Summit County Summit's a hot spot for ski resorts

It is impossible to talk about Summit County without mentioning skiing in the same sentence. Skiing is Summit County, and vice versa. They're almost interchangeable.

What you know:

Just look at what's there — Deer Valley, Park City Mountain Resort, The Canyons, the Utah Olympic Park along with cross country on Guardsman's Pass, Rail Trail and on Park City golf courses and adjacent lands.

Deer Valley officially opened in 1981, but its history actually goes back into the 1940s. The vision of Deer Valley belongs to Edgar Stern, who at one time was an owner in Park City Mountain Resort.

Readers and skiers of SKI Magazine recently rated Deer Valley the No. 1 resort in the country. This was the second time the resort had received the honor.

In the summer, the resort turns its lifts and hills over to hikers and mountain bikers. It was one of the first to offer lift-served, uphill service. Resort guests can also make reservations for snowmobile tours in the winter.

Over the years it has consistently been rated among the top 10 destination mountain biking resorts in the country.

The resort now offers service from two lifts and onto more than 50 miles of trails that spiderweb through the mountains. Hikers and bikers can choose to travel the existing road system that services the resort or follow narrow single-track routes through the trees, meadows and down mountain slopes.

It was in the winter of 1963 that Treasure Mountain Ski Area — now Park City Mountain Resort — opened, boasting America's longest gondola, a double chairlift and two J-bar tows.

Over the past 40 years, the resort has been building and improving and today offers 3,300 skiable acres that are accessed by 14 lifts. The resort is also home to the most extensive snowboard facilities within the state.

In the summer, Park City Mountain Resort offers mountain access to bikers and hikers off two lifts — the Town Lift and PayDay Lift.

The Canyons, then called Park City West, opened in 1968, five years after Park City Mountain Resort, with three double-chair and four rope tows and an uphill capacity of 3,300 skiers per hour.

The real growth came in 1997 when the American Skiing Co. purchased the resort and changed the name, again, to The Canyons and began the first stages of a $500 million expansion program.