The mountain Brian Head
The highest base in Utah, and what it buys
Giant Steps and Navajo, the two sides of Brian Head.
Most ski areas are one mountain with a base at the bottom. Brian Head is two mountains facing each other across a state highway with a bridge between them, and the base sits at 9,600 feet. Here is how the terrain splits between Navajo and Giant Steps, how the long season really runs, and exactly where the expansion proposal everyone is asking about actually stands.
By Scott Buehler, Brian Head local
Updated September 2026
The short answer
Giant Steps and Navajo are the two mountains that make up Brian Head Resort, facing each other across State Route 143 with a bridge that carries skiers over the road between them. Navajo is the gentler side, where the learning terrain and the ski school sit and where a group with mixed ability can spend a day together. Giant Steps holds the longer, steeper pitches. The base sits at 9,600 feet, the highest of any resort in Utah, which is why the season here opens early, often first in the state, and can still be running lifts into late April. A free shuttle loops the village between the two base areas, so most people park once and leave the car until they head home.
Start here
One resort, two mountains, one bridge.
Brian Head Resort is not laid out like most ski areas. Instead of one mountain with a base at the bottom, it has two facing each other across State Route 143, each with its own base area, joined by a bridge that carries skiers over the highway. A free shuttle loops the village between them, so you can leave the car in one place for the day.
Call it roughly 650 skiable acres across the two sides, with the base sitting at 9,600 feet. That base elevation is the highest of any resort in Utah and it is the single most important thing about the place, because it is the reason the snow that falls here tends to stay cold and dry, the reason the season regularly opens before anywhere else in the state, and the reason it can still be turning lifts in late April when lower resorts have given up. Run and lift tallies shift as the resort adds and retires terrain, so I would treat any exact count as a this-season figure and check it with the resort before you rely on it.
The two sides ski differently enough that it is worth knowing which one you want before you buy a ticket. Navajo is the lower angle side, where the learning terrain sits and where a group with mixed abilities can spend a whole day without anybody having a bad time. Giant Steps holds the longer sustained pitches, the steeper fall lines and the trees. The resort opened in 1965, and the lift that turned it from a curiosity into a real ski area went in on the Giant Steps side for the 1969 to 1970 season. If you want the mountain set against everything else there is to do up here, I put it in order on the Brian Head things-to-do list.
Brian Head Resort at a glance
9,600 ft
base, the highest in Utah
~11,000 ft
lift-served top
~650
skiable acres across two mountains
2
mountains, joined by a bridge
The season
First to open, and slow to give up.
The opening date is a small local sport. Brian Head has a habit of claiming the first turns in Utah, and the reason is not marketing: the base is a thousand feet or more above most of the Wasatch Front bases, and cold arrives at 9,600 feet before it arrives at 8,000. In a normal year the resort targets an opening in the first half of November and the snowmaking fills in whatever the sky has not delivered.
The other end of the season is the part people underestimate. Late season here is not the slushy afterthought it is at lower elevations. The snow on the upper mountain holds structure into April because the nights stay properly cold, and in a strong year the closing weekend lands well into that month with a pond skim across Bristlecone Pond to finish it off. What does happen late is that the sun gets serious, so the standard local advice is to ski the east facing terrain first and follow the softening round the compass.
Mid winter is cold in a way the rest of Southern Utah is not. Nights hit zero a couple of dozen times a year, and there is a reason the town's own maintenance calendar is built around it. Bring more layers than a Utah forecast for St. George would suggest, because St. George is 84 miles away and about 6,000 feet lower, and the weather report you glanced at on the drive up has nothing to do with the mountain.
One practical note that catches visitors every season. Storm days are when the canyon road is at its worst, and the climb into town is one of the steepest paved stretches of state highway in Utah. If you are driving up to chase a powder morning, leave earlier than you want to and carry chains.
Altitude is a real variable, not a talking point. The base here is higher than the summit of a good many resorts. Visitors coming from sea level regularly feel the first day, and the sensible plan is to arrive, sleep, drink more water than seems reasonable and take the first morning gently rather than treating it as a lost day. Anybody in the party who manages a heart or lung condition should have had that conversation with their own doctor before booking, not on the chairlift.
The thing everybody is asking about
A proposal to nearly triple the permit boundary.
Most of the terrain at Brian Head is not owned by the resort. It sits on the Dixie National Forest under a special use permit, which is the ordinary arrangement for ski areas in the West and which means any expansion is a federal decision rather than a corporate one.
The resort's 2023 master development plan asks for a great deal more of it. The proposal would add roughly 1,651 acres to the special use permit area, taking the boundary from about 887 acres to about 2,538, and attaches to that a list of as many as 14 new lifts, on the order of 359 acres of new ski trails, miles of new snowmaking, new roads and on mountain dining. If it were built as filed it would change the character of the resort completely.
Here is where it actually stands. The Dixie National Forest published a draft environmental impact statement in 2026 and opened a public comment period on it, running alongside a proposed amendment to the forest's own land and resource management plan, because the project does not fit the current plan as written. The Forest Service has said it expects to complete the review around 2028. Nothing has been approved, no lift has been permitted, and a draft environmental impact statement is a document that invites objection rather than one that settles anything.
There is a separate story next door. A private master planned development on roughly 2,000 acres adjacent to the resort is in its early phases with a multi decade buildout described for it, including ski terrain of its own. That is a different landowner, a different process and a different timeline. The owner's page is blunt about what buying near either of them does and does not entitle you to.
Buy the mountain that exists. If the expansion happens it is a bonus you did not pay for, and if it does not you have still bought the highest base in Utah.
How a day here works
Park once, then let the shuttle do it.
The village between the two base areas is where most of the beds are, and a good number of them are within walking distance of a lift. That is the practical difference between Brian Head and a resort where the lodging is fifteen minutes down the valley: plenty of people here genuinely do not move the car between arriving and leaving.
If you are driving up for the day, either base works and the free shuttle joins them, so the sensible move is to take whichever parking lot has space rather than the one nearest the run you had in mind. Rentals, lessons and the ski school operate out of the base areas, and on a busy Saturday the line for equipment is a longer wait than the line for a lift.
Crowds are relative here. This is not a resort that fills the way the Cottonwood canyons fill, and the reason is simple geography: Brian Head is three hours from Las Vegas and three and a half from Salt Lake City, so it draws a weekend crowd rather than a metropolitan one. Holiday weekends are busy and a Tuesday in January can feel close to private.
For the local's version of all this, the reader living in Cedar City drives up for a morning and goes home, and the Cedar City winter page covers that arrangement. The reader coming up from Parowan takes the same road from the bottom, and the Parowan page has the drive itself.
Scott Buehler
Moving Utah About Scott
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The mountain, answered.
About 650 skiable acres split between two mountains, Navajo and Giant Steps, with a base area on each and a bridge over State Route 143 joining them. Navajo is the lower angle side with the learning terrain, and Giant Steps holds the longer, steeper pitches. Run and lift counts move around as the resort changes its terrain, so check the current figures with the resort. By Utah standards this is a mid sized area, and it skis larger than the acreage suggests because the two sides are genuinely separate mountains rather than two halves of the same one.
Elevation. The base sits at 9,600 feet, the highest of any resort in Utah, and cold weather arrives up there well before it reaches the bases along the Wasatch Front. That, plus snowmaking, is why Brian Head has a habit of claiming the first turns in the state most years and of still running lifts into late April at the other end. Opening dates depend on the season and the resort announces its own, so check with them rather than assuming a date.
The Navajo side is built for it. That is where the learning terrain, the ski school and the gentlest sustained runs are, and a group with mixed experience can spend a day there without splitting up. Giant Steps is the side to graduate onto. The one honest caveat has nothing to do with the runs: the base is higher than the summit of many resorts, and a first day at 9,600 feet is harder work than the same day would be at 7,000.
The highest of any resort in Utah, which is the reason the season starts early and runs long. It is also why the drive up matters as much as the forecast does.
Brian Head has offered night skiing in past seasons, but the operating calendar changes season to season, so check with the resort rather than assuming it. Daylight hours are the reliable plan.
There is a proposal on the table and it is a long way from settled. The resort's 2023 master development plan asks to add roughly 1,651 acres to its special use permit boundary, taking it from about 887 acres to about 2,538, with a substantial list of new lifts and trails. The Dixie National Forest published a draft environmental impact statement in 2026, opened public comment on it alongside a proposed forest plan amendment, and has said it expects to complete the review around 2028. Nothing is approved, and a separate private development next door is on its own multi decade timeline.
Three ways. On snow there is a bridge over State Route 143 that connects the two mountains, so you can ski between them without taking your boots off. Off snow the resort runs a free shuttle around the village, which is the reason most people park once in the morning and do not touch the car again until they leave. And the village between the two bases is walkable, with a good share of the lodging within a few minutes of a lift.
They face each other across the highway and they ski differently, which is what a bridge between two base areas buys you. Most people end up favoring one and visiting the other.
Weekdays, and the first weeks of the season before the holidays. Weekend traffic on the climb is the thing that turns a short drive into a long one.
The mountain is the easy part of buying here.
Condominium buildings in this village differ enormously in age, construction and how they handle rentals, and cabins on the north and south ends are a different purchase again. If a ski week has started turning into a search, tell me how you would actually use the place and I will point you at the buildings and streets that fit it.
Or call me: (435) 357-4345or send me a message
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