
Our favorite ski town in the southwest is Cedar City.

Sort of. You can’t actually ski within the city limits of this small city in southern Utah. But Cedar City is a convenient (Andy says “cheap!”) place to stay if you want to get your alpine on up at Brian Head, which is about 45 minutes away. (35 minutes if Andy is driving.)
Cedar City is less than 3 hours from Las Vegas and well under 7 from Los Angeles (again, with the caveat that a maniacal male is driving an overpowered car and using Google Maps with Waze). It conveniently straddles Interstate 15. And in this little city, the cost of everything from gas, lodging, and lift tickets is about 25-50% less than the cost in California.

Lodging will run you well over $200 per night at Big Bear or the San Gabriel Mountains. (We won’t even talk about Mammoth.) California is more than double what you pay at the new Cedar City La Quinta, or the Holiday Inn Express, or the Spring Hill Suites that overlook I-15. There are a ton of other hotels and motels also, plus some lovely Bed & Breakfasts such as the Big Yellow Inn.
Holiday lift tickets at Big Bear and Mountain High will run you $64-84. Mammoth in northern California is $135. Park City in northern Utah? $129.
Brian Head’s top price is $60.
Storms have hammered Brian Head since Thanksgiving. All their trails are open, which is more than ski areas close to LA can boast. As for Brian Head’s base, their official site reports that it is 55’’. I think they are underestimating the depth. Thanks to a slight off trail mishap, I can tell you from experience that it’s a lot deeper than that. Andy concurs. (Yes, he snowboarded into the trees first. I tried to rescue him. It went…poorly.)

There’s a ski school and a snowboarding school at the Navajo Lodge, if you’ve got kids you’d like to ditch for a day, too. The schools looked very popular (i.e., you have to dodge children to get to the bathroom). Also, the ski school gets to cut the lift line, which will undoubtedly cut down on the list of grievances your kids could air once you collect them at the end of the day. This line cutting would be annoying to those without kids, if the wait was very long, but it adds a whole minute to your 2 minute wait on the chair lift if you are checking out the bunny slopes. You can avoid this easily by heading over to Chair #4 instead.
Don’t ski? Don’t snowboard? There’s also a fast tubing run.
If, say, you somehow melted your old snowboarding boots from the inside out, I would recommend equipment rental from Georg’s Ski Shop. They are nicer, cheaper, and less crowded than the official Brian Head rental places. You can ski from Georg’s to a chair lift, catch a free ride up, and ski down to a lodge to buy your lift ticket if necessary.
On a completely unrelated note, Andy wants me to tell you that the life expectancy of snowboarding boots and the lining in snowboarding helmets is 8 years. Max.
Cedar City is also apparently the mecca of fast food restaurants. All of them. Lost a mitten? There’s a Sports Authority and a Walmart. A Big Five Sporting Goods store will replace the Staples in Cedar City this spring.
Andy thinks it very important that I tell you all that yes, Cedar City has that most important place of all — Starbucks. It’s in the Providence Center by the lighthouse. Yes, this landlocked city at 6,000 feet has a lighthouse. Said lighthouse is utterly incongruous, but very helpful for knowing when to exit the freeway.

Tired of skiing? Thanks to a new tax for parks and trails, Cedar City has lovely trails that can take you a short way up into the canyons in the winter. (In the summer, you can go all the way up to Cedar Breaks, but in the winter, roads and trails are closed.)
Of course, just walking through the residential area up the hill from the freeway and Starbucks is entertaining also. There are gorgeous views of the mountains.

Also, the lawn ornaments are a hoot.
Some of them attempt to continue the nautical theme of the lighthouse.
Others may have evolved out of neighborly one-upmanship:
Look! I put in this giant buck!
While across the street:
Oh, yeah? Well, I see your giant buck and raise you a golden eagle!
Fine, now I have TWO bucks!
Perhaps next year there will be a second eagle, though I’m kinda rooting for an orca. Gotta carry that nautical theme as far as you can, Cedar City.
Andy and I first came to Brian Head and stayed in Cedar City a few years ago. The hotels were fewer and less crowded. The ski schools at Brian Head’s Navajo Lodge did not have lines, let alone lines out the door.

This year, we noticed a lot more California license plates with ski racks on our drive.
Amidst the towering blond teens of Utah, our hotel has many Chinese, Chinese-American, Asian-American, and Indian-American guests.
Andy told me that Mandarin was almost as common as English in the café up at Brian Head. He identified the speakers as Chinese Nationals (possibly because they kept cutting in front of him and pissing him off).
Andy used to snowboard in northern Utah with his buddies. He wasn’t exactly thrilled with the lines or the expense. Once we discovered Brian Head, Andy never went north again. I think he’s a little miffed that our once “secret” ski place has gained popularity.
Despite the increase in skiers, Brian Head is still much, much less crowded than the California slopes or Park City. Since it’s also far cheaper, it remains Andy’s favorite place to snowboard.
As for me, well, I’d rather ski on icy slopes of New Hampshire and admire the Christmas card-like view of the trees and houses below. But New Hampshire is currently sixty degrees, rainy, and coping with an explosion of Christmas ticks.
This year, I’ll content myself with Cedar City and Brian Head.
They don’t suck.
Oh man, that sounds like a lot of affordable fun! I wish I skied or snowboarded, but my one ski lesson eons ago showed that I have almost no coordination on a pair of boards.
I feel like Chinese people are everywhere these days. I trip over them in the unlikeliest of places. I remember visiting Solvang over 15 years ago, and it was a quaint little pseudo-Danish town just north of LA, full of American tourists. When I visited it earlier this year, I couldn’t go 2 feet without tripping over tourists from China waxing lyrical about the “traditional American architecture”.
Ha! Yes, my relatives called from the Grand Canyon recently, freaking out over the Chinese tourists and their inability to queue properly. The difference in the last few years in amazing.
Well, it’s beautiful here and tubing looked like fun that required absolutely no coordination.
Neither does sitting in a hot tub. 🙂
Hot tub and Starbucks….hmmmmm……
See? Almost worth it. Now, if they had a Starbucks with cats…
Has to be Starbucks, though. Cats and hot tubs? Not so much.
I live 10000 miles from Utah and I don’t ski. And yet you’ve totally made me want to pack my bags and fly to Cedar City tomorrow. Well done.
Well, that is high raise indeed, Heather, coming from a professional travel blogger! Thanks.
Haha I love that you snapped a stalker photo of the AMWF couple!
My Chinese fiance and I are currently on a roadtrip ski holiday in Japan getting to some of the more out of the way places and loving it (even if there’s not nearly as much snow as most years – still way better than anything Australia or New Zealand ever has!)
Hopefully the AMWF couple doesn’t mind. I think they had a teenager with them, too.
I hear Japan is super cold right now, even if there is no snow. Stay warm and can’t wait to see pictures.
Exploding Christmas Ticks is the name of my next band.
But then you could only play seasonal gigs.
That’s like 10 months off!
Wow are ticks really that bad on the east coast? Ewwwww!
You know, despite being from Utah I have never skiied in Utah… Or my whole life! But that’s because I mostly couldn’t afford it and my parents didn’t ski. In park city a day of skiing can cost 300 bucks! (Gear rental and lift passes). It’s ridiculous!
Brian head sounds like a steal! You should pitch this as a travel article! Or maybe not. The secret would be out 😉
Glad you’re enjoying Utah like me! I’m so happy having snow and busting out the winter clothes!
Yeah, Twitter was on fire the other day about people still finding ticks at Christmas.
Skiing is expensive, especially in California and Utah. It’s also paying a lot of money to be cold and uncomfortable! But the views are amazing and the speed is sometimes intoxicating. Or maybe that’s just the altitude talking.
If you don’t get seriously injured, some spills make for great stories, too. It’s an adventure!
Christmas ticks?
For real. It’s so warm on the East Coast of the U.S. that the ticks are still out, trying to spread Lyme disease. It’s bad news not only for humans, but especially for the moose population.
OMG. How weird.
Thank you for affirming that this is, indeed, weird. I feel marginally less stupid. 🙂