Words: Leo Epstein & Dillon Flinders. Photos: Chris Pearson/Ski Utah

Name your favorite US-based pro skier. Now Google where they live. I reckon there’s about a 60% chance the answer is in or around Salt Lake City. Nowhere else has so much skiing within an hour of downtown. You can stay, or live, smack bang in the center of town and ski every single day. Visiting for a week? Why not try a new resort every day?

Newschoolers tasked me with explaining why Salt Lake is the place to be for freeskiing. It didn’t seem like a particularly hard job, it’s almost self-evident from my perspective. But while I’ve skied a good portion of the resorts in the area, I wanted to bring in some help from Dillon Flinders to fill in the blanks. Dillon grew up in Utah on a ranch in Spanish Fork Canyon. More recently, he’s lived in Salt Lake City for the last four years. Those of us who ride Snowbird have known he would be on the Freeride World Tour ever since he blew our minds with his GoPro edits.

I’ve always referred to Salt Lake City as the Mecca of skiing, but that might not be the most PC (no, not the resort). For Dillon, who’s now finding his way as a pro skier, Salt Lake is the perfect place to be.

“For every facet of skiing, there’s a place right here that’s really, really good for it.” - Dillon Flinders

Between us, we wanted to suggest a perfect week of skiing, based out of Salt Lake City. There is so much on offer within a short drive of downtown that with this list, we’re just still just scratching the surface. But for now, we’ll start our seven-day tour with Sundance, a spot I just had to ask Dillon about. After all, it’s the hidden gem where he grew up skiing.

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Sundance - 54 minutes from downtown (Dillon):

Sundance is the local’s best-kept secret and one of the most beautiful resorts in Utah. It’s on the backside of Mt. Timpanogos and is stunning. Timp boasts one of the only glaciers in Utah that sticks around through the summer.

Sundance still has that small-town feel with a ton of authenticity. When Robert Redford built Sundance, he was very conscious about his impact on the ground, and strategic in keeping buildings camouflaged beautifully. No building was allowed to be higher than the tallest tree. In the summer, the roofs are grassed over, and in the wintertime, it’s kind of tucked away in the snow.

When it comes to skiing, it’s a relatively steep resort, with quite a few options if you know where to go. Last year, it was paradise on earth. So much skiing to be had, all the pow, and no one to fight you for it.

It was a special place to grow up skiing and my favorite runs there are Wildflower, and Close But No Cigar, both right next to each other, offering 25-28 degree slopes through the most beautiful aspens ever.

There are some major plans in place to expand the resort tastefully over the next five years but even now, it’s a must-visit if you love to ski.

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Brighton - 40 minutes from downtown (Leo):

Brighton is actually where I learned to ski, and it was those memories that made me choose Salt Lake City as my home seven years ago.

Powder, cliff drops, tree runs, and the highest number of baggy track pants per capita, it’s got a little bit of everything. The park culture there is strong, with some of the best skiers and snowboarders calling My Oh My and Majestic Terrain Park home.

Every preseason, Brighton runs “The Bone Zone,” Utah’s main preseason park, just so we can have rails to slide before lifts spin (If you go, BRING A SHOVEL, or face the wrath of the locals). Brighton also ran what I’d call “the best deal I can remember for park skiing” in spring 2023 with the Milly Meltdown. For 129 dollars, you could ride the chair, and ski the terrain park on Mt Millicent for the entire month of May, so they’re certainly doing it for the scene.

Brighton also offers night skiing, which is pretty cool if you want to shred after work or hit two resorts in a day. And in my opinion, it’s the least ‘resort-y’ of the ski areas in Utah.

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Alta - 45 minutes from downtown (Leo)

I won’t claim to be an Alta skier, I’ve had a season’s pass at Snowbird for eight years running now, which means I’ve heard way too much about how the snow is deeper just up the road at Alta. Maybe they’re right…maybe.

What I can’t deny is they've got the Alta Magic. The resort sits at the top of Little Cottonwood Canyon, and every time I ski there, crystalline snowflakes dance in the air, catching glimmers of sunlight and causing everything to sparkle in a way you just don’t see too often in real life.

Alta has always had a culture of fun. I think of Alta as the place where park skiers go to learn tricks outside the park and big mountain skiers go to ski powder. The resort has a huge variety of terrain, and sidehits galore. In fact, calling them ‘sidehits’ does them an injustice because you can go HUGE. For epic powder lines and some steeper skiing, the High Traverse is a good place to start. For a more playful style of skiing, the Wildcat chair has a lot to offer.

Every single year, some local kid I’ve never heard of lights it up on Alta opening day and becomes a household name. Also, check out ‘Frank’ for an epic end-of-year party that brings skiing back to the days of 80s comedy movies.

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Snowbird - 35 min from downtown (Leo)

What made me decide to make Snowbird my home mountain was the allure of gnarly terrain, vertical fall line skiing, and the fact that they’d run lifts until the last bit of snow melted usually into May or June and sometimes the 4th of July.

Even when it hasn’t snowed, parts of Snowbird, like High Baldy and Great Scott, get a lot of wind to buff in the moguls and keep it skiing smooth and fast.

Snowbird is huge, and it takes a lifetime to learn it all. After eight years of skiing there, I know around half of it very well. The Tram will get you right up to the top for a run of 2,900 vertical feet, and Tram laps will give you some strong legs after a whole season of them. If you’re doing Snowbird right, you should be exhausted after a full day there.

Snowbird has slow signs, but if you’re in control you can bomb down Chip’s Run, a beautiful, steep top-to-bottom groomer, as fast as you’d like, with all the side hits, cat tracks, and jumps you could ever want.

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Park City - 40 min from downtown (Dillon)

The vibe at Park City is a little more upscale, but that’s combined with one of the best park scenes on the planet. There’s a ton of acreage to ski, just a ridiculous amount. If you want to ski a different run, every run, it’s an amazing place to go.

It’s a pretty family-friendly resort too, with a huge variety of steep and mellow terrain. With two base areas, skiers and riders can quickly spread out on the mountain. My favorite place to ski is Jupiter Bowl or, of course, one of the six terrain parks.

Park City has such a rich history in the park scene, and there’s always a good vibe. Armada made it home for a reason. In the parks, you get to mix it with some of the best slopestyle skiers on the planet. Sure, you’ll have kids like Walker ‘Shredz’ Woodring throwing dub 10s both ways at age eight (or whatever) but that can be pretty motivating. I’ve always loved the vibe since it pushes me to be a better skier. It’s very inspiring to see so much talent in one spot.

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Snowbasin - 44 min from downtown (Dillon)

At Snowbasin, just outside Ogden, the lodges are world-class, and the food, and even the bathrooms, are award-winning. The new Strawberry Patio is a great addition, a perfect spot for a quick rest in the sun when lapping the looker's left side of the resort. The skiing is up there with the best, and it all comes without breaking the bank.

After all, Snowbasin is where they held the Olympic downhill for a reason. John Paul is my favorite lift up there, offering dreamy, steep tree skiing terrain. I might have had the best powder run of my life there. I was 13 and remember it to this day. Incredible, bottomless cold smoke from top to bottom.

The resort covers a huge area, boasting two gondolas and a ton of unique terrain from more open bowls to silent, untracked glades. You can take the Allen Peak Tram from the top of John Paul to the top of the Olympic downhill starts, where there’s some amazing big mountain skiing on offer right from the lift. Some of the best side-country that you’ve ever skied is accessible from there too, requiring minimal effort for maximum reward.

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Powder Mountain - 1 hr 7 minutes from downtown (Twig)

Keep driving past Ogden and you’ll find Powder Mountain, the furthest resort from downtown SLC on this list. It’s well worth the trip for the Ramen at the Powder Keg alone. Just over an hour's drive from downtown, the mountain has so much to offer, with inbounds cat skiing included in your lift ticket for a small upgrade fee. And if you can’t make it during the day, night skiing is available for just $19.

Pow mow offers a LOT of terrain options with lifts heading off in all directions, tons of hidden stashes and a huge variety of fun features to be found. There’s a reason Tom Wallisch is skiing there so much these days:

“The resort is so dope and old school, with such fun and varied terrain. I love it” - Tom Wallisch

With so much terrain and a little more distance from SLC than the other resorts, Pow Mow certainly lives up to its name. Even days after a storm there are pockets of fresh, cold smoke. It also has a way more chilled vibe than lots of the resorts on this list, with next to no lift lines and plenty of happy-go-lucky locals. Powder, yes, but without the panic.

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So, is Salt Lake City The Capital of Freeskiing? Perhaps it hasn’t always been, but it is now. Alta and Snowbird are producing top-level backcountry freestyle shredders like there’s no tomorrow. Park City and Brighton are two of the premiere park resorts on the planet. All are within 45 minutes of downtown SLC. It’s home for pros from across the freeski and freeride spectrum for a reason. More and more ski brands are making Utah home. The combination of incredible snow and a huge variety of skiing within an hour of a big city makes it pretty hard to beat, whether you’re there for a week or life.

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