Park City Incline · Stakeholder briefing
What Manitou proved, and five corridors worth arguing about
A short evidence brief for Council, Vail Resorts, and — if needed — the Utah Olympic Legacy Foundation. This is a community campaign, not a 501(c)(3) yet, and not an official City or resort document.
The Manitou evidence
Official pages for the original, if you have not climbed it: Visit Manitou Springs · City of Colorado Springs · Visit Colorado Springs · Incline Friends.
It was never designed as a trail. The Incline is a former Mt. Manitou Scenic Railway / water-works cable grade. After a 1990 rockslide, the rails came off and the ties became an unofficial staircase. Colorado Springs legally opened it in February 2013 after an intergovernmental agreement with Manitou Springs: Colorado Springs runs the trail; Manitou runs the parking.
Demand showed up before permission. The 2011 Site Development and Management Plan — adopted by both cities — estimated 350,000 to 500,000 trips a year while the climb was still posted No Trespassing. That is the closest thing American trail planning has to a product-market-fit test.
Managed, it is still a quarter-million-person attraction. Visit Manitou Springs cites about 250,000 Incline visitors a year. Colorado Springs trail-counter data after the free reservation system launched in August 2020 showed about 251,000 climbs in eleven months (down from about 319,000 in the same window the year before). Summer eco-counter months still clear 40,000–48,000. The reservation cap is 45 starts per half hour — 1,125 people a day in summer — and that cap has been approached on holiday weekends.
The town at the bottom is the business. Visit Manitou Springs reports that tourism generated about $6.2 million in city tax revenue in 2024 (48% of all city tax) and about $6.24 million in 2025 (52%). That is roughly $2,600–$2,710 of public services per household that visitors pay instead of residents. The Incline is not the whole tourism economy. It is the rare amenity that manufactures a three-hour visit and then releases hungry people onto a historic commercial street.
They kept it free on purpose. The 2011 plan rejected a mandatory user fee at opening. Colorado Springs’ counsel warned that charging could increase liability. The reservation is still free. Operations were meant to run on donations, parking, grants, and sponsorships — not a general-fund ticket window. Park City’s “free forever” line is not romantic. It is the model that actually got two city councils to yes.
Parking is the wound they never fully closed. A 2010 weekend survey found 516 cars entering the Barr Trail lot and only 142 parking there — 72% of that traffic was circling. Ruxton Avenue filled by 6 a.m. Residents spent a decade asking for the Incline to be “blown up.” The modern answer is a mobility hub, a fare-free shuttle, residential-only street parking, and a reservation system that now tries to match people to spaces. Park City should not copy Ruxton. Park City should put the stairs where parking already exists.
Who uses it: locals, Front Range day-trippers, military and endurance athletes, and destination visitors. Olympic and professional athletes treat it as a known workout. Descent is mandatory on Barr Trail — one-way stairs — because two-way traffic on the 68% steepest pitch — against a 43% average sustained grade — is how people get hurt. Our dual up/down lanes are the design answer to that injury and congestion problem.
What this means for Park City money
Do not paste Manitou’s $6.2 million tourism-tax figure onto Park City and call it an Incline forecast. That number is Manitou’s whole visitor economy. The transferable mechanic is smaller: a three-hour outdoor climb that empties toward a commercial street. Even a conservative slice — 80,000 to 150,000 climbs a year, not 250,000 — is a shoulder-season machine if those people can walk or bus to a table. That is why siting is a tax-base question, not a scenery question. Park City needs its own model before anyone quotes a dollar.
The climb counts are not fuzzy. Visit Manitou publishes 250,000 Incline visitors a year. City eco-counters in the FIRS minutes logged about 197,000 climbs from January through July 2025, with 48,645 in July. Manitou caps summer starts at 45 per half hour — 1,125 a day — and still prints those months. Dual lanes on a larger destination, next to an airport and an Olympic brand, are why similar numbers are a fair working theory. That is not a forecast that Park City’s climb would be larger, and it is not a promise until parking and a landowner are real. Events that already exist there: a firefighter climb each September 11, trail closures for Pikes Peak race weekend, and a year-round FKT / training culture. The everyday product is the one that pays.
Five corridors worth studying
Build parking last. The Manitou lesson is that the project dies in the neighborhood, not on the mountain. Every candidate below already has lots, restrooms, and an operator used to crowds — except where land ownership is still the gating question. Grades and vertical are measured from USGS elevation data, not estimated. Nothing here assumes a corridor is buildable.
Campaign opinion, not a decision. We lean Payday because the town capturing the visit is the part Manitou actually proved. That finish is Old Town / Main Street. The USGS transect on that hillside is 1,146 feet at 26%. Payday Express, the lift, is specified at about 1,278 feet. A surveyed fall line might sit between those. This brief is not picking the corridor. The other four stay on the table.
The one in the middle of town
Park City Mountain Village
26% sustained grade over 1,146 ft of vertical · 0.9 mi from parking
Who captures the visit: Old Town / Main Street — on foot or the Town Lift.
This is the only candidate where the climb ends near a historic main street. What Manitou actually demonstrated is not that a staircase draws crowds — it is that the town at the bottom captures what the crowds spend. Parking, restrooms, food and transit already exist here.
It is the gentlest ground of the candidates. On the sampled transects the steepest sustained pitch averages about 26% — roughly half Manitou's 43% average, and well short of its 68% steepest pitch. A climb here would be a serious staircase, but not the steepest in the country.
Unresolved: Whether a specific ski-run fall line is steeper than a straight transect suggests. This needs a survey, and Park City Mountain's own mountain-operations team would know before anyone else.
Land: Vail Resorts. Main Street: Walk, Town Lift, or a short bus ride — climbers finish pointed at Old Town.
The biggest one
Utah Olympic Park area
40% sustained grade over 1,581 ft of vertical · 1.1 mi from parking
Who captures the visit: Kimball Junction — a drive or bus from Main Street. A different catchment, not an absent one.
The only Manitou-class terrain the analysis found anywhere in the county: a sustained 40% average over about 1,580 vertical feet, with individual sections at 78%. Re-sampled at 25 m spacing with no cliff bands. Utah Olympic Park also already has visitor operations, parking, and a 2034 story — and people voluntarily climb the ski-jump stairs today, which is the cheapest demand evidence available.
The pitch begins about 1.1 miles southwest of Utah Olympic Park's parking, so it needs an approach trail. It is not walkable to Main Street, which removes the strongest economic argument. It also sits in Summit County rather than city jurisdiction.
Unresolved: Land ownership, and this is the gating question for the whole site. The terrain southwest of the Olympic Park runs toward Toll Canyon and Iron Mountain — Iron Mountain took a 160-acre conservation easement in 2023 and Toll Canyon is Basin Recreation open space. If the corridor falls on protected land, it is not a candidate at all. A Summit County parcel check settles this.
Land: Unresolved — see below. Main Street: Not walkable to Old Town.
The polished one
Deer Valley — Snow Park
31% sustained grade over 1,379 ft of vertical · 1.6 mi from parking
Who captures the visit: Deer Valley base. Main Street is a short bus ride, not a walk.
Middle ground on terrain — about 31% sustained over roughly 1,380 vertical feet — with real parking, an established base area, and a shorter run into town than Canyons.
Deer Valley operates the most access-controlled product of any resort here. A free, unticketed, open-to-everyone amenity runs against the grain of how the mountain is run. The terrain is the easy part of that conversation.
Unresolved: Whether Alterra has any appetite for public access on resort terrain at all. Worth one phone call before any further work.
Land: Deer Valley Resort (Alterra). Main Street: About 1.5 miles to Main Street — bus or bike, not a walk.
The wildcard
Deer Valley East / Jordanelle
37% sustained grade over 1,290 ft of vertical (coarse sampling only) · 2.1 mi from parking
Who captures the visit: Jordanelle / Mayflower — the least developed catchment of the five today.
Second-steepest ground in the analysis, and the lowest base elevation of any candidate, which means the most vertical available above it. New development means parking and access are being designed right now rather than retrofitted.
The pitch sits over two miles out. No Main Street connection. Land is a patchwork of resort expansion and private development, which usually means the most complicated negotiation of any option.
Unresolved: Everything, frankly. This one is on the list because the terrain scored well on coarse sampling, not because it has been checked. It has not been re-sampled at fine resolution.
Land: Mixed — resort expansion and private development. Main Street: Not walkable; a drive from Old Town.
The easy-parking one
Canyons Village
28% sustained grade over 1,234 ft of vertical (coarse sampling only) · 0.8 mi from parking
Who captures the visit: Canyons Village base commercial.
The shortest approach from parking of any candidate, the largest lots in the system, a new structure, and a summer gondola already running. Same landowner as Mountain Village, so it can be part of a single conversation.
Terrain is comparable to Mountain Village without the Main Street payoff. If Vail declines one of its two bases it will likely decline both, so this is a fallback within a conversation rather than an independent option.
Unresolved: Not yet re-sampled at fine resolution. Also whether the summer gondola changes the approach maths in a useful way.
Land: Vail Resorts. Main Street: About five miles — Canyons Village, not Old Town.
Treasure Hill / Sweeney Switchbacks is not among them.
- Park City voters approved a $64 million open-space bond covering Treasure Hill in 2018, with about 77% in favor.
- A permanent conservation easement on the hillside closed in 2025.
- Access runs through Old Town residential streets — the same condition that produced Manitou Springs' parking conflict.
Those are the facts as they stand. Readers can draw their own conclusion.
Grades and vertical figures are measured from USGS 3DEP elevation data (1 m resolution), sampled 14 September 2026. Twelve radial transects were run from each base out to 4.5 km; the three leading candidates were then re-sampled at 25 m spacing to rule out cliff bands. Figures marked verified have had that second pass. These measure the ground, not a surveyed route — a real alignment following a chosen fall line could differ. Nothing here is an approved plan or a claim about what any landowner will permit.
What $50,000 is for — and what it is not
A public staircase on ski terrain is a capital project in the millions. Seed money is not that. It is the study that lets Council and the resort say yes or no with a straight face. Until there is a landowner, a permit path, and a fiscal home for the funds, nobody should be raising construction money.
GoFundMe will not hold donations in escrow until a goal is hit. Transfers go to a bank account as they clear. If this campaign raises money, the clean version is a restricted project fund or fiscal sponsor — Park City Community Foundation is the obvious local conversation, and it is not lined up yet — so the organizer never parks civic donations in a personal account. A personal GoFundMe can still show demand. It cannot pretend to be a lockbox.
| Seed line | Amount | What it buys |
|---|---|---|
| Survey, GIS, Payday overlay | $10,000 | Map each corridor’s measured pitch against a surveyed fall line so the vertical is not a guess. |
| Concept alignment memo | $15,000 | Dual-lane stairs, drainage sketch, and a winter-closure plan — not stamped construction drawings. |
| Parking and mobility memo | $6,000 | Prove the Village lots and transit can absorb climbers without dumping cars on Old Town streets. |
| Legal, entity, insurance | $4,000 | Who holds money, who speaks to Council, who is on the hook if someone gets hurt at a site walk. |
| Visuals and Council packet | $5,000 | Aerial overlay, leave-behind brief, meeting materials. |
| Outreach and operations | $3,000 | Domain, list, print, neighborhood meetings. |
| Fees and contingency | $7,000 | Platform fees (~2.9% + $0.30) and the lines that always run over. |
| Seed total | $50,000 | Studies and a mandate. Not timber, not concrete. |
The later build is a Class 5 concept range — $2 to $5 million — until a survey and geotech exist. Dual-lane stairs at this length, plus drainage, retaining, a summit rest area, design, and a small maintenance reserve, are why the number is not $750,000. Manitou inherited railroad ties. Park City would be building on purpose. Treat any per-step hardware quote as a fraction of the real job.
Permits, insurance, and the mountain already in use
Payday is Vail-controlled resort terrain, not City open space. A free public staircase on private ski land is first an insurance and operations problem for the resort: who is covered when a climber falls, who closes the corridor for snowmaking, who staffs a rescue. Manitou’s counsel warned that charging raised liability. Free is still the cleaner legal posture. It is not a waiver.
Summer bike and hike products already live on this mountain. The stairs cannot occupy the paid downhill bike line or treat guest restrooms as public infrastructure. Winter, the staircase closes. Snow covers the treads; ski operations keep the hill.
Constructed stairs need slope, drainage, and wildlife review. City and county permits still apply on private land. If a later alignment touches Forest Service ground, NEPA comes with it. None of that is a reason to hide the idea. It is a reason the $50,000 seed buys a study instead of timber.
How to talk to Vail — and what to do if they pass
Lead with what they keep, not what the town wants. They keep the land, the hours, and a veto. They get Village food and retail in May and October without spinning a chair. They get a community story after a decade of hard permits. A seasonal pilot — stairs for one shoulder season, closed in winter — is an easier first yes than a permanent staircase of unknown length.
- Park City Mountain Village is the Main Street argument. Off-season activation, no new CCC on a powder day, climbers finishing pointed at Old Town. The USGS transect is about 26% and 1,146 ft — not Manitou, and not the 1,278 ft Payday Express lift spec. Vail’s mountain-ops team can tell us if a fall line sits between those.
- Canyons Village stays inside the same Vail conversation: more parking, weaker Main Street story, terrain not yet re-sampled at fine resolution.
- Deer Valley — Snow Park and East / Jordanelle — are Alterra conversations. Snow Park has a verified 31% pitch. East is coarse-only. The unknown is whether Alterra wants public access on resort terrain at all.
- Utah Olympic Park area is the only Manitou-class terrain in the sample — and land ownership is the gating question. Iron Mountain took a conservation easement in 2023; Toll Canyon is Basin Recreation open space. A parcel check comes before any drawing.
Signers are the constituency. This brief is not choosing the corridor. Back to the campaign
Sources: City of Colorado Springs Manitou Incline pages; 2011 Manitou Incline Site Development and Management Plan; Visit Manitou Springs 2024/2025 annual reports; Colorado Springs Gazette reservation-year trail counts; FIRS meeting minutes (eco-counter tables); Park Record / TownLift coverage of Treasure Hill and the Utah Olympic Park development agreement; Vail Resorts summer operations notes; Wikipedia lift table for Payday Express vertical.