There are two things to consider when choosing to go to school in utah:
1. How close do I need to be to the mountains?
2. How badly do I want to go to a lame-ass communter school, where no one is involved with anything at the school and only go to campus to attend classes?
I grew up in utah, graduated high school and went to the University of Colorado at Boulder for a few years and then transfered back to the U because I grew tired of driving 2 hours to the mountains every weekend. But that's it with the U, I think you have to be really into skiing to go there, overwise it will be hell. The parties are few and far between and lack the intensity of those at CU (hard not to have a rager with $35 kegs). At CU you go out to the bars and they are packed with college students, whereas in utah they are a mix of different types of people in different stages of their lives. In my opinion, CU is the much better college experience and going to college in utah barely qualifies as a college experience except for the classes.
If you really want to be close to skiing/mountains and live the 'college life,' I would choose Montana St., CU or some smaller schools before choosing the U. But if you live to ski and want to experience the "greatest snow on earth" first hand get your ass to utah.