I live in Salt Lake City, at the mouth of Big Cottonwood Canyon. My wife happens to be an ER / ICU doc in the valley as well, so I have an interesting perspective on things here. On background, proior to moving to SLC, I'd held a season pass in CO for 7 years, skiing / riding Breck, Keystone, Vail, Beaver Creek, Copper, Purgatory....that's it I think.
Snow sucks at PC, period. You won't find many locals there. Night life is great, but total snow fall on any given powder day is half of Little Cottonwood Canyon, which holds Snowbird and Alta. Add to this that 2/3 of the ski accidents at the hospital come from Park City, and not many locals go there. It's gaper central. I've ridden there once, I doubt I'll ever go back. The double diamond runs were only tough because the snow cover sucked.
Same problem as Park City.
WAAAAAAY the hell north of town. Huge PITA to get there, not many people from the valley venture up there. However, they get a different storm track than the valley resorts, so some days we get skunked and they have feet of pow.
My home resort, and the 2nd most snowfall after Alta, by only a few inches. Snowbird and Alta both had almost 700 inches of snowfall last year. PC and the canyons? 400-500 I think. Snowbird has tough terrain, lots of pow stashes, and some of the most unfriendly locals you'll ever meet in-bounds
If you have the skills, it's the best place to ride in UT.
Booooorring. Known to hold pow longer only because no one skis here.
Great place to ride. Excellent terrain park, although the parks are not as good as Breck. A wide variety of terrain. I actually picked up a 10-pack of passes to Brighton for the season. In the summer it's only 15 minutes from Park City to Brighton. They're in the same valley. Shitty part is that road closes in the winter.
So you have to go all the way around the mountain to get there. If the economy ever turns around, the road will likely be made a 4-season road.
From Park City to Solitude, Brighton, Alta and Snowbird, it's about 45+ minutes. I can say that because I live here, and I've made the drives. Party in PC, be sure to check out Scary-ho's (harry-o's) but ski in the Cottonwood Canyons. If you want to check out Brighton or Snowbird, drop me a PM, maybe I can meet up with you.