Sundance Mountain Resort Is Getting a New High-Speed Quad and More Back Mountain Terrain This Winter

Sundance Mountain Resort's back mountain has been sitting behind slow lifts for years. That changes this winter, with a new high-speed quad and a fresh batch of terrain to go with it.

The Electric Horseman Express, a Doppelmayr detachable quad, opens for the 2026-27 season as the centrepiece of what Sundance is calling its biggest mountain expansion since 1985. The lift starts near the base of Wildwood, crosses the Far East Ridge, and unloads at the top of Red's Lift on Bearclaw Summit - climbing roughly 1,850 vertical feet in about six minutes. Before this, reaching that terrain meant stringing together three separate lifts.

What's actually new this season

Some of the confusion around this expansion is fair, because it's rolled out in two pieces. The Storyteller ridge run - an upper-intermediate groomer carved from the old Far East Ridgeline, with sweeping turns and wide-open views - already opened in preview form last winter, reachable only via Red's Lift. What's new for 2026-27 is the Electric Horseman Express itself, plus a fresh 105 acres centred on an entirely new bowl next to Bishop's Bowl. Three new expert gladed chutes run through the trees before dropping into the new lift's base, giving Sundance a genuine spread across intermediate, advanced, and expert terrain in one connected zone.

Put together, the two-phase project adds 165 acres total once this season's terrain opens - 60 acres and nine trails last winter, another 105 acres and six trails this one.

Part of a longer build-out

This is the latest step in a run of investment that's been going since 2021, when Sundance opened the Outlaw Express quad and cut the ride to Mandan Summit down substantially from what it used to take. A Wildwood beginner area and terrain expansion followed in 2022, alongside snowmaking upgrades, and Mountain Camp Lodge opened in 2024 to bring ticketing, rentals, ski school and lockers under one roof for day visitors. Sundance's own count puts the terrain added since 2021 at around 205 acres once this expansion is complete - more than earlier reporting suggested, since it folds in improvements beyond just the back mountain project.

The ski-in/ski-out Inn at Sundance Mountain Resort, a 63-room property, opened alongside the first phase of this terrain project, rounding out a run of changes since Broadreach Capital Partners and Cedar Capital Partners took over the resort from Robert Redford in December 2020.

Room to keep growing

Sundance's total skiable terrain has been sitting at roughly 540 acres following last season's Storyteller preview. Add this season's 105 acres and the number lands closer to 645 acres once Electric Horseman is fully operational - though Sundance hasn't published an exact post-expansion figure of its own. Either way, there's more back mountain still fenced off by nothing but geography, so further expert terrain development beyond this season remains on the table.