Mogul madness in Park City

For ski resorts in northeast Utah, now is as good as it gets. OK, maybe it’s not as heady as it was in 2002 when tiny Park City starred in the Winter Olympics, but heavy snowfall in November, which opened expert runs over Thanksgiving weekend (practically unheard of) and again over the Christmas holiday has left a 7-foot base with near-perfect conditions. One resort touted its December snowfall as the best in 20 years. So this week, when Hollywood wings its way to the Sundance Film Festival, celebs and filmgoers who inundate this town in the Wasatch Range of the Rockies might forsake studio moguls for powder-perfect ones. “It’s incredible,” says Levi Elder of the film fest’s press office. “I wish I had time to do more skiing.” His favorite spot? Alta, a rustic resort in Little Cottonwood Canyon, about 30 miles from Salt Lake City’s airport. Elder estimates that about 10% of the 30,000 filmgoers expected to turn up for the celluloid showcase, which starts Thursday and runs through Jan. 25, will make a dash for the big snow. “You can get a day or two of great skiing and a handful of good movies,” he says. The primary resorts at Park City are Park City Mountain Resort (www.parkcitymountain.com), Deer Valley (www.deervalley.com) and the Canyons Resort (www. thecanyons.com). Other snow play: the Vertical Vibe big-air contest with top free-ride skiers and snowboarders at the Canyons on Jan. 20, a bobsled or luge ride on the Olympic track, and snow tubing at Gorgoza Park. And then there are the movies, including “The Motorcycle Diaries,” an adaptation of Che Guevara’s nine-month motorcycle odyssey through South America, and “What Sebastian Dreamt,” a Guatemalan film with lush scenes of the rain forest where the tale of landownership, political turmoil and revenge is set. For film festival screening information, go to www.sundance.org.