Rad Smith Creates Hand-Painted Map for Deer Valley’s Major Expansion
Rad Smith, whose childhood afternoons were spent watching Bob Ross paint, has become a renowned artist known for his intricate ski trail maps featuring detailed trees. This summer, Smith completed the hand-painted map highlighting Deer Valley Resort’s significant terrain expansion set for the 2025-26 season.
The resort is adding seven new lifts and over 80 trails, nearly doubling its size to approximately 4,300 tree-covered acres. This expansion required Smith to painstakingly illustrate thousands of coniferous trees, a task he describes as his “nemesis.”
Artistry Meets Ecology in Depicting Deer Valley’s Terrain
Smith’s work not only maps the extensive new terrain but also captures the dense tree clusters characteristic of Deer Valley, providing a glimpse into the forested habitat that supports diverse wildlife, including native deer species.
Ski maps like these inadvertently document forest structures critical to local fauna, offering a view into how terrain development coexists with natural ecosystems.
Challenges of Mapping a Vast and Growing Landscape
Living in Montana, Smith previously painted Deer Valley’s 2024-25 map, blending his mentor James Niehues’s earlier work with recent expansions at East Village. The 2025-26 project presented new challenges due to the massive scale.
Smith noted the original map appeared overwhelming, and the new master plan made the terrain so large that viewing it in detail required a perspective from “30,000 feet up.” This challenge reflects the complexity of depicting extensive natural landscapes in a concise format.
Field Work and Technology Inform the Map Creation
- Weather conditions prevented Smith from conducting aerial flyovers of the expansion area.
- Instead, he relied on hundreds of drone photographs and satellite images to study terrain features and forest patterns.
- These methods ensured accurate representation of tree density and trail routing across the 2,000-plus acres added to the resort footprint.
Biologically, this level of detail mirrors the importance of diverse forest structure in providing shelter and forage for species such as mule deer and elk native to the Wasatch Range.
Balancing Detail and Practicality in Map Design
One key challenge was fitting a sprawling, detailed map into a compact, ski-jacket-friendly fold size, necessitating sacrifices in how elevation changes were portrayed. Deer Valley’s real 3,040-foot vertical drop may appear less pronounced on the map, a tradeoff for legibility.
Smith is preparing a supplementary map focusing exclusively on the expansion zone to better illustrate the mountain’s vertical complexity and varied terrain features, which influence wildlife habitat distribution.
Notable Features Highlighted on the Map
- The inclusion of Green Monster, a 4.8-mile run recognized as Utah’s longest ski trail.
- Detailed representation of tree clusters, mimicking the coniferous forests that serve as critical cover for deer and other mountain wildlife.
The preservation of these forested areas within resort expansion highlights the intersection between recreational development and wildlife conservation considerations in mountainous ecosystems.
Resort and Artist Perspectives
Deer Valley officials praised Smith’s artistry for maintaining the classic feel of hand-painted ski maps while incorporating modern signage to ease guest orientation across the expanded acreage.
Smith acknowledged the immense scale and complexity, calling painting thousands of trees a persistent challenge but one necessary to capture the natural character of the expanded resort terrain.
Additional reporting and sources from: See Deer Valley’s expanded terrain in this hand-painted map by Rad Smith
