Returning to Utah After 10 Years

We rendezvoused at Salt Lake City’s huge, sparkling new (2020) airport, picked up a jeep, loaded the gear and hit the road for a 6-night, 4-resort Utah ski safari.

First stop was the vast combined ski area of the previously separate resorts of Park City and The Canyons (now known simply as Park City). We’d forgotten just how many bowls and linked areas there are in these lightly wooded hills and just how beautifully well-kept it all is. Warming up by ripping long perfect groomers overlooking the wide-open landscape was the perfect start to the trip.

We stayed in the Canyons Village and enjoyed ski-in ski-out convenience, ideal for maximising time on snow to get the legs in the groove at the beginning of the trip. Skiing over to Park City for lunch is a nice little goal for a morning’s cruise and the descent into the historic town silver-mining town is well worth the journey.

You just need to remember not to let the lunch get too long and be sure to get the Quicksilver Gondola connection which allows you to ski back to Canyons Village. If the lunch does turn out to be one of those longer ones, there is always the bus to get you safely home. But we made the lift and returned to town on the bus in the evening to enjoy the bars and restaurants, including the world-famous and absolutely buzzing No Name Saloon.

We’d enjoyed excellent on-piste skiing conditions in Park City, but it was as we headed on to explore a couple of smaller, less well-known resorts that Utah’s famous light, dry powder started to fall and we were dreaming of fluffy, off-piste turns. By the time we arrived at the aptly-named Snowbasin, the car next to ours in the car park had a promising covering of the good stuff on it.

We spent a fantastic morning working the John Paul Express finding different lines through the trees each time. With the heavy snowfall, we didn’t get to the bowl at the top of the Mount Allen Tram, which didn’t open for safety reasons, but as powder skiers know, it’s deeper between the trees, so we were very happy and kept very busy… so busy in fact, that I didn’t manage to get a photo of the skiing, apologies!

I really love going to smaller, quirkier ski resorts which offer a completely different ski experience compared with some of the better-known resorts around the world. The lifts may not be as modern and quick and the food not as fancy and varied, but the quieter slopes and often more rugged terrain more than makes up for that.

Another great aspect of a multi-resort holiday is the road-trip vibe. You see so much more of an area you are visiting if you are driving through it, stopping off at little out-of-the-way places as you go. And it’s these places that often stick in the mind and give memories of a trip a particular flavour.

The drive from Park City to Snowbasin (which can easily be done there and back in a day if you make a fairly early start) for example, weaves through stunning orangey canyonlands with eagles circling overhead; the high desert landscape providing a real contrast to the typical ski resort vista.

Next on the list was Powder Mountain, which I’d been wanting to visit for a long time, but never managed to get to. We were again blessed with some overnight snow, but clearer conditions and better visibility allowed us to get a good view of the resort’s unusual layout. After the drive (again doable there and back in a day from Park City) we had a coffee at the day lodge, got the gear out of the waggon and skied off from the parking lot!

We had a superb day doing off-piste powder laps through the go-anywhere terrain either side of the ridge served by the Paradise chair. Long runs at a decent pitch with nicely-spaced trees and very few skiers on the mountain meant we did a lot of laps and the legs had a thorough workout!

Tired but happy, we made a quick pit stop for dinner in Ogden and then pushed on down Highway 15 to Snowbird in Little Cottonwood Canyon, just to the east of Salt Lake City.

And as it turned out, it was just as well we did push on. That evening a big storm came in and closed the road up the steep-sided, avalanche-prone canyon. This is a fairly regular occurrence in this part of the world and the road was opened after a few hours of snow blasting and clearing the next morning. But being trapped on the inside meant we had the 45cms of fresh snow to share with the other members of the resort’s fairly limited overnight population… once we were allowed to leave the building that is.

It was a big storm but Snowbird had already received an incredible 395 inches, or 10 metres, of snow and this was only 17 January! It was a sensational day’s skiing, especially around the easy-to-access area of steep-ish shoots above the Gadzoom lift. Easy to access is important because the snow was so deep in areas that it was difficult to make your way around the mountain.

But we had an absolute blast and by the end of the day, we were finished. And I mean that. After 5 very full days of skiing, including 3 proper powder days, one of which was truly epic, we were literally finished! This is a shocking admission, but the next day, we were only able to do a couple of fairly mellow runs before calling it a day and heading back down the canyon for a night in Salt Lake City.

We had been extremely lucky with the snow, but our choice of resorts had been superb and our return to Utah had been a triumph. With plenty of other resorts in the area to revisit we definitely won’t be leaving it as long before we return to Utah once more.

If you'd like to take a multi-resort trip yourself and experience Utah's 'Greatest Snow on Earth®', why not take a look at our Utah Powder Hunter and Utah & National Parks Ski Safaris? Ask our team for more details on a tailor-made trip and enquire online or call 01273 224060.

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