Corey Kopischke


Tom Korologos needed to come up with a headline. As skiing editor of the Salt Lake Tribune, he had prepared a special insert for the newspaper’s Dec. 4, 1960, issue that promoted the upcoming Utah ski season. He wanted to distill everything that made skiing in Utah wonderful, special and unique into a single, catchy turn of phrase. And then it hit him: “The Greatest Snow on Earth.”

A play on the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus’ familiar “The Greatest Show on Earth” slogan, Korologos’ headline caught on quickly. Within two years, the Utah Travel Council was using “The Greatest Snow on Earth” as a tagline in its promotional materials. In 1985, the phrase began appearing on “Ski Utah!” license plates. A decade later, the U.S. Patent and Trademark office awarded the state of Utah a federal trademark on the slogan. Ringling Bros. brought a lawsuit to try to stop Utah from using the phrase, but a federal appeals court ruled in Utah’s favor.

While it has been proven in court that Utah may legally claim to have “The Greatest Snow on Earth,” the question remains: Is that claim true?

“Whether or not Utah snow is the greatest snow on earth is in the eye of the beholder,” said Jim Steenburgh, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Utah. “There are no scientific tests for that.”

Steenburgh, author of the book Secrets of the Greatest Snow on Earth, is perhaps the leading authority on Utah snow. Even if there are no scientific tests to determine what makes snow here “the greatest,” he says there are three factors that make Utah snow uniquely well suited to deep powder skiing.

First, there is the sheer abundance of snow. Alta Ski Area, for instance, receives an average of more than 500 inches of snowfall each year. By comparison, Colorado’s famed Aspen Mountain averages 300 inches of snow each year.

Second, Utah gets a lot of what Steenburgh calls “Goldilocks storms.” To achieve true deep powder skiing, where skis float through soft, newly fallen snow, a storm must drop at least 10 inches of powder. But if the storm drops more than 20 inches, there is high risk of avalanches that could require resorts to shut down. Utah gets a lot of storms that fall in the “just right” zone of 10 to 20 inches. Once again using Alta as an example, Steenburgh says the resort averages about 18 storms of 10 or more inches annually.



Bryan Anderson

Third, Utah snow tends to fall “right-side-up.” That means that storms tend to start out warmer, which produces wetter snow, then get colder and produce lighter, drier snow. This makes a heavy base with a lighter upper layer that is ideal for skiing. Storms that start out cold and dry but become warmer and wetter produce snow with a hard crust on top and soft powder underneath – not ideal skiing conditions.

Having snow that’s “right-side-up” is more important than having the absolute driest snow, Steenburgh says. Still, Utah’s powder is lighter and drier compared to most places. At West Coast ski resorts in the Sierra Nevadas, the snow averages 12 percent water content, which can pack into hard “Sierra cement.” The 8.5 percent water content in Utah is less densely packed and fluffier, yet still has enough body to provide the perfect consistency for ski flotation. There are places with drier snow, but often there isn’t enough for deep powder skiing.

It’s one thing to have great snow; it’s another thing to have great snow so close at hand. The access Utahns have to the state’s celebrated ski slopes makes this place like few others in the world, said Nathan Rafferty, president and CEO of ski industry trade group Ski Utah.

“In so many places, you have to go really far to find the great skiing. It’s hard to get to,” Rafferty said. “Ours is so spectacularly easy to get to. Having this recreation so close is just amazing.” It’s only a 12-minute drive, he said, to get from the edge of suburban Salt Lake City to the nearest ski resort.

The variety to be found at Utah’s 15 ski resorts is another thing that sets the state apart.

“Skiing means different things to different people,” Rafferty said. “Alta might be some people’s favorite, while the Deer Valley experience might be somebody else’s favorite.” Whereas Alta is more rustic and in the vein of high alpine European ski areas, he said, Deer Valley is more luxury service oriented. “Both are tops in their categories, and they’re just 8 miles apart, as the crow flies.”

So, is skiing in Utah better than anywhere else? Do we truly have the greatest snow on earth? Perhaps it’s a subjective question with no definitive answer. Then again, would the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office have issued Utah the trademark if it weren’t true?



Marc Piscotty/Utah Office of Tourism