Utah's 'Secret' Slopes

Solitude does not have immense terrain, but its 1,200 acres are comparable to Crested Butte and Purgatory in Colorado; it has more than double the acreage of such storied Vermont places as Stratton and Stowe. However, the deal-clincher, in comparison with its renowned neighbors, especially Park City, is that its seclusion embraces you like a fluffy down parka. I almost felt I had the place to myself.

You can choose to do blue- and black-groomed run laps, via the Eagle Express quad, on the front of the mountain. I loved the many swooping, steep, high-intermediate runs, the kind that make you look like you're running a giant slalom course. When there is fresh snow, investigate Honeycomb Canyon, a V-shaped gladed stash of double- and single-black diamonds.

Chances are you'll run out of leg strength before you run out of untracked snow -- either the deep stuff or corduroy groomed by snow cats. As Adam Barker, a Solitude marketing staffer I skied with, said, "When the snow is old and used elsewhere, the groomers up here are still so sweet!"

Brighton

Just east of Solitude is Brighton, a venerable ski institution that caters more to local skiers, even though it is owned by Boyne USA, parent of the big Michigan resort and others.

Brighton holds an important place in Utah history -- it was here that Brigham Young and the Latter Day Saints celebrated the 10th anniversary of their settlement in 1857. The Mormon connection didn't prevent Brighton from advertising a year ago with billboards that poked fun at the now-banned practice of polygamy. The billboards featured a photo of a four-person lift and the caption: "Wife. Wife. Wife. Husband."

An early celebrity visitor to Brighton was the English adventurer and writer Sir Richard Burton in 1860, who described it as "a kind of punch-bowl, formed by an amphitheatre of frowning broken mountains." The bowl gets huge dumps of snow comparable to Alta's, as well as lots of classes of elementary school children.

By all means come to Brighton with your kids -- if they are under age 10, they ski or ride free. It's got plenty of runs to engage adults, too. My friend Harriet, a former ski instructor, considers Brighton her "home" mountain because it has varying challenges on the snow and is easy to negotiate off the snow. There is a level parking lot (no huffing and puffing from your car), a comfortable day lodge with lockers in the underground level and an elevator from there to slopeside. For those with more than a day's worth of energy, there is also night skiing.

Harriet likes to say Brighton has "wraparound skiing" because the lift fans out from the base area. The Millicent lift (to the right as you look up from the base lodge), which everyone refers to as Milly, serves steep groomed and ungroomed runs that are usually in the sun. The Great Western Express, far to the left, goes over some hairy double-black diamond runs that you can "shop before you buy." From the peaks at the top of each of the five longer chairs, you can find easier runs or test yourself through gladed woods and narrow chutes.

Only a fraction of Brighton's visitors come from the East, according to Randy Doyle, Brighton's area manager. But intrepid out-of-towners do find their way here. Last March, my New York friend Donald came to Big Cottonwood for a week. He wound up skiing with Brighton and Solitude instructors and a few business people who'd taken a day off to hit the slopes.

Donald opted to stay at the Silver Fork Lodge, a B&B about a mile from Solitude with a shuttle to the slopes. "I'm the sort of person who likes to have good food, great skiing, a nice quiet place to read in the evening, and then I go to sleep," he said. "Park City is too glitzy for me."

Snowbasin

You will need a car to get to Snowbasin, perhaps Utah's most sensational untapped snow resource. This Bunyanesque former Olympic venue near Ogden is an easy hour's ride along roads widened specifically for the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Games. It's worth the drive (guests at Salt Lake City's Grand America and Little America hotels have the option of a $20 round-trip shuttle), and you won't go hungry.

Rising from an area known originally as Wheeler Basin up the broad shoulders of Mount Ogden up to muscular granite cliffs and broad open bowls, Snowbasin is an unlikely combination of craggy mountain scenery and Lucullan lodges and lifts. Two gondolas, four triple chairs and one high-speed quad help you access the 2,650 acres of skiing here -- more than at Alta or Deer Valley.