Snowbird

Snowbird sits just below Alta in Little Cottonwood Canyon, sharing the same canyon, the same deep snow, and a very different temperament. Where Alta is spare and traditional, Snowbird is built around a single bold idea: an aerial tram. Opened in December 1971 by former Alta Lodge manager Ted Johnson and the Texas oilman and mountaineer Dick Bass — the first person to climb the highest peak on every continent — the resort was designed from the start around a Swiss-built tramway that climbs some 2,900 vertical feet from the base to Hidden Peak at 11,000 feet in about ten minutes. The tram's red and blue cabins, recently rebuilt with floor-to-ceiling glass, remain the symbol of the place.

Unlike its uphill neighbor, Snowbird allows snowboarding, and its terrain runs steep and serious: roughly 2,500 acres spread across Peruvian Gulch, Gad Valley, and Mineral Basin, with a 3,240-foot vertical drop off Hidden Peak. A quirk of the layout, the Peruvian Tunnel, carries skiers on a magic carpet straight through the ridgeline — North America's only ski tunnel. Snowbird connects over the top to Alta through Mineral Basin, and a combined ticket opens both mountains at once.

The canyon's altitude makes Snowbird one of the longest seasons in the country: the lifts often spin into late May, and in heavy years skiers have made turns on the Fourth of July. It is a year-round resort, too — in the warm months the tram carries sightseers and mountain bikers, an alpine slide and mountain coaster run on the lower slopes, and the base fills each fall for a long-running Oktoberfest. Snowbird is about 29 miles from the Salt Lake City airport and rides on the Ikon Pass, which is part of why a Little Cottonwood powder morning has become its own local traffic legend.