As the Saddleback Express left its terminal at Red Pine base, my skiing partner extended his hand to the snowboarder who had joined us from the singles line for the ride to the top.

“Hi, I’m Les,” he said to the rider, engaging his new friend Keegan in friendly banter as we soared above snow-covered pines with the sun wisping in and out of the heavens above. He never let on that 27 years ago he built the place!

When skiing with Les Otten, several points quickly stand out. First, the sport is deeply ingrained in his family, with a collection of kids and grandkids in tow. Second, he simply loves skiing — always has. And he takes every opportunity to share it with others.

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Otten was in town for the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Hall of Fame, an inductee in the Class of 2023. He was recognized for pioneering initiatives that lifted the resort industry to new levels with the development of skier-friendly resorts, programs to introduce new participants to the sport, and savvy marketing.

Les Otten and his American Skiing Company acquired what was then Wolf Mountain, formerly ParkWest, back in 1997. At the time, it featured seven mostly double chairlifts and a lot of potential. Over the next decade, Otten would transform the small resort, bringing in modern lifts, slopeside hotels, and a wide array of new trails — laying the foundation that would subsequently bridge Canyons to Park City, becoming the largest lift-served resort in America.

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Riding up Saddleback, Otten reminisced about the lift he moved in 1997.

“It existed, but it was in the wrong place,” he said. “You couldn’t ski down to Tombstone.” So the alignment was changed with a new high-speed quad that summer, which fed into the new Tombstone lift.

Otten closed on the sale in July 1997. By December, using multiple companies, five new high-speed lifts, including an eight-passenger gondola, Flight of the Canyons were installed. After Labor Day, construction began on the 16,000-square-foot Red Pine Lodge, which was ready for the Christmas holiday. It was the biggest expansion ever for a Utah ski resort, expanding the terrain by nearly 50% in one summer.

For several years, Otten had been poring over topographical maps, plotting his ideas for new runs.

“If you talk to Blaise (Carrig, operating manager), he’ll tell you that one day I said, ‘Everybody is an idiot savant at something,'” recalled Otten. “You can just show me a topographic map — just tell me the contour lines — and I’ll tell you where to put the lifts and trails. Just show me where north is. I can see everything and how it connects.”

As crews were busily preparing to cut new trails that first summer, Otten’s team built a list of new names. Seeing the extensive draws separating all of the ridgelines poking out from the Wasatch Back, Otten eventually settled on The Canyons, a moniker that still resonates with skiers and riders today.

Dropping off Saddleback, we wound our way down Snow Dancer, passing through Red Pine base, arcing nice turns on the groomed track down Chicane to Tombstone Express.

Otten laughed as he thought back to Christmas 1997. The lifts had been load tested days earlier. But they still needed work on the gondola and Tombstone bases. Carrig conceived an idea to use hay bales and snow to build up the surface. And The Canyons was born!

Coming down Another World, we hit a few powder stashes on the sides, dropping down Rip Saw to Peak 5.

“Do you know why we called it Peak 5?” Otten asked. “It was the fifth peak at The Canyons.” 

We were now deep into the runs at The Colony, which was just a fledgling concept back in 1997.

“I had the maps of everything, including the Colony property and then the Iron Mountain property,” he said. “So we laid everything out so that eventually we could connect with Park City. We figured that was a logical thing to do.”

We paused at the top of Peak 5 with the sun breaking through just enough to see the outline of the High Uintas over the pitch of Upper Crowning Glory. Pushing out, we headed downwards through the whoop-de-do drops under the bridges of Harmony back to Tombstone.

A native of New Jersey, Otten now lives in Bethel, Maine, commuting about an hour over to The Balsams in New Hampshire, a prestigious resort he’s renovating. Looking down on the trails he pioneered at Canyons, he said: “There’s a lot that I don’t know, and there’s a lot that I learn every day. And I’d love to be smarter. But it’s one thing I’ve been able to do, and that’s why The Balsams is so exciting to me.” 

Riding up Tombstone one more time, I gazed out onto the ridgeline to the south.

“As you look out there, Les, what do you see 25 years later?” I asked. He pondered for just a moment, responding simply, “I see skiing.”