Have you ever looked at a Utah ski trail map and thought, who comes up with these names? Because literally, same.
Some trail names are pretty straightforward (looking at you, Home Run), but others sound like the product of a very specific kind of camaraderie among ski patrollers who've worked together for decades. And, honestly, that’s part of the fun. So let's discuss!
Across Utah’s ski resorts, trail names preserve everything from mining history and local legends to family members, colorful characters, and the occasional wonderfully bizarre story.
Take Deer Valley Resort, where the resort’s massive 2025–26 terrain expansion added 100 new runs and a whole lot of lore to the trail map. Most of the new names were inspired by the Park City area’s mining past. Keetley Express, for example, pays homage to Jack Keetley, a mining engineer and Pony Express rider, and to the former town of Keetley, now resting beneath the Jordanelle Reservoir. Nearby runs like Water Loo, Lake Shore and Lady of the Lake continue the tribute to the reservoir.
Then there’s Green Monster, which sounds like either a particularly aggressive ski run or a questionable gas-station energy drink. It actually comes from a mine in Wasatch County where a streak of green malachite (a copper ore) runs down the cliffside.
Head down to Snowbird, and the naming philosophy gets considerably more… eclectic.
Before the resort opened in 1971, founder Dick Bass hosted a literal trail-naming party and invited people to dream up names for the new terrain. That gathering produced names including Bananas, Tiger Tale, and Harper’s Ferry. Other names came from the area’s mining history, including Regulator Johnson, Black Jack, and the many “Gad” trails, a reference to the pointed mining tools used by miners.
And Snowbird’s trail map gets even more personal. Dalton’s Draw honors Alta patroller Charlie Dalton, Alice Avenue was named for Bass’s wife, and Bassackwards is, yep, named after Bass himself. There’s even Tricep, which reportedly got its name after patroller Tom Trulock injured his arm in a chainsaw accident while clearing brush. Ski resort naming convention: let's never forget the weird thing that happened that one time.
Over at Alta Ski Area, one of Utah’s most recognizable trail names also happens to tell a story about one of the state’s most influential ski families. High Rustler became Alf’s High Rustler in the 1980s as a tribute to ski legend Alf Engen. The run had been a prominent part of Alta since the resort’s early days, and Engen reportedly had a habit of straight-lining the pitch, an impressive feat considering the equipment of the era.
A scoot on up to Powder Mountainn details where even a little bit of mountain-finding confusion made its way onto the map. When founder Dr. Alvin Cobabe was scouting terrain from a small airplane for a future lift, he landed and couldn’t find the spot he had just identified from the air. Thus, Hidden Lake was born, or at least named. The lift eventually opened on New Year’s Day in 1975.
That might be the best thing about Utah’s trail names: they’re not just labels helping you figure out where to turn. They’re tiny pieces of history, and each name probably has lore behind it. The search continues!
For a deeper dive into Utah's signature ski runs and a peek into their names, Ski Utah's been working on a video series called "Signatures." Check it out here.
