Hey dude, I was in the same situation as you last year! I'm going to be a sophomore at Westmini this year, you're definitely going to dig it.
As for what mountain to ride at, that will most likely have a lot to do with where your group of friends will ride but you should know what you want as far as the type of terrain you're looking for. I grew up in MN lapping rails on towropes and after riding the bird last season I'm definitely not getting a park pass any season soon.
Like some other people said Alta/Snowbird is where you want to be for hucking cliffs and chowin pow. Snowbird has a ridiculous amount of cliffs that you can hit at pretty much any point in the season. Snowbird is bigger, but also gets tracked out faster than Alta because of the Tram and allowing both skiers and snowboarders. Alta doesn't have as many cliffs as Snowbird (most places don't), but theres still a ton of them and theres always jumps built at Alta. In my season's experience I found that the ski patrol tears down most of the jumps built at snowbird while they leave them up at Alta.
Both are sick mountains and, honestly, you're going to have the most fun you've ever had skiing next season, regardless of where you ride.
