Snowbird

Snowbird is a high-mountain resort in the Wasatch, a long way from any sea, and swimming plays no part in a stay here. In summer you can swim in the resort's heated pools or drive about an hour to the reservoirs in the Heber Valley, which have small beaches and cold mountain water. The Great Salt Lake is easy to reach, but it is a strange, shallow, very salty body of water that people go to look at, not swim in.

Eating at Snowbird means eating at the resort. There is a small group of restaurants in the lodges and the base plaza, a dining room at the top of the tram with views across the range, slopeside cafeterias, and a couple of après-ski bars serving burgers and pizza. Most of it is competent and priced for a captive audience, and nothing here is distinctively local. Utah's liquor laws shape how drinks are served, though beer and wine are easy to find.

Guests who want variety drive down the canyon to Salt Lake City's restaurant districts, about forty minutes away. Most visitors plan for that one or two nights a week.

Snowbird has no sights in the cultural sense. It is a ski resort built from scratch in 1971, with angular concrete lodges built to stand up to the canyon's avalanches. Little Cottonwood Canyon has a silver-mining past, and the granite for Salt Lake City's temple was quarried at its mouth, but almost nothing of that history survives for a visitor to see. Museums and historic buildings mean a trip down to the city.

Evenings at Snowbird start with après-ski at the base. Skiers fill a couple of lodge bars and a sunny deck at the end of the day, and that is the high point of going out here. By mid-evening most people have gone to dinner or bed, because the snow and an early first tram are the reason for being here. There are no clubs and nothing runs late. Anyone who wants a proper night out has to go to Salt Lake City or Park City, both of which mean driving a mountain road.

This is why people come. Snowbird sits high in Little Cottonwood Canyon, and an aerial tram climbs from the base to Hidden Peak at about 3,350m. The canyon catches some of the deepest, driest snow in North America, often more than 12m in a season. The terrain is famous for steep chutes, open bowls and tree skiing, and it extends through Mineral Basin and across the ridge to Alta. Skiing often runs from November into late spring, among the longest seasons in the country.

In summer the same slopes are good for hiking. Trails lead into the Twin Peaks and Lone Peak wilderness areas, and the wildflower meadows of Albion Basin are a short walk away. Mountain biking, climbing on the canyon's granite walls, and the Big Cottonwood and Park City ranges are all close.

Salt Lake City is about forty minutes down the canyon. It is the obvious outing, for Temple Square and its Mormon pioneer heritage, the domed State Capitol and the city's museums. Park City is about an hour away. It is a former silver-mining town whose old Main Street has kept its Victorian shopfronts, and it has several ski areas around it. Beyond those two, the list thins. There are the Swiss-flavoured town of Midway and the Heber Valley, Sundance in the canyon below Mount Timpanogos, and the railway-era 25th Street in Ogden. These are pleasant outings rather than destinations in their own right, and most of the rest within two hours is open country.

Snowbird works for families who ski, with some caveats. There is a ski school with children's programmes and some gentle terrain near the base, but the mountain is best known for steep, expert skiing, so it suits teenagers and confident young skiers more than toddlers. In summer the resort runs family activities around the plaza, including a mountain coaster, an alpine slide, a ropes course and climbing walls, as well as tram rides to the summit.

The base area is compact and free of cars, which makes it easy to manage children. The thin air at this altitude can tire small children, though, and the zoo, aquarium and children's museums are all down in Salt Lake City.

Inside the resort, getting around is easy. The lodges, the tram and the lifts are all a short walk apart along a car-free base, and many rooms are on the slopes. The difficulty is the canyon itself. A single winding road is the only way in or out. It clogs with traffic on powder mornings, and avalanche control sometimes closes it, which can keep guests inside their buildings for hours. In winter, ski buses run up from the Salt Lake valley. For anything else, including restaurants in the city and day trips, visitors in practice need a car or a shuttle from the airport, which is about forty minutes away.

Shopping at Snowbird comes down to a handful of stores in the base area. They sell and rent ski gear, outerwear, sunglasses and resort-branded clothing. They are useful for forgotten goggles but give no reason to browse. Malls, outlet centres and independent shops are in Salt Lake City, and Park City has the nearest boutique main street.

Snowbird is expensive, like most major ski resorts in the American West. Lift tickets, slopeside rooms, rentals and resort meals all cost a lot, especially in peak winter weeks. Season passes that cover several resorts bring the lift cost down for frequent skiers. Many visitors stay in Salt Lake City hotels and drive up each morning, which saves a good deal but means giving up the slopeside experience. Summer stays are noticeably cheaper than winter ones.

There is little live performance here. In summer the resort holds outdoor concerts on the plaza at the base, and its long-running Oktoberfest brings oompah bands to the mountain on weekends in late summer and early autumn. In winter, music means the occasional band at après-ski. Concerts, the symphony, opera and theatre are all in Salt Lake City, a drive away down the canyon.

Relaxing at Snowbird mostly means the large spa on top of the resort's main lodge. It has a rooftop pool and hot tubs facing the canyon walls, steam rooms and a full treatment menu, and it is at its best after a hard ski day as the light fades on the peaks. Outside the busy morning rush, the canyon is quiet, with no traffic in the village and dark, still nights. There is no bathing tradition of its own here. For something different, the geothermal crater at Homestead in Midway, about an hour away, lets you soak in warm mineral water inside a limestone dome.