Review of Alta Ski Mountain - Pros and Cons

Pros to skiing Alta: 

The views are picturesque - tried to capture some of the beauty in above picture

Despite the drive, we skied Alta two days out of three. We are both skiers and the trails on Alta have tons of powder due to it being a skied only mountain. For that reason it is a little easier to ski in the trees. Skiing in the trees is something I just started doing so I need to have lots and lots of open spaces in between the trees. I like Alta because I can ski in a little bit in the trees without committing to full on alpine skiing. Also, Alta feels a little less windy than Park City. 

Drawbacks to skiing Alta:

Skiers only - I mentioned before that this was a pro because there is so much powder but it's also a drawback if you are staying with a group of friends and some of them snowboard.

Access - if you are staying in park city it takes about 45mins - 1hr. There is only one access road and it gets traffic after 4pm on a Saturday. There is only one access road to get into Alta and Snowbird mountain from SLC. The road to Park city is closed in the winter.

Avalanche prone access road - there are warnings to indicate when the access road is in the danger zone for Avalanches. If you are on the mountain and  an avalanche occurs they will shut down the access road until the snow can be cleared. This can take up to 12hrs sometimes. This makes the cliff lodge more appealing especially if you are staying with all Skiers. The drawback here is that there is not much après ski life compared to park city.

The apres ski scene - mostly families and just beer or regular coffee etc. I was dying for an Irish coffee to warm myself up and I had a major craving from the hazelnut pig, after skiing at Park City yesterday. Unfortunately our beers were really flat and tasteless. It was probably not fair to compare to the fun we had yesterday in park city. We wondered if there was more of a apre ski scene at the sister resort (on same access road). The cliff lodge has a heated rooftop pool and hot tub we are going to check out next time.