Alta: the back story

About Alta: the back story

By the ULTIMATE Ski Resorts Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Jai Michael

Alta sits at the top of Little Cottonwood Canyon, where a silver boom once filled the valley with miners. The ski area that took their place has hardly changed its idea in 89 winters: deep snow, steep slopes, independent lodges and no snowboards.

Silver and snow

After silver was discovered in Little Cottonwood Canyon, miners settled Alta, and by 1871 it was a mining town. Its winters were already legendary: on 13 February 1885 an avalanche buried the town under 50 feet of snow. When the silver gave out, Alta became a ghost town, its slopes stripped bare by decades of mining.

A Norwegian’s eye

In 1935 the Forest Service hired the Norwegian ski champion Alf Engen to find sites for winter recreation, and he recommended Alta. The Forest Service saw skiing as a way to create jobs and let the barren mountainsides grow back. In 1937, 700 acres were deeded for a ski area, and the Salt Lake Winter Sports Association raised $10,000 to build the Collins lift from mining remnants.

Alta is a skiers-only mountain. Snowboarding is not allowed.

Opening day, 1939

Alta Ski Area opened on 15 January 1939. The Collins single chair was the fourth chairlift in America and the first in Utah. Soon afterwards, Sverre Engen began using explosives and ski cuts to control avalanches, and Alta became the birthplace of avalanche mitigation in North America.

The lodges

Alta Lodge, the ski area’s first overnight lodge, has hosted skiers since the early 1940s, and the Rustler Lodge followed in 1947. The Alta Peruvian Lodge opened in 1948 in a building that had been nurses’ barracks in the Second World War, taken apart and rebuilt in the canyon. Each is still independently run, and the lodges remain the heart of Alta life.

Skiers only

Alta has always been a skiers’ mountain, and it still is: snowboarding is not allowed. It averages 543 inches of snow a winter, and set its single-season record of 903 inches in 2022–23. In the biggest storms, you may even be caught in one of Alta’s legendary interlodge days, when the lodges keep guests indoors.

Our advice

Stay in a base lodge with half board and leave the car at home: the canyon road closes for avalanche control, and parking needs a reservation on weekends and holidays.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Alta: the back story before you go.