Just finished our ski trip. After a disastrous ski trip last year we tried again this year. We settled on Snowbasin in Utah due to its lower elevation, highly rated kids ski school,easy assess, and affordable rates. My wife and I loved it there. Small crowds, no lines for the lifts, lots of food options and base and up top, friendly and helpful staff, a nice ski shop area with reasonable prices.
Snowbasin doesn't have any lodging so we got a hotel in Farmington close walking distance to shops and restaurants. We also wanted to try some other snow activities and having a more central location helped.
We did a guided snowmobile tour. They had double machines so the kids could ride on the back. Most of the trip was on unloved road but we got off the road a few times and made our way up to an overlook. We found a place for snow tubing in Nordic Valley that had a tow line to pull you and the tube back up the hill.
At Snowbasin the kids did 2 full days of ski school. They have a very nice learning center complete with a play area for the 3-5 year olds. It is a separate building so you aren't dealing with other people getting their rentals or lift tickets. After the 2 days my 7 year old mastered all of yellow, over half of green, and got a few marks in blue. My 5 year old finished almost all of his yellow and started on some green. In the end they were both able to ride a lift and navigate a yellow/green run. Most importantly they had a great time and want to do more skiing. I'm sure we will be back and my wife and I might even take some lessons and see if we can learn.
I also learned that Snowbasin has two complete Olympic runs from the 2002 games you can ski and they will be hosting the Alpine events for the 2034 games.
