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guides offer free mountain tours for in-
termediate and expert skiers. Deer Valley
has one employee for every three guests.

With a base elevation of 6,570 feet, Deer
Valley doesn’t get as much snow as Alta
– only about 300 inches a year. On a typi-
cal day, it gets about 6,000 skiers. (Lift
ticket sales are limited to 7,500 a day, but
the resort seldom sells out.) Lifts can
transport more than 50,000 skiers per
hour; their playground covers more than
2,000 skiable acres. Beginners can ski
five of the six peaks here. And, like Alta,
it’s one of only three U.S. ski resorts that
does not allow snowboarders. (The other
is Mad River Glen in Vermont.)
Deer Valley’s ski school has 560 instruc-
tors; classes sold out during the spring
break week I visited.
Next stop: Deer Valley between the drive-up drop-off area and Luckily, I’d been forewarned and reserved
the main lodge. There’s hand lotion in all early. I had a date with 62-year-old Rex
What Alta is to the serious skier, Deer public restrooms; heated floors in most Frasier, who was in his 23rd season of
Valley is to the skier who wants to be resort bathrooms. Tissue boxes are sta- teaching wannabe Bode Millers.
spoiled rotten.
tioned everywhere, including at chair-
Seriously. They’ve got ski valets here – lifts. There’s free overnight ski storage “Skiing is a game of stance and balance,
much more than strength and agility,” he
strapping men who ferry visitors’ skis at the main lodge – and four times a day,
told me. “If you can dance, you can ski.”

76 Wine Dine & Travel Spring 2014