Combine skiing with a US road trip in the Wasatch Mountains

Looking down from Utah’s sheer Wasatch Range, I feel relieved to have made it to the end of one of America’s most challenging roads. Rising to nearly 2,500 metres, State Route 210 is no stranger to avalanches. Snow ploughs can’t keep pace with the blizzards and cannons trigger slides to mitigate risk. Travel can be slow and unpredictable — but manage to get here, and the skiing is arguably the finest in North America.

On a steeply inclined slope facing Mount Superior, high above the canyon’s Snowbird resort, the mountains inspire a particular kind of devotion. The powder is brazenly billed ‘The Greatest Snow on Earth’ and, in an age when skiing is all about chasing the next rush, the Wasatch Range — named by the Shoshone Native American tribe — is a glimpse of America at its wildest. We stop in our tracks, and my guide Sarah Sherman explains that the valley offers what locals call ‘country club skiing’. “The road’s closed so often for avalanche blasting, it’s almost like this is a private resort,” she says. “Pretty sweet, right?”.

For decades, the big-ticket resorts of Colorado and California have dominated the US winter sports landscape thanks to better infrastructure and investment. Now, those in Wasatch are offering a new proposition: a road trip through obscure towns with few facilities — but ones with access to some of the largest terrain in North America. Record snowfall has become Utah’s calling card, and powder conditions are especially favourable in the climate bubble created by the Wasatch. The scientific term is ‘flotation’: the weather west of the Rockies causes lighter flurries to fall on a heavier snow base, while the area’s unique meteorology coughs up lightly spinning, almost weightless powder. 

The off-radar Wasatch towns might seem an intimidating payoff, but the appeal lies in their variety. Between saddles of unbroken snow, different realities can be found an hour or two apart — as well as Snowbird, there’s Alta (skiers only), Brighton (grungy), Solitude (challenging), Park City (swaggering), Deer Valley (upscale and also newsworthy since this year’s Gwyneth Paltrow court case) and Mayflower Mountain Resort (opening 2024). While different, all are representative of a state that’s at its best when experienced outdoors. 

Two days later, we pack up our gear and drive north to Huntsville in the Ogden Valley, a frontier town ringed by white hills where — on clear nights — stars dazzle like a glitter ball. At no-frills Powder Mountain, the pistes are deserted; there’s a sense of infinite space. Pine glades funnel into wide basins, and when the handful of goggle-tanned locals gather at the base lifts, there’s no queue scrabbles, only smug smiles and unspoken nods. 

“All a skier needs is right here,” says Loel York, a lifelong Powder Mountain ski guide, as he shows me his favourite spots — one of which is accessed by a snowcat ride, beyond the boundaries of the marked piste. “This is bigger than Whistler or Vail, but the wonder is we only have nine lifts. Beat that.” Powder Mountain has so far been spared from development, and its owners cap the number of day passes at 1,500. 

The last stop on my circuit is Sundance Mountain Resort, a destination long defined by its former owner, Robert Redford. With its pine-trimmed canyons, timber lodges and forests, it’s a fitting setting for a skiing finale. It’s also a place to turn in harmony with nature: enormous swathes are out of bounds, protected from future development, and avalanche rescue dogs patrol the slopes as commonly as ski guides. 

Evening storms are forecast; the wind lifts, visibility drops and my time runs out. Like the rest of Utah in winter, nightfall at high altitude is an exercise in both calm and fury. The skiers mostly vanish back to their valley homes, leaving emptiness in their rear-view mirrors.  This gives time for the mountains to shake themselves up and rearrange their open spaces into something new, for whoever wants to live out their dreams again tomorrow.