Salt Lake City, Utah Plaza Hotel

It all started in january 05 in Les Gets. 'You know,' says my big brother as he sips his vin chaud, 'this reminds me of Alta.'

'Where's that?' sez I.

'It's in Utah, sez he. 'Let's go there next time! You have to try skiing in the USA.'

So on 28 December we flew with Continental from Edinburgh to Newark and then after a six hour stopover when we visited the Garden State Mall, flew another four hours to Salt Lake City. My brother and his wife had arrived ahead of us from his home in North Carolina and already had the car and had checked us into the hotel. We had a direct entrance from the car park into the second floor where our room was. For $60 a night we had a huge room with a sitting area, fridge, en suite and super king size bed. Eating out in SLC was really good. We are vegetarian and that is not always easy in the USA but we ate really well. We tried two brew pubs, Italian, Mexican, Thai and on evenings we didn't fancy eating out we went to Dan's Supermarket and stocked up with goodies and then wine from the State liquor store and had a feast in our room.

We skied two days at Brighton, two at Solitude and four at Alta where they don't allow snowboarding.

The whole American ski experience was outstanding. It was New Year and even so there were few queues. When there were queues the attendants organised things so there were no empty seats on lifts and the lines were kept to a minimum in a friendly and cheerful way. Compare that with France! Prepared runs (or trails) were immaculate and things were always organised so there were lots of alternative routes. The quality of eating in the three ski areas we visited was quite good though not outstanding.

It was not a cheap holiday but I didn't have to take my skis to be serviced when I came home. There's so much snow the rocks are ten feet under! Flights alone cost more than a cheap week in Andorra and we had the hotel, meals, hire of a Hyundai Santa Fe (you must have a four wheel drive or chains to drive up the Canyons) and lift passes on top of that. What was good value was the lift passes. When the bills started to come in we found a day in a Utah ski area cost less than a day on Cairngorm! We had bought vouchers in Canyon Sports in SLC where you get a good discount and also, thank goodness for a favourable exchange rate.

Finally, there was something different about living in the city and travelling to the skiing each day. It was not far, about a forty minute drive but coming back to the city was good. We also had a day off and had the tour of Temple Square with two lovely young missionaries who did not succeed in converting us to the Mormon religion. In the afternoon we drove out the causeway to Antelope Island on the Great Salt Lake to see the herd of buffalo and look back at the Wasatch mountains where the skiing is.

Would we do it again? You bet! But first we'll have to save some pennies.