I have skied at alta, and a couple days at snowbird. Alta is a great mountain, but you traverse, hike and sidestep probably more then other mountains. there are some really great runs off the high traverse...and well all over. I had a lot of fun skiing under the tram at snowbird. I also skinned up the mountain on the other side of the road by alta (like right above the alta lodge kind of) and it was pretty cool. I met some people that were going into the back bowls and going over and catching a bus on some road somewhere.