdall
The new groomed slope holds significantly more snow earlier in the season and grooming has helped ward off sun and wind erosion that used to leave the slope bare during the ski season.
Reforestation Efforts
Our reforestation efforts are focused on improving the overall forest health. This summer's reforestation work started with harvesting trees from groomed runs and relocating them to an on-mountain nursery in the Albion Basin. To assist in the process, the Alta Environmental Center enlisted the help of partner organizations and a group of volunteers for the annual Tree Harvesting event in July. These harvested trees will call the mid-mountain nursery home, awaiting transplanting to other areas of the mountain where they have a greater chance to thrive.
July 12th: Moving harvested trees to the Albion nursery | Photo: Adam Fehr
Each year, the Alta Environmental Center works with the U.S. Forest Service to collect cones from trees at Alta, which are sent to a Forest Service grower in Idaho, where they spend a year strengthening their roots. Come fall, the young trees return to Alta, ready to be planted by employees and volunteers from our community. Our goal is to increase the age diversity of the tree species here at Alta and aid in regeneration.
Volunteers plant Engelmann spruce saplings at Tree Planting Day | Photo: Photo-John
On September 20th, the AEC partnered with TreeUtah and Cottonwood Canyons Foundation to host the annual Tree Planting Day—our biggest volunteer event of the year. Alta employees, local residents, community members, partner organizations and 50 volunteers joined forces to plant over 800 Engelmann spruce saplings across Alta's slopes.
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