The Best Utah Ski Resorts
The mountainous state of Utah is blessed with some of the best snow anywhere in the world. It’s light, fluffy, and there is an abundance of it during the winter season. As a result, skiing, snowboarding, and other winter sports abound in this region, especially in the former mining town of Park City and in the Cottonwood Canyons near Salt Lake City.
There are six major resorts in this area, and on a weekend or three-day-long trip, you just won’t have time to visit every resort in the area. However, I’ve made it easier for you to decide where to go each day by giving you some information about each resort in the area.
Park City Mountain Resort – It’s BIG and There’s Something for Everyone
For a variety of terrain, you simply cannot go wrong with Park City Mountain. With 7,500 skiable acres (half the size of Manhattan!), it’s the largest resort in North America and has everything you could want in a ski resort, and will leave you wanting more. Originally two separate resorts (Park City and Canyons), Vail Resorts merged the two resorts via an interconnect gondola in 2015 and now it’s all accessible under one lift ticket.
What’s nice about Park City is that your entire group will be able to find a place for themselves at this resort. The beginner and intermediate skiers can enjoy the mile-long groomed blue runs off of Iron Mountain and Silverlode, while the advanced and expert skiers explore the backcountry on Ninety-Nine Ninety and Jupiter and you can all meet up for lunch at one of the many mid-mountain lodges.
I honestly love Park City for this very reason: you can ski whatever you want. Sometimes, you want to ski those long groomers and other times, especially after fresh powder, you want to enjoy the backcountry.
Just remember to show up early as both Park City and Canyons base parking lots fill up by 9:30 each morning, and you can get some runs in on a nearly empty mountain
Favorite Mountain Area: Dreamscape/Dreamcatcher (access from Dreamscape or Dreamcatcher Lifts)
Favorite On Mountain Restaurant: Miners Camp (at the base of Silverlode Express and the Quicksilver Gondola)
Deer Valley Resort – Call it the Hollywood of Ski Resorts
Right next to Park City Mountain is the more exclusive, but nicer looking Deer Valley Resort. All of the lifts here are express, so you can get tons of runs in each day, plus they cap the number of tickets sold each day, so you’ll never wait more than 5 minutes for a lift. However, Deer Valley does not allow snowboarders, which is fantastic for a skier like me, but not so great if you snowboard (obviously).
Deer Valley is a gorgeous resort with at least one green run down from every lift, making it a perfect place for families to take the lift up together, split up on the way down, and then meet each other at the bottom. There are plenty of runs for advanced skiers too, from Empire Peak to the far side of Bald Mountain. The snow here is equivalent to that at Park City Mountain, but Deer Valley does a better job maintaining their snow because of the cap on the number of people allowed on the mountain each day.
Considering Deer Valley pulls out all the stops, it’s no wonder many famous people choose to ski at Deer Valley, especially during the world-famous Sundance Film Festival. This does mean though, that Deer Valley is considerably more expensive than any other resort on this list, but you do notice the difference in quality from the other resorts.
If you’re willing to pay the cost, Deer Valley is an absolute blast and can be one of the best days of skiing you’ll ever have.
Favorite Mountain Area: Empire (access from Empire Express Lift)
Favorite On Mountain Restaurant: Empire Canyon Lodge (at the base of Empire Express and Ruby Express Lifts)
Brighton Resort – An Under Appreciated Ski Area
Just East of Salt Lake City are two canyons with some of the best ski resorts in the world, with even better snow quality than just over the mountains in Park City. Big Cottonwood Canyon, just off of I-210 (the ring road around Salt Lake City), is home to Brighton and Solitude, two small-ish resorts that provide a huge bang for your buck in terms of runs skied and price paid for a lift ticket.
Both resorts are on the Ikon Pass and a combination ticket can be bought for the resorts, meaning you can ski both in one day. For the purpose of this review though, I will only talk about Brighton because I have not skied Solitude in years. Brighton is by far the cheapest ski resort on this list, with tickets going for less than half of what you’ll pay for Deer Valley or Park City, plus Brighton has better snow quality than either Park City resort. Sounds like a no-brainer that you should go to Brighton right?
Well, not exactly… Brighton is significantly smaller than Park City and Deer Valley, so it’s not uncommon to have long lift lines anywhere on the mountain. Additionally, while Brighton skiing is still incredible, it just doesn’t have the variety of terrain you’ll get in Park City and you could get bored skiing here after about two days.
Despite this, Brighton is still an incredible deal for what you’re getting and you could not get better skiing for a better price, so it’s definitely worth a visit. Brighton is also the only resort to offer night skiing (on some lifts), which is an opportunity for a different type of experience.
Favorite Mountain Area: Great Western (access from Great Western Express Lift)
Favorite On Mountain Restaurant: Milly Chalet (at the base of Milly Express Lift)
Alta Ski Area – POW-DER!
If you happen to be one of the lucky people to go to Alta during or just after a big snowfall, consider yourself to have won the lottery. Alta consistently gets the most snowfall of any resort in the US (550 inches!) and has a huge amount backcountry and off-piste terrain. The combination of these two make Alta my favorite ski resort in the world and just an all around fun time.
Just South of Big Cottonwood Canyon is Little Cottonwood Canyon, where Alta and Snowbird are both located and it somehow gets even more snow than its neighbor to the North. Similar to Brighton and Solitude, Alta and Snowbird are linked through a joint pass, and have similar terrain types. However, Alta doesn’t allow snowboarders and has slightly more beginner terrain than Snowbird, so it takes the cake for me. Similar to Solitude, I haven’t been to Snowbird in several years now so I will only be reviewing Alta.
About 20% of the resort area is efficiently groomed each night and all of the groomed runs are long, steep, and tons of fun. But to really experience the mountain, you need to leave the groomers and jump into some of the backcountry terrain. Some intermediate-advanced terrain that I particularly enjoy is the Ballroom area (off of Collins lift) and the tree skiing on No. 9 Express (off of Supreme lift).
I guarantee you’ll have a great time at Alta given it’s huge backcountry area and long, fast groomed runs, even if it isn’t snowing.
Favorite Mountain Area: Supreme (access from Supreme Lift)
Favorite On Mountain Restaurant: Alf’s Restaurant (at the base of Sugarloaf and Supreme lifts)
