Recently I got back from a major two week adventure in Utah, where I worked half the time and skied the other half. It was amazing and if you have a job that will let you work remotely I highly recommend the experience.
Why Salt Lake City? The main impetus for this trip (besides the husband being funemployed and myself with extra vacation) was that we had already purchased Ikon Passes for an earlier trip to Jackson Hole, so all of our skiing costs were already paid. Salt Lake City has a whopping SIX resorts on the Ikon Pass and most of them are an hour or less from the city. It made it the perfect place to book an AirBnb and be able to knock several resorts off our wishlist in short order. We intended to ski all six resorts on our trip, but unfortunately never made it to Snowbasin or Brighton. Snowbasin because the snow there was weaker than the other locations on our trip, and Brighton because we got stuck in traffic and bailed to go to Solitude instead. But that’s just a good excuse to come back for a return trip, no?
Skiing in Utah
Now there’s some generalities I noticed about Utah skiing as a whole that stood out to me.
Early Departures
People in Utah seem to all swarm to the resorts for that EPIC FIRST CHAIR FRESH POW RAD SHIT SEND IT moment, and then leave before noon. I mean it makes sense, if the mountains are less than an hour away and you have a pass, the sunk cost of actually packing up the car and getting your butt to the mountain is less, and you have a lot less to lose by bailing after two hours. But it was super weird to see the lift lines go from super packed to no wait before lunchtime. Especially when it’s not like the snow suddenly became awful after noon – there were days where it snowed freshies the entire day and people still left very early.
2 Rad 5 Me
Everyone is really good. Like really good. The terrain itself is pretty demanding at most of the mountains we went to. And that led to a lot of weird lift conversations where you’d ask what a good run is off the lift, and you’d get a recommendation for a super rad double black chute. It was just kind of weird to be in a place where it was assumed everyone was rad and could tear down the mountain. My expert husband loved it, but it honestly was a little off-putting to me.
Dude, Where’s My Car?
Unfortunately, parking and traffic is a big problem when getting to the slopes. This isn’t really a Utah specific problem, I’ve seen it while traveling in Colorado, and it’s a regular problem at home in Washington. I don’t want to get into specifics of each resort’s parking policy as it’s the end of the 2022-2023 season and I suspect that everything will be changed or tweaked for next season. But, in our two week trip, we ended up:
- Parking in the Deer Valley overflow lot and waiting 1.5 hours for a shuttle to take us to the mountain.
- Fighting merging traffic in Sandy in the line waiting to get into Little Cottonwood Canyon after an overnight avalanche closure
- Snagging a space in Snowbird because an amazing parking attendant gave us a tip for how to squeeze into the literal last space in the lot.
- Accidentally getting a parking violation because I fat fingered the license of our rental car at Solitude (appealed successfully!)
- Not even making it to Brighton the day we reserved on our Ikon passes because traffic was screwed (luckily turned around and made it into the Solitude lot just in time).
So, just expect it. Expect for parking and traffic to be a cluster if you decide to drive. Unlike other mountains, there are public transit options to get to and from the slopes, so you don’t have to deal with driving if you don’t want to. That said, the following helped us make informed decisions about driving:
- UDOT Cottonwoods is your friend. Check it frequently. They’ll post about road conditions and also retweet resorts when they tweet about parking and they also have cool videos of avalanches.
- Read up on traction laws. They were in effect probably 75% of the time we were on the road in either canyon (good skiing conditions == bad driving conditions). We got a rental car and I leapt at the one with AWD and M+S tires – highly recommend to be prepared!
- Leave earlier than you think you need to. Or, just accept that you won’t make first chair and realize that every day on the mountain is a blessing regardless.
Resort Reviews
Now, for reference, I am an advanced skier – I can easily ski blues in all conditions and can tackle blacks in most conditions. I can survive double blacks in good snow conditions, but most other times will stay away. So, these reviews are written through that lens – I cannot comment on how these mountains would be for a beginner or intermediate skier. The snow was also INSANE for the two weeks we were in Utah – fresh snow almost every day, most days with at least 5 inches of powder, several days with over a foot. So I can’t comment on how it would be with icy snow or low coverage. Resorts are listed in order of our visit.
Deer Valley
Vibe: Rich
Best run: Zebra Trees
Deer Valley has the nicest on-mountain bathrooms I’ve been in. Seems like a strange thing to start the review with, but honestly I think it captures the vibe the best. Deer Valley is for rich people in rich people chalets that wear $1200 ski suits. No snowboarders allowed!
But, honestly, I didn’t mind it. It was nice to be at a resort that lived up to its fancy advertisement. Deer Valley wants you to have a good time there – there are maps everywhere and most of them have mountain hosts standing in front willing to help you figure out what you’re doing. Again, a small detail, but the details really cement the fancy experience.
The skiing itself was pretty good. We were skiing with my father-in-law and some of his ski buddies (40 years of ski trips! The life!) so we hit more blue groomers than we would have if it was just my husband and I. But the runs were fun. And the back lift had some great runs – I particularly liked Zebra Trees which led you through some casual tree skiing through aspens. I think my favorite runs in general are tree runs where you don’t feel like you’re going to die at any point, and the terrain off of the Empire chair nailed that.
Snowbird
Vibe: Rad
Best run: Road to Provo
We spent the most time at Snowbird, and I think that says a lot when you have so many options in the area. When faced with the option to go do something new, we still chose to go back and explore more of the Bird.
It’s also hard to pick a favorite part of the mountain – all of it was pretty awesome. My personal highlights were probably Mineral Basin, which you can take a magic carpet through an actual mountain tunnel to get to, and then Road to Provo, which we got really lucky and were able to catch it right after the terrain had opened for the first time in a week – fresh deep pow that got skied out in an hour, but that first hour was great!
I also took a lesson at Snowbird and will recommend that experience. Our grand plan for our trip was to take a lesson one of the weekend days so that we could skip the long lift lines. An advanced lesson was something that my husband and I had wanted to do for some time, but could never justify the “fun” time wasted on the mountain. We chose Snowbird for our lesson because they explicitly called out Advanced and Expert level group lessons, and they had free slots for Sunday, unlike Deer Valley. For my Advanced lesson, there was a focus on maintaining athletic stance and pole touches. I like to joke that I paid $155 to learn how to finally use my poles, but, like actually that’s what happened. I had a marked improvement in my skiing before and after the lesson.
The one con about Snowbird is that it did seem to have the most aggressive people we encountered. This was highlighted when the Road to Provo was opened for the first time in over a week – that crazy pow mentality took over and people were crashing into others who had fallen on the traverse, with a stern “on your left!!” for anyone who might have slowed down to avoid the carnage. Also literally saw a father scream at his child for not skiing off a two foot ledge fast enough. Insanity!
Alta
Vibe: Pretentious
Best run: Race Course
Everything about Alta screams pretentious. I mean, just look at this snippet from the website.
Skiing Alta for the first time is a memorable and addictive experience. The hallowed ground for powder skiing in North America has sculpted the lives of skiers who chase that ethereal feeling of arcing down the mountain in a weightless snow globe.
https://www.alta.com/first-time-skiing-alta
What’s weird about Alta, though, is that it’s very bare bones. The village looks like it hasn’t been updated in decades, and gives a very 1985 Warren Miller film vibe to it. Which is fine, but, idk, it seems weird to base your whole brand off of not updating anything ever. But, don’t worry, the website will explain down to you why that’s better than other resorts:
However, that is not to say that Alta doesn’t provide modern-day amenities, which it does. We just rather focus on the skiing and the mountain rather than things that detract from spending time in the mountains and skiing with friends.
While you are skiing, you’ll find some chairs are faster while others are classic old-school doubles, including some without safety bars. Take time to enjoy the slow rides as they preserve snow quality and can often spark a good conversation.
https://www.alta.com/first-time-skiing-alta
And then in the “Tips for Skiing Alta” page, you get mansplained how to ski on their super special terrain.
Typically at ski resorts, skiers unload the chairlift and glide onto the best trails at the mountain. At Alta, this isn’t always the case. Alta Ski Patrol teaches the basics of traversing and managing Alta’s High Traverse, aka the High-T.
https://www.alta.com/tips-for-skiing-alta
Like, okay, I’ve traversed before. You’re really not that special for having a traverse to access terrain.
After re-reading the website I kind of hate that I had a good time there. The pretentious vibe is not how I want to live my life. But, the terrain was super nice. And I did really enjoy exploring off of the High Traverse (sorry, the “High-T”). In general, Alta is fun to explore – to do the equivalent of wandering around on skis and seeing what runs you happen upon. If that’s what skiing is actually meant to be, minus all the eloquent verbiage, then Alta nailed that.
It’s also really easy to swap in between Alta and Snowbird, so you can always check out what’s going on at one even if you parked at the other. For example, we were able to do a groomer run on our last day, but we were easily able to go back to Snowbird when the lift line was too long. I will say I’m kind of bummed that the line was long because the groomer was amazing – I am a sucker for super fast corduroy and it seems like Alta has the goods in that regard.
Solitude
Vibe: Laid-back
Best run: Headwall Forest
We had two days at Solitude, which equated to doing lower mountain runs on one day and mostly going off the Summit lift the other day. Not by choice, as the first day the Summit lift was closed the whole day, but it did give us a good sense of the whole mountain. Our favorite lift on the first day was the Eagle lift, as it had a lot of good runs off it – easy to explore different paths down even though we were taking the same lift. I am glad, though, that we got the second day to explore the Summit lift as that had really fun blue runs and tree runs and it was my favorite lift.
Speaking of tree runs, for whatever reason, Solitude is the place where my husband managed to convince me to do crazy double blacks on not just one but both days. I don’t know if that’s an indication of the terrain, or the snow conditions, or maybe Solitude’s vibe helped give me confidence? Who knows. I did one run in the Headwall Forest that was magical and another that was borderline terrifying. We also dropped in somewhere around “Here Be Dragons” on the map, which I suspect would have been more terrifying if they didn’t have a base around 600 inches of snow.
And maybe the vibe actually did help me conquer the tough terrain. People at Solitude were the nicest of our whole trip for whatever reason. I’m not sure if we ran into more locals, or just had lucky encounters, but everyone was super pleasant. It’s hard to be sour when everyone is in a good mood and there’s fresh snow on the ground.
Summary
Honestly, can you go wrong with skiing in Utah? No, I don’t think so. If I had to rate the mountains (which, why have a review blog if you’re not going to rate things?) I would put them at:
- Snowbird
- Alta
- Solitude
- Deer Valley
But, honestly, it doesn’t mean that anything on this list is bad, I just happened to like Snowbird and Alta A LOT. Solitude and Deer Valley are very close, Solitude gets the slight nudge into third as I realized that I skied some really rad runs there and that should count for something. I would 1000% go back to any of these resorts, and also would go back to ski in Utah in a heartbeat.
What do you think? Did I get the vibes right? Did I miss something that would totally change my mind about these resorts? Leave a comment below!
