Ask most people in Utah Valley what Sundance is and you will get one of two answers, and both of them are winter answers. It is the ski hill up Provo Canyon, or it is the film festival. Neither answer describes the place between June and the end of September, when the lifts still run, a zipline drops almost a mile down the mountain, and a chairlift climbs into the dark on the nights around a full moon.
That gap in local knowledge is strange, because Sundance is closer to Provo than most of the places people drive to for a summer evening. It sits at 8841 North Alpine Loop Road, at the foot of Mount Timpanogos, less than half an hour from the mouth of the canyon.
This guide covers what the resort actually runs in summer, what each thing costs and how long it takes, the one policy that catches families out at the base of the lift, and a specific problem with the information published about all of this: several widely circulated details are out of date, including the name of the lift the moonlight rides use.
What Summer at Sundance Actually Is
Sundance in summer is a small resort running a handful of things well rather than a theme park. The mountain has three chairlifts. In summer they carry sightseers, hikers who want to walk down rather than up, and mountain bikers with bikes on the racks.
Around that core sit the things that make an evening rather than an afternoon: guided horseback rides out through aspen groves, guided fly fishing on the Provo River, an art studio where you can make something and take it home, a gallery, a spa, a general store, and four places to eat that range from a deli patio to a dining room with linen.
The resort's own framing is worth repeating because it is accurate: summer here is a full season in its own right, not a holding pattern between ski seasons. The practical consequence for a local is that Sundance is a legitimate Tuesday-evening destination, not just a weekend expedition.
Scenic Lift Rides
The simplest thing on the mountain is also the one most locals have never done. You buy a ticket, get on a chairlift, and ride up.
You can take a single lift or ride all three to the top. From the upper stations the view opens across the Wasatch, and the resort pitches the top as a starting point for a picnic or a hike back down, which is the move worth knowing: ride up, walk down, and let the lift take the climb out of the day. For anyone who wants the alpine view without the two-hour ascent, or who is walking with someone who cannot manage a long climb, this is the answer.
Scenic lift rides run through the day in summer. They are also the base ingredient in the two evening experiences below.
Full Moon Lift Rides: The Headline Act
This is the thing the rest of the valley has not caught up with.
On the day of each full moon and the days around it, the resort keeps a chairlift running into the night and sells rides. The lift is the Outlaw Express, and the resort says each ride lasts 30 to 45 minutes. Posted hours were 8:30 p.m. to 11 p.m.
The experience is unusual in a way that is hard to convey until you have done it. A chairlift is a quiet machine. There is no engine near you, no road noise, and above the base area no artificial light to speak of. You rise through dark trees with the valley lights behind you and Timpanogos filling the sky ahead, and the only sound is the cable and whatever the person next to you says.
Two practical details matter more than they sound.
Dress for a different season than the one you drove up in. The resort's own advice is to bundle up, and it goes further than the usual caution: it suggests puffy jackets, or a shared blanket, even in midsummer. That is sound. You are gaining elevation after dark, sitting still, in moving air, for up to three quarters of an hour. People arrive in shorts because it was warm in Orem at seven and are miserable by nine.
Pets are not allowed on the chairlift, and the resort says that includes service animals. It states this plainly as a guest and staff safety policy. This is the single most important thing in this guide to read before you leave the house, because there is no good answer at the base area if you have brought a dog. Children must be accompanied by an adult.
The dates, and how they are set
The resort schedules these on the full moons, and it names them by their traditional moon names rather than by dates alone. For the 2026 season it listed the Flower Moon in late May, the Strawberry Moon at the end of June, the Buck Moon in late July, the Sturgeon Moon in late August, and the Harvest Moon on September 24, 25 and 26. The season ends with the close of September.
This is worth internalizing rather than memorizing, because the rhythm repeats every year even though the dates move. If you want a moonlight ride, look at a moon calendar, find the full moons between late May and late September, and expect the resort to run rides on two or three nights around each one. Then confirm on the resort's own page, which is where the dates are published each spring.
What it costs
When we read the resort's page in September 2026 it listed adults at $38, children 6 to 12 at $33, seniors 65 and over at $33, children 5 and under free, and a family 4-pack at $115. Season ski passes include full moon lift rides, which is a genuinely good perk for a pass most people think of as a winter purchase.
The ZipTour
The ZipTour is the resort's zipline, and it is not a short zip across a meadow. The resort describes the standard tour as taking two to three hours, and the Full Moon version as finishing with almost a mile of soaring.
The Full Moon ZipTour is the one worth knowing about, because it combines both evening experiences: a full moon lift ride up the Outlaw Express, a night ride in a side-by-side, and then the zip itself under the moon. The resort listed it at $79, against $99 for the standard daytime tour, and said it takes about an hour and a half. It covers the Demo and Outlaw spans, which the resort puts at over 3,871 feet of cable.
The rules are firm. Riders must be 10 or older, there are height and weight restrictions, and a guardian has to come with a young rider. No previous experience is required — the resort says a guide walks you through each step, and you control your own speed. Reservations open in the spring and the resort recommends booking ahead rather than turning up.
Standard tours were listed as starting at 10 a.m. daily through the summer months, with the Full Moon version starting at 8 p.m. on select dates.
The Bluebird Cafe Concert Series
The Bluebird Cafe is a small room in Nashville with an outsized reputation. It is a listening room, where songwriters perform their own material in the round and talk between songs about how a song came to exist. It is where a meaningful number of country and Americana careers were made, and the format — writers, not the famous voices who later recorded them — is the whole point.
Sundance runs the series in partnership with the Bluebird, in both summer and winter editions. The winter series has been scheduled for February 19 and 20 and March 26 and 27, 2027.
Two things to know. First, it sells out. Recent summer editions sold out, and this is not a show to plan on attending at the last minute. Second, it is not a concert in the usual sense: the rooms are small, the performances are acoustic and conversational, and the audience is expected to listen rather than talk. If that is what you want, there is nothing else like it within an hour of Provo. If you were expecting a festival crowd, you will be surprised.
Beyond the Bluebird, the resort runs live music from local artists at the Owl Bar on weekends and selected weekdays, and concerts at its outdoor amphitheater.
The summer musicals are gone
For years the amphitheater hosted outdoor musicals, and for a lot of Utah Valley families a summer show at Sundance was an annual tradition. That program has ended. The amphitheater now hosts concerts and other performances instead.
We are flagging this because it is the kind of change that quietly ruins a plan. If your memory of summer at Sundance is a musical under the stars, the thing you remember is not on the calendar any more.
Hiking, Biking, Horses and the River
Hiking. The resort's trails run from canyon-floor paths to ridge lines, and the headline route is Stewart Falls, which the resort describes as one of Utah's most visited waterfall hikes. Our Alpine Loop scenic drive guide covers the road that gets you to this side of the mountain and the stops along it.
Mountain biking. The lifts serve the bike park in summer, and the resort rents bikes and runs demos. This is the most physically demanding thing on the mountain and the one with the steepest learning curve; the lift access means you can ride far more descent in an afternoon than you could ever climb.
Horseback riding. Guided rides go out through the aspen groves and alpine meadows. This is the activity most likely to suit a mixed-ability group, since it asks nothing of your fitness.
Fly fishing. Guided fishing runs year-round, and the Provo River below the resort is a Blue Ribbon trout fishery — one of the genuinely notable things about this canyon, and something a lot of locals drive past without registering. Our Provo River fly fishing guide covers the water in more detail.
Eating on the Mountain
There are four distinct options and they are genuinely different from one another, which is unusual for a resort this size.
The Tree Room is the formal one, built around art and craftsmanship, and the room most likely to be the reason for the trip rather than a refueling stop. The Foundry Grill is the hearth-and-comfort-food dining room, and its Sunday brunch buffet runs from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and has a following well beyond the resort's guests. The Owl Bar is the historic bar with live music. And the fast casual options handle the mountaintop nachos and deli-pizza-on-the-patio end of the day.
Our guide to eating in Provo Canyon and at Sundance goes through these in detail, including which ones need a reservation.
The Season Pass Arithmetic
The resort sells a summer season pass covering unlimited scenic lift rides, full moon lift rides, hiking trail access and mountain biking, and it was listed at $199 with a 20 percent discount on the ZipTour and half off Halloween lift rides.
Run the arithmetic against your actual habits rather than your intentions. At the posted adult rate for full moon rides, the pass covers itself in roughly five evening rides, or fewer once you add scenic rides and bike park days. If you are a mountain biker who rides lift-served laps, it pays for itself quickly. If you are going to go up twice all summer for a moonlight ride, buy tickets.
And note the overlap already mentioned: a winter ski season pass includes full moon lift rides. If you hold one, you may already be covered without knowing it.
Getting There, and the Canyon Question
Sundance sits on the Alpine Loop Road above Provo Canyon. From Provo or Orem, the usual approach is up US-189 through the canyon and then onto the Alpine Loop.
The thing to understand is that the Alpine Loop itself is a seasonal road — it closes in winter and the timing of the closure varies with snow — but the resort is reached from the Provo Canyon side and stays open year-round. The closure affects the loop over the top toward American Fork Canyon, not your drive up from Orem.
For an evening event, build in more time than the map suggests. Canyon traffic on a summer evening is not the same as canyon traffic at two in the afternoon, and you do not want to be rushing the last miles to make an 8:30 lift.
Where the Published Information Goes Wrong
This section exists because researching this page turned up a pattern worth passing on.
A great deal of what is published about Sundance's summer program is stale, and it is stale in ways that look authoritative. Three examples, all found in circulation:
The lift name. Listings still say the full moon rides run on Ray's Lift. The resort's own current page says Outlaw Express. Someone following an old listing is looking for the wrong lift.
The price. One widely syndicated event listing carries a family 4-pack price $40 above what the resort's own page states. That is not a rounding error; it is the difference between what a family budgets and what they pay, in the wrong direction.
The hours. Published start and end times for the moonlight rides vary across sources by as much as two hours in either direction.
The general rule this suggests is one we apply across this site: a resort's own page for a specific activity beats a listing site, an aggregator or a press article, and it beats the resort's own older pages too. Before you drive up the canyon for a dated event, open the page for that specific activity on the operator's own site and read the figures there.
Late Season and Into Autumn
The summer program does not stop abruptly. The Harvest Moon rides at the end of September are the last of the moonlight season, and they fall when the canyon is beginning to turn, which makes them the best-looking of the year and the coldest.
After that the resort moves into an autumn program: Oktoberfest, Harvest Mini Markets with artisans and live music, Halloween lift rides and a Halloween ZipTour, and a Halloween party at the Owl Bar. Scenic lift rides continue into the fall color season, which is the single best use of a chairlift in this canyon all year.
Who It Suits, and Who It Does Not
Summer at Sundance rewards a particular kind of visitor, and it is worth being honest about who that is.
It suits people who want scale and quiet rather than activity volume. The mountain is not large, there is no water park, no alpine slide, no arcade. What it has is elevation, aspen, a working chairlift and a short list of things done carefully. A visitor who measures a day out by how many attractions were ticked off will find it thin. A visitor who wants one good hour on a chairlift with nothing to do but look will find almost nothing else like it nearby.
It suits mixed groups better than it looks like it should. The lift takes the fitness requirement out of getting high on a mountain, the horseback rides ask nothing of your conditioning, and someone who wants a hard mountain bike descent can have that on the same ticket while everyone else rides up and walks down. Groups that usually fracture over ability levels hold together here.
It suits evenings more than afternoons. The moonlight rides, the music at the bar, the amphitheater and the dining rooms are all evening propositions, and the canyon is cooler than the valley floor exactly when the valley floor is least pleasant.
It does not suit anyone on a tight budget who is looking for a free day outdoors. Nearly everything here is ticketed, and a family can spend real money quickly. The canyon itself is free, and there is no shame in driving up, walking a trail and driving home. What you are paying for at the resort is access to the lift and to guided activity, and that is a genuine thing, but it is not the only way to spend a summer evening on this mountain.
It does not suit a last-minute plan on a dated evening. The moonlight rides run on a handful of nights, the songwriter series sells out, and the zipline wants a reservation. The spontaneous version of this trip is a scenic lift ride and dinner, which is a good evening; the rest of it needs planning a week or two out.
What It Feels Like Versus What It Costs
A useful way to think about the money here is to separate the two things you are buying.
The first is access to elevation you could otherwise only earn on foot. A chairlift ticket converts a two-hour climb into a fifteen-minute ride, and for a lot of people that is the difference between seeing the top of a mountain and not seeing it. Judged that way it is inexpensive.
The second is a guided or staged experience: the zipline, the horses, the fishing, the songwriter series. These carry the cost of guides, equipment, insurance and staffing, and they are priced accordingly. Judged against a movie and dinner in the valley they look expensive; judged against what they actually involve they are ordinary.
Where people feel stung is when they pay guided-experience prices expecting attraction-park throughput. Setting the expectation correctly before you book is most of the battle, and it is why the length of each activity is worth reading carefully rather than skimming.
A Plan That Works
For a first summer evening at Sundance, this sequence holds up:
Leave the valley by six. Eat early at the Foundry Grill or grab something from the fast casual counter rather than trying to eat after the ride, when the kitchens may be closing. Walk the base area while it is still light — the general store, the art gallery, the creek. Be at the lift by a quarter past eight with far more clothing than you think you need, and a blanket if you have one. Ride. Come down, and let the drive back through the canyon be part of the evening rather than a chore.
For a family, swap the Tree Room for the deli patio and bring a child under six, who rides free.
For a couple looking for something other than dinner and a film, the Full Moon ZipTour is the strongest thing on the list, and our guide to date-night activities in Utah Valley collects the alternatives if the dates do not line up.
The Short Version
Sundance runs a full summer season most of Utah Valley does not know about. Scenic chairlift rides run all day on three lifts and are the easiest way to get an alpine view without the climb. Full moon lift rides run on the Outlaw Express on the nights around each full moon from late May until the end of September, last 30 to 45 minutes, and were posted at $38 for adults with a family 4-pack at $115 — and pets, including service animals, are not allowed on the lift. The ZipTour runs daytime tours and a shorter Full Moon version covering over 3,871 feet of cable. The Bluebird Cafe Concert Series brings Nashville songwriters to a small room and sells out. The outdoor musical program has ended. And before you drive up for any dated event, check the resort's own page for that activity, because a lot of what is published elsewhere is out of date.
Related Guides
- Sundance Mountain Resort: The Complete Guide
- The Alpine Loop Scenic Drive
- Summer Activities in Provo
- Eating in Provo Canyon and at Sundance
- Fly Fishing the Provo River
- Provo Canyon Photo Spots
- Date-Night Activities in Utah Valley
Frequently Asked Questions
What is there to do at Sundance in the summer?
When are the full moon lift rides at Sundance?
How much does a full moon lift ride at Sundance cost?
Which lift do the full moon rides use, and how long do they take?
Can I bring my dog on the Sundance chairlift?
How much is the Sundance ZipTour and how long does it take?
What is the Bluebird Cafe Concert Series?
Does Sundance still put on summer musicals?
