Almost like your own private Utah
Ogden resorts feature world-class slopes without big crowds

OGDEN, UTAH | A tale of two mountains
The Kansas City Star, November 12, 2006
By YVETTE CARDOZO

OGDEN, Utah | Over at Park City and Snowbird ski resorts, the hordes have chopped today’s fine powder to a trashy mess in minutes.

But at Snowbasin, with 3,000 skiable acres and hardly 2,000 skiers even on a Saturday, the newly fallen snow is all ours. I’m with local Jim Forster, and he takes me off the Strawberry Gondola to a spot called Dwayne’s World. Gnarled old aspens, thick-trunked pines and bushes speckle the slope, leaving plenty of space for turns.

We bounce through the trees, snow flowing over our knees and flying weightless into our faces, filling our nostrils.

And when we return, again and again, there’s still plenty of untouched snow to be had.

“Sometimes, it’s so deep,” Forster says, “you sink down and it totally covers you. You can’t see. You can’t breathe. Then you come up, grab a peek and some air and get buried again.”

Welcome to Ogden, the other Utah.

There are actually two large ski mountains here, hardly a half-hour drive apart. Powder Mountain and Snowbasin are yin and yang — backcountry rustic versus ultra luxe — but without the crowds, without the frantic rush, without the wallet-crushing experience you get at the more popular Utah ski resorts.

And in between is Wolf Mountain, a beginner hill where a family of four can ski for $28 — that’s total, not each — on Monday night, and students ski for $10 on Thursday (including a slice of pizza).

People don’t flock here for various reasons. Although Ogden is only an hour’s drive north of Salt Lake City, eight ski resorts are even closer. And skiing in Ogden is mostly a commuter affair. With the exception of five very simple, motel-like rooms and a few dozen condo units on Powder Mountain, you pretty much have to drive to the ski hills.

But once you arrive, you get endless powder (average 500 inches a year), empty runs and staff so happy to see someone — anyone — that you are treated like royalty.

Powder Mountain
Powder Mountain is like skiing used to be, simple, rustic, basic. There are no frills. No tissue boxes at the lift stations, no gourmet mushroom salads, no leather sofas in front of huge stone fireplaces at the lodge. Just lots and lots and lots of powder. And absolutely no people.

“We’re actually the largest ski resort in the U.S. … 5,500 skiable acres,” says group sales rep Carolyn Daniels.

That’s bigger than Vail, bigger than Whistler. A busy, busy day — say Christmas — is 1,500 people. The rest of the time, you’re hard-pressed to find 1,000 bodies on the hill. This means powder runs all to yourself, even the day after a huge snowfall. Sometimes the emptiness is downright spooky.

What Powder Mountain does especially well is intermediate powder. This is where you should come to learn the stuff. There are these incredible aspen groves where the thin-trunked trees are spaced far enough apart and the slope is gentle enough that you can figure out the mechanics of turning in snow that comes over your knees.

The lodge is a simple, well-worn affair that reminds you of skiing, say, the backwash spots of Montana circa 1980. It sits nearly at the top of the 2,000 vertical-foot mountain. Other short lifts take you a bit higher, but most of the skiing is below.

Most runs are wide open and either novice or intermediate. If you’re looking for expert stuff, there’s a hike up Lightning Ridge to probably the cheapest ’Cat skiing in North America.
But it’s not for the fainthearted. The $7 fee gets you a ride on a rope behind the Sno-cat. It involves putting your pole through a loop and riding it, T-bar style. But what you get in return is seriously untracked, challenging terrain.

Snowbasin
For those who want more luxury, there’s Snowbasin. Officially, it’s “Snowbasin, a Sun Valley Resort.” That’s because both places were built by billionaire Earl Holding.

Close your eyes and shake your head in one of the gilt-edged lodges and you’d swear you were at Sun Valley, Idaho — same blond, peeled logs, same comfy leather sofas, same huge stone fireplaces. Along with gourmet meals, endless swaths of marble, Italian burl ceilings and enough polished brass to give you a sunburn.

The gondolas, by the way, are hand-washed on a regular basis.

If you last visited Snowbasin in the ’90s, you won’t recognize the place. Back then it pretty much looked like Powder Mountain. But for the 2002 Olympics, Holding sank $150 million into an “extreme makeover” that included three Sun Valley-style lodges, two gondolas and much more.
So today you have the architecture of Sun Valley, the luxury of Deer Valley and the prices of Montana, but with Utah snow.

Yet the crowds are light.

It’s Saturday when the weather finally clears for us. On Friday 14 inches of weightless Utah snow fell on Snowbasin. Now the sky is clear, the faithful are out in droves, and every powder hound in shouting distance seems to be lined up at the base gondola.

Still, the wait is barely 10 minutes. And when we get up top, then head for the Strawberry Gondola, the wait is nonexistent.

Officially, the area is called Seven Sisters or sometimes WFO (Way Far Out). The locals call it Dwayne’s World. Whatever, it’s absolutely empty. Sure, there are tracks. But not many. We yo-yo the Strawberry Gondola, still finding wide chunks of untracked powder well into midday.

There’s more easily reached expert terrain here than Powder Mountain. But there’s also plenty of gentle intermediate and beginner stuff. The mass of people ski the middle peaks where the intermediate trails group together. Off to the far left (WFO, WWFO, WWWFO) it’s emptier. And off to the far right lies the John Paul Express with double black diamond (seriously expert) terrain.

Up here, too, you’ll find the Mount Allen Tram, worth a trip just for the view.

If you’re going to ski this, you’d better be comfy with really steep. This was the start of the men’s downhill race in the 2002 Olympics. The slope is 40 degrees. Kinda like falling down a wall.

What keeps this place from turning into Jackson Hole or Park City is the lack of on-slope lodging.
There have been rumors for a decade that Holding would build a hotel here. But so far, there are no solid plans.

“We like to say we’ll believe it when the foundation is laid,” one Snowbasin ski host said. But that keeps the slopes empty and the locals happy.

And if you’re smart enough to head north from Salt Lake City to Ogden instead of south and west to the usual Utah spots, you will be, too.

Ski areas
Thanks to snowmaking, Snowbasin’s season is pretty much guaranteed from Thanksgiving to Easter. Powder Mountain, which spurns snowmaking and, in fact, advertises this with a drawing of a snowgun that has a diagonal line through it, usually operates from mid-November to mid-April.

Compared with the more popular resorts, lift rates at these two resorts are a bargain — $50 at Powder Mountain, $60 at Snowbasin. Both areas offer multiday discount cards.

Wolf Creek, a much smaller area, focuses on the beginner and intermediate markets and lures them with night specials (a family of four skis for $28, total, on Monday night).

Where to stay
Powder Mountain has five motel rooms and about three dozen condos on slope for rent at rates that range from $85 for the smallest motel room to about $300 a night for a three-bedroom condo.

The nearest off-mountain digs to Powder is Wolf Creek Resort (www.wolfcreekresort. com). The nearest lodging of any kind to Snowbasin is Lakeside Village (www.lakesideresort properties.com). Both properties offer well appointed, large condos, hot tubs and other amenities.

To learn more
•Powder Mountain: www.powdermountain.com
•Snowbasin: www.snowbasin.com
•Wolf Mountain: www.wolfmountain eden.com

Yvette Cardozo is a freelance writer in Issaquah, Wash. | Yvette Cardozo, Special to The Star