New and improved

Skiers will find a lot of "new" and "improved" things.

For example:

ALTA — Last year the resort introduced a new Watson Shelter, an eating/warming building midmountain that took the place of the historic Watson Shelter. This year skiers will find a "completed" shelter. Finishing touches, including a wall of memorable photos, were completed and land around the shelter revegetated. The 5,000-square-foot shelter offers everything from a modern cafeteria to a ski shop.

BEAVER — It was always the dream of area founder Harry Seeholzer to have a lift from bottom to top. This summer the resort replaced an old lift with a new one named, as might be expected, Harry's Dream.

BRIGHTON — Summer work focused on manicuring the mountain and working on the terrain parks. It also installed a "Magic Carpet" in its ski-teaching area. The carpet carries young skiers up the gentle slope for an easy ride down.

THE CANYONS — A new lift, the Dreamcatchers high-speed quad, will open new ski terrain for intermediate and advanced skiers. It will add more than 200 acres of skiable terrain to the resort's resume.

Following the theory that more is better, the resort has also upgraded its popular Tombstone lift. It was bumped up from a four-passenger high-speed to a "six pack" or six-passenger high-speed.

DEER VALLEY — Here, too, steps were taken to deliver more skiers to the slopes faster. The Sterling lift on Bald Mountain was bumped up from a regular-speed triple chair to a four-passenger high-speed lift.

PARK CITY MOUNTAIN RESORT — A new triple-chair lift was added to the mountain. Along with new service, the lift will offer access to three new intermediate runs. The resort also went to the expense of retrofitting all of the gearboxes on its detachable lifts in order to avoid any downtime, which happened on a couple of occasions last season.

Famous for its terrain parks, the resort will add more to its parks this coming season in the way of new trails, fun boxes and jumps.

POWDER MOUNTAIN — After 30 years of service, the resort's old double at Hidden Lake has been replaced by a new high-speed detachable quad. It follows the same route, but time on the lift will be half what it was, or roughly eight minutes to ride from bottom to top on the 6,000-foot-long lift. It also doubled carrying capacity up to 2,400 passengers per hour.

SOLITUDE — The resort expanded its grooming service with the addition of a new snowcat and will introduce more gladed skiing in the Queen Bess area for skiers looking for powder. This will be the resort's sixth new cat in six years, all directed at expanding its on-slope grooming.