Snowbird
Overview
Snowbird opened for its first season in December 1971, the creation of former Alta Lodge manager Ted Johnson and Texas oilman Dick Bass, and unlike most of its Wasatch neighbors it sits on privately owned land rather than public forest permit. The resort’s defining feature is its aerial tram, in continuous operation since that opening season and refitted with new cabins in 2022, which along with 13 other lifts, mostly chairs, moves skiers across 202 mapped runs and 100.34 kilometers of terrain. The numbers back up Snowbird’s reputation for difficulty: 35.91 kilometers of advanced terrain and 21.38 kilometers of expert terrain add up to more than half the mountain’s mapped distance, while easy and novice terrain combined total just over 10 kilometers.
Three major passes reach Snowbird. The Ikon Pass includes 7 days here with no blackout dates, shared with next-door Alta; the Ikon Base Pass drops that to 5 days with blackout restrictions; and Mountain Collective adds 2 no-blackout days. Access is unusually convenient for a resort this size: Salt Lake City International Airport, a large commercial hub, sits just 36.9 kilometers from the base, well inside an hour’s drive under normal conditions, with Provo Municipal 39.7 kilometers away as a secondary option.
Snowbird’s relationship with Alta, in place since a 2002 joint-ticketing agreement, extends the reachable terrain to roughly 4,700 skiable acres across the two resorts and about 26 lifts combined, though each resort still sells and manages its own base operations separately. The base-to-summit rise of 974.6 meters puts Snowbird’s vertical in the same range as several other marquee Rocky Mountain resorts, but it’s the terrain composition, tilted hard toward advanced and expert grading, along with the tram and the Alta tie-in, that shapes Snowbird’s identity among skiers rather than the raw vertical number alone. With 202 individually mapped runs across just over 100 kilometers, the average run length here is short, under 500 meters, reflecting a mountain carved into many distinct lines rather than a few long descents.
That run count relative to a comparatively modest 14-lift fleet, a cable car, ten chairlifts, and three magic carpets, works out to roughly 14 runs per lift, well above what most large resorts show, and it’s a direct product of Snowbird’s cirque terrain: skiers dropping from the same lift top can peel off into a wide fan of separately named, separately graded lines rather than following a single marked trail down. The 1.05 kilometers of terrain classed simply as “other” in the resort’s own trail data likely reflects some of that same complex, ungroomed cirque terrain that doesn’t sit neatly in a standard beginner-to-expert grade. Combined with the seasonal snowfall Snowbird shares with Alta, over 500 inches most winters and a mid-mountain record of 776 inches by May 2011, the terrain layout and the snow both point toward the same conclusion: this is a mountain built for skiers who want to explore variations on a line rather than repeat the same groomed run all day.
Key stats
Official website — Last checked 2026-09-14
Lifts by type
| Type | Count |
|---|---|
| cable car | 1 |
| chair lift | 10 |
| magic carpet | 3 |
Runs by difficulty
| Difficulty | Distance |
|---|---|
| easy | 9.98 km |
| other | 1.05 km |
| expert | 21.38 km |
| novice | 0.23 km |
| advanced | 35.91 km |
| intermediate | 31.78 km |
Maps
View official Snowbird trail map (page) →
Run & lift overview
Snowbird: 202 runs, 14 lifts. Drawn from OpenStreetMap run and lift data — not the official Snowbird trail map. © OpenStreetMap contributors, OpenSkiMap (ODbL).
Typical conditions by month
Monthly conditions data for Snowbird is not yet available.
Lift tickets & passes
- Ikon Pass — 7 days total, shared/combined with Alta, no blackout
- Ikon Base Pass — 5 days, blackout dates apply
- Mountain Collective — 2 days at this destination, no blackout dates
Getting there
Nearest airports
- Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC) — 36.9 km straight-line
- Provo Municipal Airport (PVU) — 39.7 km straight-line
- Ogden Hinckley Airport (OGD) — 75.8 km straight-line
Nearest cities
- West Jordan, Utah — 24.8 km straight-line
- Salt Lake City, Utah — 29.3 km straight-line
- West Valley City, Utah — 32.5 km straight-line
Also covered by
Where to stay
A dedicated lodging guide for Snowbird is not yet available.
Nearby resorts
- Alta Ski Area — 2 km straight-line, 614.3 m vertical
- Brighton Resort — 6 km straight-line, 518.7 m vertical
- Solitude Mountain Resort — 6 km straight-line, 612.3 m vertical
- Park City Mountain Resort — 13 km straight-line, 990.1 m vertical
- Deer Valley Resort — 15 km straight-line, 945.4 m vertical
FAQ
- What makes Snowbird different from other Utah resorts?
- Snowbird was built on privately owned land, opening in December 1971 under Ted Johnson and Dick Bass, and its signature aerial tram has carried skiers up the mountain since that first season, with new tram cabins added in 2022.
- Is Snowbird good for expert skiers?
- Yes. Of its 100.34 kilometers of mapped terrain, 35.91 kilometers are graded advanced and 21.38 kilometers expert, together well over half the mountain, matching Snowbird's own description of roughly 35% expert/advanced terrain.
- Is Snowbird good for beginners?
- Beginner terrain is limited: only 9.98 kilometers is graded easy and 0.23 kilometers novice out of 100.34 kilometers total, so Snowbird suits skiers who already have some mileage under them more than complete first-timers.
- How big is Snowbird?
- 974.6 vertical meters from a 3,339.6-meter summit to a 2,365-meter base, with 14 lifts, including a cable car, serving 202 mapped runs.
- Which passes work at Snowbird?
- The Ikon Pass covers 7 days shared with neighboring Alta with no blackout, the Ikon Base Pass gives 5 days with blackout dates, and Mountain Collective includes 2 days at Snowbird with no blackout dates.
- What's the nearest airport to Snowbird?
- Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC), a large hub, is just 36.9 kilometers away, making Snowbird one of the more air-accessible big-mountain resorts in North America.
- How does Snowbird connect to Alta?
- Since 2002 the two resorts have sold joint lift tickets, and their combined terrain spans roughly 26 lifts across about 4,700 skiable acres.
- How many runs does Snowbird have compared to its lift count?
- 202 mapped runs served by 14 lifts works out to roughly 14 runs per lift, an unusually high ratio that reflects how the resort's cirque terrain and connecting traverses fan out into many distinct named lines from each lift top.
Data sources
Last verified: 2026-09-15
Base facts from OpenSkiMap (ODbL), OpenStreetMap contributors, Wikidata (CC0), OurAirports (public domain) and GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). See /data-sources/.