For skiers, Salt Lake City is pathway to nearby powder

SALT LAKE CITY — Being able to hop a city bus for a day of perfect skiing is in itself a perfectly simple idea, and Salt Lake's bus system keeps it that way: Wait at the curbside for the Utah Transit Authority's Ski Bus, and depending on whether you're heading for the slopes or back to town, the readerboard on front of your bus will read "UP" or "DOWN."

Can't get too confused by that. Either way, it's $3, and in an hour you're there.

"It's great, you stay at a cheap motel in town, catch one of these special buses with ski racks on the side, and they'll take you right to Alta," my Seattle friend Barney Lennartson, a former Salt Laker, told me last winter when the Cascades were a better bet for a mud bath than a powder run.

Posh ski vacations with slopeside condos, faux European villages and bistros serving bunny rabbit pâté aren't usually in my budget. But this sounded doable.

Here's what I found: comfortable, inexpensive lodging, with nearby brew pubs and dining choices aplenty; a few steps to a park-and-ride lot where I could not only catch the Ski Bus, but also whisk on a modern light-rail system to see city center attractions; worry-free daily rides to my choice of four world-class ski areas, and a day of what was hands down the best spring skiing of my Seattle-born, powder-deprived life.

I'm spoiled. Forever.

Setting up a base

The La Quinta Inn in suburban Midvale, 10 miles south of downtown Salt Lake, was a good base, two short blocks from the park-and-ride. At the $62 rate I found on the Web, it beat the $209 quoted at the Park City Marriott or the $219 I might have paid up the hill at Snowbird resort. (In two nights of such frugal lodging, I saved more than enough to pay my air fare from Seattle.)

In the same Midvale neighborhood, Motel 6 offered bare-bones rooms for $36, but even fireplace rooms at the nearby Homewood Suites, a posh Hilton affiliate, were going for a special weekend rate of only $79. (Of course, check current rates before you plan a trip.)

The Ski Bus made getting to the slopes easy, with no worries about chaining up a rental car for trips up the winding canyons of the Wasatch Mountains.

"The bus will get through as long as the road is open," Rob Paull, a hill guide at Snowbird, assured me as we chatted on board the Route 98 bus at 7:45 on a Thursday morning last March. I was the only skier among a half-dozen workers heading up to Snowbird and Alta ski areas.

The ski resorts help pay for specially equipped buses, our driver explained, showing me a toggle switch on his dashboard for "automatic tire chains": "I switch that and they drop right down!"

There are tradeoffs, sure, to staying in the suburbs vs. the dreamy convenience of slopeside lodging. Before disappearing up Little Cottonwood Canyon, the bus meandered through a strip-mall jungle of McDonald's, Chili's, Mervyn's and Babies R Us stores. An office park of mirrored buildings reflected the snowy mountains, which crouch over Salt Lake Valley like a mountain lion guarding its breakfast squirrel.

But we were soon into the nose-pressed-to-window scenery of the glacier-carved canyon, and the trip passed in a flash.

Ski resorts are close to the city, which is why it makes sense to run scheduled city buses. They're not only cheap, but convenient. Buses run daily during ski season, and often: Between 7 and 9 a.m. alone, according to last spring's bus itinerary, 16 scheduled runs went up Little Cottonwood Canyon to Snowbird and Alta, plus seven to Solitude and Brighton resorts in Big Cottonwood Canyon. Buses ran throughout the day, with return trips as late as 8:30 p.m.

Sprint to the slopes

Easy riding to Utah slopes

Ski Bus

Utah Transportation Authority operates the Ski Bus. For schedule information and a route map that includes motel locations, see www.rideuta.com and under "Route Finder," click on "Ski." $3 each way, or a day pass for $6 is valid for unlimited travel on ski buses and TRAX light rail service, which connects the suburbs with downtown.

Ski buses serve two canyons: Little Cottonwood Canyon, home to Snowbird and Alta ski areas, and Big Cottonwood Canyon, home to Solitude and Brighton ski areas. Bus service operates daily starting Nov. 20.

For details on routes, including maps and schedules, see www.rideuta.com.

Where to stay

Most convenient to the Ski Bus: Stay in Midvale, a Salt Lake City suburb, near the 7200 South TRAX Station, on Fort Union Boulevard just off Interstate 15. The Ski Bus departs from here, as well as the TRAX light rail. Nearby motels include La Quinta Inn, Motel 6, Days Inn, Homewood Suites, Extended Stay America and others. See a map with motel information and transit routes on www.rideuta.com.

Ski areas

The Ski Bus serves four ski areas:

Alta, www.alta.com or 801-359-1078. Skiers only, no snowboarding.

Snowbird, www.snowbird.com or 800-232-9542.

Solitude Mountain Resort, www.skisolitude.com or 801-534-1400.

Brighton, www.brightonresort.com or 800-873-5512.

More information

Contact Ski Utah at www.skiutah.com or 801-534-1779, or Salt Lake Convention and Visitors Bureau, www.visitsaltlake.com.

The fast dash from city to chairlift draws skiers from afar. Some never leave.

"I live in downtown Salt Lake City and it's only 22 miles here from my front door!" said Gary Fudyma, with whom I shared a chair at Alta as talcum-like snow swirled down on us. He and his wife, both nurses, moved from New York City after looking at the attractions of cities across the West. Utah's skiing tipped their choice.

Salt Lake City has a lot to offer, he said, "including all the brew pubs, which most people don't expect" in this land of Brigham Young's offspring.

There are also plenty of accommodations to choose from.

"You've got all kinds of lodging, from pretty basic to posh," Paull said.

"And one thing, since the [2002 Winter] Olympics, Salt Lake finally has enough hotels!" added Heidi Gaitin, who works in accounting at Snowbird.

Plus, of course, there's the "Greatest Snow on Earth," bragged about on Utah's auto-license plates. Doug Knox, behind the rental counter at Alta Sports, told me how he'd come for a quick visit from Connecticut, and the snow kept him here.

"I was supposed to be here 24 hours, but this place got 6 feet of snow in a day and a half, and I'm still here!"

As I pulled on my rental boots, another helper behind the counter looked out the windows at the falling snow and hollered manically to a man rushing by on his way outside: "Dumpin', Lou!"

"Powder!" replied Lou, exuberantly rushing out as he zipped up his jacket. It's what they like here, and what they're used to.

Welcome March powder

After a rare snowless three weeks, that March weekday made up for it quickly. By 11, several inches of new powder cushioned the hillsides. I stepped right on to lifts, with rarely a wait. After lunch at a pleasant midhill lodge filled with historical photos of Alta's mining-camp past, the thrill of my afternoon came atop the Sunnyside chair, elevation 9,400 feet, where the falling snow piled up so quickly that the tracks of skiers ahead of me had disappeared by the time I started down the Crooked Mile run.

Not far along, a visiting Ohio family had stopped for a hillside photo. I happily obliged their request to snap a shot on their camera so Dad could be in the picture.

"This is our last day and we're really glad to see the snow," the father said. "I really wanted my kids to experience the joy of skiing this Utah powder!"

On the bus back to the city, I met John Truty, a self-described 84-year-old ski bum who skis here twice a winter, visiting from his home near Chicago. (Alta offers free passes to skiers 80 and older.) He usually stays at Days Inn, another inexpensive Midvale motel.

Not only is the ski bus a good deal, but the TRAX light rail makes for easy forays downtown for dinner, he said. "If you had dinner up here at the lodge, it would cost you $25 a person, and in the city you'll pay half that!"

Solitude beckons

After a good meal that night at the Bohemian brew pub in Midvale and a TRAX trip into the city to see some tourist sights, I rose to a sunny morning and hopped the Ski Bus to Solitude Mountain Resort. Five more inches of powder had arrived overnight.

If you're lucky, you'll get a Snow Bus driver like Mike Berns, my "guide" that morning, who's been driving to the ski areas since the service started in the mid-1970s. He offered a running commentary on the canyon geology, stopped for quick photo ops of stunning scenery, and pointed out beaver dams along Big Cottonwood Creek.

At Solitude, a mix of alpine firs and graceful aspens gave a different look from the Cascades. The Summit chair soared to 10,035 feet, enough to make my sea-level seasoned lungs puff. The views of craggy peaks and snow-filled bowls were, literally, breathtaking.

After a $7 lunch of tacos in a pretty lodge full of peeled-timber furniture, I skied until late afternoon, when my wobbly knees said it was time to quit. On this blueberry-sky day with snow to dream about, there wasn't a line to be found.

The ultimate end to this matchless day of spring skiing? I had to try Solitude's own faux European village and find the perfect pub with a perfectly cold beer and a view of the sun sinking behind the peak.

Sadly, here's where Utah failed me.

The Thirsty Squirrel pub is where you need to be, people told me. But laws in socially conservative Utah dictate that only private clubs may serve liquor. So when the bartender told me I had to pay $4 to "join" before buying a beer, my "cheap gene" rebelled (more sensitive friends call it my "nose for value"). Besides which, the near-empty pub was hidden behind a hotel with no view of anything.

No worries. I hopped the bus back to the 'burbs, bought beer and pretzels at a supermarket, opened the curtains in my value-priced motel room and watched the sunset pinken the whole Wasatch Range.

Not bad. Not bad at all.

Brian J. Cantwell: 206-748-5724 or bcantwell@seattletimes.com