Utah's playground — Powder stars in Warren Miller ski movie

It's a scene oh so common to Utah skiers ... the impression of a face, hat and goggles stuck in a cloud of snow. An instant later, the image of a skier floats up, then vanishes back into the cloud of snow.

That's Utah powder skiing, and there are few places in the world than can offer anything like it.

They may have the steep runs and snow, but nothing like Utah's lighter-than-air powder.

Because of the desert climate, the water content of the snow that falls in Utah is much less than in other parts of the country. Snow at Alta and Snowbird routinely has a 5 percent moisture content, which makes for the light, fluffy flakes Utah has become famous for. There are storms in other parts of the country where the water content is closer to 30 and 40 percent, which results in a heavy, hard base. The average density for Alta/Snowbird snow is around 7 percent.

All of which makes for not only great skiing, but also great movies.

For the second year, Utah is a major sponsor and one of the more popular segments in the Warren Miller ski movie.

This year's performance, "Playground," will open Wednesday in Orem, then move to Salt Lake City on Thursday, Park City on Friday and Ogden on Saturday.

In all, there will be 400 showings in 186 cities in 35 states this year. Moviegoers will see, along with BYU's Water Weenie Squad, skiers enjoying Utah's bottomless powder.

"It's funny," said Nathan Rafferty, president of Ski Utah, "but locals are going to see the Utah sequence and wonder. We did not have our massive powder dumps last ski season that we normally get. But, that being said, some of the footage of the powder skiing in Utah is absolutely incredible."

This year, as luck would have it, snow began to fall the very day filming crews arrived and continued, off and on, for the two weeks they were in Utah.

There were, of course, those deep powder days, but just not as many as in past years. Total snowfall last year was close to 400 inches. In the winters of 2004-05 and 2005-06, total snowfall each season exceeded 600 inches.

Utah started negotiations to jump on the Warren Miller movie tour three years ago.

It was late in the season when an agreement was reached, and movie crews came to film in Utah when some resorts around the country were closing.

Still, recalled Rafferty, "it turned out we had to shoot our ski segments in March and April. It can only happen in Utah ... we got some of the most incredible powder skiing shots imaginable. They were great. It proved to be some of the best powder skiing in the whole movie. Like I said, only in Utah."