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Question: You have three weeks in to review the hottest boarding resorts in North America. Where do you indulge yourself?

This was the gut-wrenching problem faced when pulling together this roadie. Jackson Hole, Telluride, Taos, A-Basin, Whistler and many others all put up strong arguments to be included, but the more we looked into it, the more we heard the word "Utah". Friends who'd done seasons there spoke about the place in hushed tones - rumours of locals not bothering with 20 cm powder days were rife, and the fact that Utah seems to produce more pro snowboarders than the rest of the world combined all indicated that this may be our hidden Mecca. 6 weeks of planning and a long haul from LA (via Vegas) later and we were shacked up in the Salt Lake City Hilton waxing down and preparing for some of the greatest boarding of our lives. .

"A Few Facts to Know"

"Fact #1 - no matter how much hype you hear about the amount and quality of snow, you will still be blown away by what you experience. "

Utah is about a 2 hour flight or 12 hour drive from LA.

From the airport in Salt Lake City.most of the 20 resorts are within a 45 minute drive.

About 70% of folks in Utah are Mormons

Mormons are very cool and super hospitable people but they don't drink and they have a few curly laws in place that make it harder for your average law abiding boarder to get a decent beer or vino. Harder, but no real problem.

Stack 7 tall friends up on top of each other and that's how much snow Utah gets in an average season (13+ meters).

Utah is still relatively undiscovered and gives new meaning to the word uncrowded.

Utah is hosting the 2002 Winter Olympics and following that you can expect the crowds to flock. The BoarderZone crew's advice - get there now!

Contrary to popular belief , polygamy (the practice of having more than one wife) was knocked on the head in 1890.

The Snow:

"The bottom line is that Utah rocks! Its a 'freak of nature' and in English that translates to 'Home of the Greatest Snow on Earth'. . "

Utah is a full-on freak! Nature his custom-designed it to dump on average over 13m of the lightest, driest powder in the world - twice the average of most other resorts in the US.

Storms role in from the Northwest Pacific and dump the first load on the coastal mountains. They then travel across 1000 miles or so of desert which removes a lot of the remaining moisture content. Now at the base of Utah's Wasatch mountain range lies the Great Salt Lake and as storms pass over this, they are recharge by the lake's evaporation. While most natural snow crystals for on microscopic nuclei of dust or spore particles, the Great Salt Lake evaporation uniquely provides salt nucelli. These have a further drying effect on the snow flakes whose moisture content is often as low as 4% compared to the 12% - 14% of wetter, heavier, coastal snow. The result is powder so light you'd think you were shredding clouds!

The final ingredient to this snow making Mecca is 'Box Canyons'. Picture an open shoebox with one of the ends ripped off and you'll have good image of a box canyon. Storms enter through the ripped off end and start dumping. As the storm moves up the canyon, they become trapped and sit there going round and round dumping blankets of Utah gold.

� Jason Neely, BoarderZone.com Road Tripper