Nordic Valley Ski Resort General Manager Mike Lewis told the Standard-Examiner Thursday that they are aiming to start the new ski season Dec. 18 with a favorite activity returning this year.

“Excitingly, we are bringing back night skiing on the Bridger Lift, and that’ll start Dec. 26, and we’ll have that Friday and Saturday through March 13, with some holiday days included in that,” he said. “I think the team is pretty excited to get some of those lights turned back on.”

He said that night skiing has been held intermittently over the last few years.

“We tried a few days here and there or some events, but it’s really (the first time) since the barn burned down that we’ve been able to offer something on a more regular basis,” he said. “If it’s something that really works well, we’d expand it as needed to make sure more people can come up and ski.”

Photo supplied, Nordic Valley Ski Resort

In addition to the reintroduction of regular night skiing dates, Lewis said some updates to technology and programming have come to the slopes of Nordic Valley in time for the coming ski season.

“We’ve upgraded about 1,000 feet of new snowmaking pipe and a good connection to our water supply, which will help us have a more reliable, efficient snowmaking system,” he said. “We have new season passes, season and day tickets that are on RFID technology, which brings us a bit into the modern world, and people can just pick those up at a kiosk. We also revamped our Junior Senders program to be a six-week program with morning and afternoon sessions, so we can double the amount of kids that have the opportunity to take that.”

While these projects are finished, one is still a bit over the horizon — the permanent replacement of the resort’s lodge which was destroyed in a fire in Jan. 2024.

“We have our trailer that will serve as a mini lodge this season like it has in past years with, I think, a pretty cool outdoor experience with the fire pits and the patio,” Lewis said. “But no new barn or lodge this year — but we continue to work with our landowner-developer partner to plan that out.”

Lewis, who only recently took the helm as General Manager at Nordic Valley Ski Resort, said he’s unsure of a timeline for the replacement of the former lodge space.

New lodge or not, Lewis said he is hopeful for a big ski season, especially after the poor snow conditions that marked last year up and down the Wasatch Front.

“It was a really tough season,” he said. ” I think we’re looking just to continue building Nordic back up. They have a great team, and they’ve been working really hard to get just the lights on Bridger going, so we’re pretty excited to offer that and have a night skiing product for the community just to bring people together. We’re hopeful that the El Niño winter treats us well and that we can get back to a more traditional season where we invite everybody up and they have a great time and we’re just building the ski community. Our mission is to give people the freedom to ski, which I think we show through our really affordable lift tickets and other products. And then night skiing is just more time to ski and we like to think Nordic’s kind of the place Utahns learn to ski, and we’re looking to bring that back and have a great year.”

For more information on Nordic Valley Ski Resort and the upcoming ski season, visit https://www.nordicvalley.ski/.