The Olympic venue Midway
Nordic trails, a public biathlon range and the longest tubing lanes in Utah
Soldier Hollow, the venue that stayed.
Built on the hillside above Midway for the 2002 Winter Games, kept open ever since as a public Nordic centre, and now confirmed for biathlon, cross country and Nordic combined again in 2034. In between it runs seven floodlit tubing lanes at twelve hundred feet, a rifle range an ordinary visitor can book, two golf courses and a sheepdog championship over Memorial Day weekend.
Southern Utah is my home turf. Midway is not, so these pages are researched rather than lived: checked against city, county and venue sources, and dated so you can see how fresh they are. For the on-the-ground work here I lean on a Wasatch County partner agent.
Start here
An Olympic venue that stayed open after the Games left.
Soldier Hollow was built inside Wasatch Mountain State Park for the 2002 Winter Games and ran the biathlon and cross country events, with twenty thousand people on the hillside for the men's relay. Most single purpose Olympic venues struggle after the caravan moves on. This one did not, because the Utah Olympic Legacy Foundation took it over and ran it as a public facility, which is why a town of six thousand has a floodlit tubing hill and a shooting range you can book an hour on.
The address is 2002 Soldier Hollow Lane, Midway, about four miles southwest of Town Square by road, and the number is 435-654-2002. The Courtland C. Nelson day lodge and the Sport Discovery Center sit at the base with a cafe between them. Everything else is trail, stadium and range spread up the hillside behind.
It is worth being precise about which venue this is, because Utah has two. The Utah Olympic Park above Park City is the ski jumping, bobsled and skeleton site, a completely different place with a different programme, and it has its own page on the Park City companion. Soldier Hollow is the Nordic venue, and it is Midway's.
Soldier Hollow by the numbers
2002
the Games it was built for
1,200 ft
the length of each of the seven tubing lanes
30,000
square feet of Nordic centre after the recent addition
2034
biathlon, cross country and Nordic combined return
The winter product
Skinny skis, a rifle range and a hill lit up after dark.
Nordic skiing is the point of the place. Trails are groomed for both classic and skate technique and carry automated snowmaking, which in a valley that has had two warm winters recently is the difference between a season and a rumour of one. The venue operations director has put it bluntly: without snowmaking the season here would be under thirty days.
Biathlon is the unusual one. Very few public venues in North America will hand an ordinary visitor a small bore rifle, walk them through the range protocol and let them ski a loop and shoot, and Soldier Hollow does it in both seasons. It is a booked experience with an instructor rather than a walk on.
Then there is the tubing hill, which is what most of the valley actually turns up for. Seven lanes, twelve hundred feet each, a conveyor lift that replaced the old rope tow, two hour sessions starting on the hour, and floodlights so the last sessions run in the dark. A weekday session runs about twenty five dollars, a weekend session thirty, a holiday session forty, and March comes back down to the weekday rate.
| Winter | Summer | |
|---|---|---|
| The main draw | Groomed Nordic trails, classic and skate | Mountain bike and e-bike trails from the same base |
| The thing to book | A two hour tubing session, on the hour | A biathlon experience or a summer camp |
| What it costs | Tubing about 25 to 40 dollars depending on the day | A summer trail pass around 40 dollars |
| The hazard | Race weeks close parts of the venue to the public | Afternoon thunderstorms build over the Wasatch |
| The base | Day lodge and cafe open, rentals on site | Sport Discovery Center reopens in the first week of May |
The Sport Discovery Center closed at midday on 22 March 2026 and was due to reopen on 1 May 2026, which is roughly the annual pattern. Ring 435-654-2002 rather than assuming the shoulder season is covered.
The other half of the year
Sheepdogs in May, bikes and golf all summer.
The Soldier Hollow Classic sheepdog championship runs over Memorial Day weekend, 22 to 25 May in 2026, with preliminary trials Friday to Sunday from around eight in the morning and the championship round on the Monday. More than three hundred Rambouillet sheep are worked on open, unfenced hillside, which is a far harder test than a fenced trial field and is the reason handlers travel to it. Around the competition runs a festival with shearing, agility and working dog demonstrations.
Through the rest of the summer the venue rents mountain bikes and e-bikes, sells a trail pass at around forty dollars, runs adventure camps and keeps the biathlon range going with air rifles and laser systems as well as the real thing. The Basecamp cafe at the bottom runs from eight in the morning until three.
The two golf courses are on the same ground. Gold and Silver opened in July 2004 to a Gene Bates design and take their names from the medals, with Gold playing 7,598 yards from the tips at par 72. The state park page sets all four of the valley's public courses against each other.
In the ranking
Tubing and the sheepdogs
Both make the ranked nine, with the session prices, the arrival timing and what to bring to a hillside with no shade on it.
The ranked listHanded over
The alpine resorts
Lift served skiing at Park City and Deer Valley is that town's subject and is written up from that side, passes and traffic included.
Park City on skiingFor buyers
Living next to a venue
What an event calendar four miles from Town Square actually does to a week, and how the two towns in this valley differ.
Midway or HeberWhat 2034 changes
The building has started, and it is mostly about water.
Salt Lake City and Utah were awarded the 2034 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games on 24 July 2024. Soldier Hollow keeps the disciplines it ran in 2002 and adds two more, and the work to get there is already visible on the hillside.
The confirmed programme is biathlon, cross country skiing, Nordic combined, para biathlon and para cross country skiing. That is more than the venue ran in 2002, and it is the reason the trail work matters: biathlon and cross country need genuinely separate networks during the Games rather than a shared loop with different signage.
Separate networks need snow on all of them at once, which is why almost every item on the build list is about water. A nineteen thousand square foot addition took the Nordic centre to around thirty thousand square feet. A water pond and pumphouse project began in summer 2025. A snow storage depot was excavated the same summer and due operational in early 2026. Automated snowmaking, currently around sixty stick guns and ten fan guns able to cover roughly ten kilometres of trail in a two week window, is planned to reach fifteen to twenty two kilometres.
Between now and then the venue expects a run of major events, and one is already on the calendar: a BMW IBU World Cup biathlon from 6 to 11 March 2029. Luke Bodensteiner, who runs the venue and skied at two Olympics himself, has said the site is ahead of schedule.
Two Olympic Games, thirty two years apart, on the same hillside four miles from a town square of six thousand people.
An event venue four miles away is a traffic fact, not just an amenity. World Cup weeks, national championships, the sheepdog weekend and Swiss Days all put more cars on the same small grid of valley roads, and the access route to Soldier Hollow runs past a limited number of Midway streets. It is a genuine part of the picture on the southwest side of town, in both directions: harder on an event Saturday, and a large part of why the address is worth what it is. Look at a specific street on an event weekend before deciding how you feel about it.
Keep reading
More of Midway on The Local.
Things to do
The top 9, ranked
Nine picks, ranked, starting with a hot spring inside a limestone dome.
Read the guideThe crater
Homestead Crater
Fifty five feet of tufa, sixty five feet of water, and a tunnel blasted in 1996.
Read the guideThe state park
Wasatch Mountain State Park
Four public eighteens, two campgrounds, and a county road to Guardsman Pass.
Read the guideThe heritage
Swiss Days
A harvest festival from 1947, and a town hall built out of pot rock.
Read the guideMoving here
Midway or Heber City
Three miles apart, one school district, and two very different rulebooks.
Read the guideThe companion
Midway, in one place
The crater, the Olympic venue, the park, the festival and two addresses.
Read the pageQuick answers
The venue, answered.
Inside Wasatch Mountain State Park on the southwest side of Midway, Utah, about four miles from Midway Town Square by road. The day lodge address is 2002 Soldier Hollow Lane, Midway, and the number is 435-654-2002. It is often described as being in Heber Valley, which is true of the valley but not of the town: Heber City is three miles east of Midway and the venue is on Midway's side.
No, and they are easy to confuse. Soldier Hollow is the Nordic venue at Midway, which ran biathlon and cross country skiing in 2002. The Utah Olympic Park is above Park City and is the ski jumping, bobsled and skeleton site, with a museum, a summer bobsled ride and a completely separate programme. They are about half an hour apart and neither substitutes for the other.
Biathlon and cross country skiing, with Nordic combined cross country legs run there as well. The venue was purpose built for the Games and drew twenty thousand spectators onto the hillside for the men's relay. Rather than closing afterwards, it passed to the Utah Olympic Legacy Foundation and has operated as a public Nordic centre ever since, which is unusual for a single purpose Olympic site.
Biathlon, cross country skiing, Nordic combined, para biathlon and para cross country skiing, after Salt Lake City and Utah were awarded the 2034 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games on 24 July 2024. That is a wider programme than 2002, which is why the venue is building separate trail networks for biathlon and cross country and roughly doubling its automated snowmaking coverage to make snow on all of them at once.
Sessions are two hours and start on the hour, and the price runs about twenty five dollars on a weekday, thirty at the weekend and forty on a holiday, with March priced back at the weekday rate. There are seven lanes at twelve hundred feet each, the longest lift served tubing in Utah, and a conveyor lift replaced the old rope tow. The lanes run under floodlights after dark. Book ahead in holiday weeks.
Yes, as a booked experience with an instructor rather than as a walk on. The venue runs biathlon sessions in both winter and summer, using small bore rifles as well as air rifle and laser systems for beginners and younger participants, and the instructor covers the range protocol before anyone shoots. Very few public venues in North America offer it, which is part of why the site is worth knowing about beyond race weeks.
Memorial Day weekend, which is 22 to 25 May in 2026. Preliminary trials run Friday to Sunday from around eight in the morning and the championship round is held on the Monday. More than three hundred Rambouillet sheep are worked across open, unfenced hillside, which makes the course far harder than a fenced trial field, and the surrounding festival includes shearing, agility and working dog demonstrations.
Two eighteen hole courses, Gold and Silver, named for the medals and opened in July 2004 to a Gene Bates design. Gold is the championship layout at 7,598 yards from the back tees at par 72, and Silver plays shorter and wider. They are state park courses, so the posted eighteen hole rate with a cart has run about eighty two dollars for a non resident and about seventy two for a Utah resident Monday to Thursday, with a player pass available for regulars.
Mostly water infrastructure, because snow is the constraint. A nineteen thousand square foot addition has taken the Nordic centre to around thirty thousand square feet. A water pond and pumphouse project began in summer 2025 and a snow storage depot was excavated the same summer, due operational in early 2026. Automated snowmaking, currently around sixty stick guns and ten fan guns covering roughly ten kilometres of trail in a two week window, is planned to reach fifteen to twenty two kilometres.
An Olympic venue four miles from Town Square.
A venue that hosts World Cup racing, a national championship calendar and a second Winter Games is a real asset and a real traffic pattern, and which of those it feels like depends on the street. That is exactly the kind of question that has to be answered on the ground rather than on a map.
Referral disclosure. Outside Southern Utah, I connect home sellers and buyers with partner agents I trust in their area. If you choose to work with an agent I refer, that agent's brokerage pays my brokerage (Real Broker, LLC) a referral fee. The fee comes out of the agent's compensation; it is not an added cost to you. You are always free to choose any agent you wish, and using a referred agent is never required.
Send me the street and a partner agent here can tell you what an event Saturday feels like.