Under the lights: Utah resorts keep the slopes going for night skiers

When daylight isn't enough, there's always the night.

For a few hours, anyway.

After day passes expire, night crews arrive and light switches are turned on, and it's time for night skiing and snowboarding.

Night sliding is an option. A bonus to some. It's an opportunity for others who otherwise may not be able to ski or snowboard during daylight hours.

High-tech lighting has made it all possible.

There are eight resorts in Utah offering a variety of twilight options. Beaver Mountain, Brian Head, Brighton, Park City Mountain Resort, Powder Mountain, Snowbird, Sundance and Wolf Creek are all open for evening shredding.

Days, hours and prices vary.

Interestingly enough, skiers and boarders in the Southeast and Midwest are far more interested in twilight skiing than those in the Rocky Mountain area.

Reasons range from higher populations east of the Rockies to easy slope accessibility to the simple fact that daytime skiing is so good in places like Utah and Colorado.

According to the National Ski Area Association, the highest percentage of night visits are in the Southeast and Midwest regions — 30.6 and 23.8 percent, respectively — where in the Rocky Mountain region, night visits drop to 1.2 percent of total ski trips.

There is also a correlation to resort size. That is, the larger the ski area, the lower the percentage of night skiers and boarders. Night visits at smaller areas are 29.2 percent of the total skier count, and at larger areas it's 3.5 percent.

Night skiing is simply an extension of daytime sliding : the same resorts, the same lifts and the same runs, only fewer of them, and all with a very different look under the lights.

The main lighting comes from bulbs set high on poles, many falling under computer control. They come on as visibility requires.

But then on special nights, the moon delivers an inspiring glow of soft light to the entire landscape.

And, at some resorts, when there are clouds in the sky, "there's a glow from the city lights hanging over the mountain tops. It's not much, but it's pretty impressive," noted Jerry Warren, mountain operations manager at Sundance.

There is a number of reasons people find night skiing so appealing, among them being lower ticket prices and less on-hill traffic.