Before opening each summer, Deer Valley Resort trades snowguns for saws, making the winter sports venue into a job site teeming with shovels, rakes, and bike trail builds.
This year, as the resort prepares for the 2025 debut of almost 2,000 acres of expanded terrain, mountain biking looks a little different than usual. In previous summers, Deer Valley has opened Sterling Express, Silver Lake Express and Homestake Express lifts for mountain biking access. With expansion work heavily impacting areas on the upper mountain, this year, Sterling Express will only be available for hiking and scenic rides.
“We’re not just closing the upper mountain because we feel like it,” said Dan Ward, mountain bike trail crew supervisor of 15 years. “This is a massive project, and our main goal this year is to resurrect some of the trails that have been damaged due to new ski runs going in.”
Alongside Sterling Express bike access, longtime favorite trails, including Tidal Wave and Holy Roller, will not be accessible this season due to expansion work.
“It is a major bummer that everybody’s favorite trail isn’t going to be open this year. Our intention is to rebuild it, make it more modern and make it more usable for everybody,” said Ward.
The terrain expansion project involves cutting in new ski runs, installing snowmaking systems, and grading terrain — tasks that require large excavators, chainsaws, and aggressive clearing. As a result, crews must wait until all winter infrastructure is finalized before they can assess what remains and begin rebuilding.
Extell Development, the resort’s partner in the expansion project, has committed to developing a network of multi-use trails in the Jordanelle Gondola area. More than 15 miles of these trails are already open to the public, offering accessible routes for hikers and bikers alike, offering alternative access points and riding experiences while legacy terrain undergoes reconstruction.
This year’s construction and recovery efforts are part of a broader, long-term commitment to building a trail network that welcomes a wide range of riders — whether they’re seasoned downhill racers or families taking their first lift-assisted lap.
Deer Valley’s trail system is intentionally designed to support skill development, offering everything from skills zones at the Silver Lake Beach to advanced terrain.
“Historically, mountain biking has had a stigma of being scary,” Ward said. “People think of downhill lift-access riding and picture huge jumps and gnarly rocks. But we’re here to build trails to better accommodate the community and our guests, often people on vacation who are brand new to the sport.”
A mix of purpose-built downhill trails and multi-use connectors make up the resort’s roughly 70-mile network. Crews rely on mini excavators to dig trail beds and sculpt features, while hand tools are used for shaping and finishing. Portable water trailers keep soil compactable in the dry mountain air.
“To rebuild something like a jump or a bank generally takes us, at minimum, one work week,” said Ward. “And it’s more than just stacking dirt up. It’s so dry here, if we just stack a pile of dirt, it’s just a pile of dust. A very crucial part of constructing all of this is having water — and then making sure that we’re not sending people into trees.”
Each day, the bike trail crews inspect, ride and renew the trails as they see fit, managing loose rocks, debris and surface degradation throughout the season. Oftentimes, that means small groups of three to four hand raking four miles of a green trail to clear the surface before opening.
“There is a level of mindless work,” said Ward. “We like doing more involved tasks like shaping jumps, where we have to do formulas on jump angle. And I encourage the crew to make their own projects and take some ownership of them; it helps people get a bit more invested, too.”
Years prior, the trail crew operated with just five members. The resort doubled Ward’s crew to 12 this year to help with expansion reconstruction and general maintenance, despite the limited available terrain this season. Many crew members, including Ward, work on ski patrol during the winter and return in summer to build trails.
“It really helps if I can choose my team of passionate mountain bikers. A lot of the trail work we do is kind of done selfishly because we want the trails to ride good,” said Ward.
For Ward, having riders involved in trailbuilding doesn’t just result in better trails, it also keeps the crew personally invested. When the people shaping the berms are the same ones riding them, the work becomes fueled by experience and excitement.
George Learn is a new hire this year to the bike trail crew, whom Ward affectionately calls “the muscle” for his ability to help move heavy rocks and equipment. For Learn, the work always comes back to his love for biking.
“I just really like riding bikes, and this is a way to work on the trail for myself and for the guests, and get us all to enjoy the trails, but it’s just for the love of riding bikes,” said Learn.
Some of the team’s favorite moments are when they get to sample their hard work on a new trail — the biker’s equivalent of patrol freshies.
“We try to ride the trails daily once the lifts are spinning. Otherwise, we’ll go crazy breaking rocks for 10 hours,” joked Ward.
With so much construction and rebuilding underway, Ward asks riders to stay out of closed areas and make the most of the terrain available.
