Midway on a tour of six Utah resorts in one day, a backcountry guide bounds across the Highway to Heaven, a 500-yard ski traverse, followed by the group of skiers he is leading.
Those 500 yards are all that separates four of the six resorts - Solitude, Brighton, Alta and Snowbird - from joining to form one sprawling ski area. Another pair of chair lifts could link these four resorts to the remaining two, Park City Mountain Resort, and Deer Valley, making for North America's largest skiing complex.
Formally linking the resorts is an idea that's been kicked around for years. But until it becomes a reality, advanced skiers have another option for checking out all six resorts in one day - the Ski Utah Interconnect Adventure tour.
The $175 trip through backcountry terrain, from resort to resort, draws 300 to 700 skiers a year. Every stop along the way gives skiers a chance to sample the unique atmosphere of each of the six resorts.
This trip started on the immaculately groomed slopes of Deer Valley, known for pampering guests with ski porters and gourmet food. The resort shares a boundary with Park City Mountain Resort on a shoulder of its 9,570-foot summit.
From the top of Park City Mountain Resort, the tour heads through a short stretch of ponderosa forest for an open slope and 1.5-mile run to Solitude. It's the longest distance between these Wasatch resorts.
After a jaunt across the Highway to Heaven and a picnic lunch, skiers make a short run to legendary Alta, a place evoking the 1930s where skiers make pilgrimages, not visits. A guard shack separates Alta and Snowbird, Utah's most challenging resort, where the group takes a quick run.
Then it's back to Alta and a final, sweaty backcountry run to Brighton, a homestyle ski area that caters to locals.
In addition to great powder and a long ski season, Utah's ski industry is blessed with the lingering buzz that accompanied the 2002 Winter Olympics, and a major airport nearby in Salt Lake City.
But the state is still itching to attract more of the nation's skiers. It logs just 3.3 million skier visits a winter; Colorado leads the nation with 11 million.
Formally linking the six resorts might boost marketing efforts by creating a skiable area of more than 12,000 acres of some of the finest powder snow in North America. It would be more than twice the size of either Vail or Whistler Blackcomb in British Columbia, making for a Euro-style ski experience. That doesn't count The Canyons, a 3,625-acre resort that's only one canyon away from Park City Mountain Resort and that could easily be added.
The proposal would require some form of revenue sharing, which goes against the exclusive image cultivated by a few of the resorts, particularly Deer Valley, and it would require building new lifts.
"If it's done the right way, an environmentally friendly way - and I believe it can be - then it's a plus for Utah," said Snowbird general manager Bob Bonar.
"I think our ski industry is very hungry. They see that we are now in a position where we can begin to steal market share from Colorado," Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman said earlier this year, adding that linking the resorts would help showcase the state's "competitive advantages."
"Colorado's been in a green-light mode for 20 years now," Huntsman said. "And here for the first time in a while, Utah is poised for excellence in this particular area, where it's through inter-connectedness or bringing out other assets that we have, like proximity to a great airport."
But not everyone supports the idea. "It's a very narrow range, not at all comparable to the Italian Alps or Colorado Rockies," said Gale Dick, who heads a group called Save Our Canyons that opposes resort expansions. "Every time you put in one of these lifts, it takes away part of the backcountry."
Whether the interconnected proposal ever takes hold, and how many years it might be before it happens, is anybody's guess. But in the meantime, the Interconnect tour provides a preview for anyone who finds the concept appealing.
If you go:
SKI UTAH INTERCONNECT ADVENTURE TOUR: For advanced skiers only. Tours depart daily from Deer Valley Resort or Snowbird Ski & Summer Resort, and are led through Solitude Mountain Resort, Brighton Resort, Park City and Alta Ski Area. Cost is $175, including guide service, lunch, lift tickets and transportation back to point of origin. Reservations: (801) 534-1907. Tours operate mid-December through mid-April.