Your Own Olympics

The Salt Lake Games are gone, but the gold-medal runs remain. Here's where to ski, board, soar and slide like a hopeful.

DOWNHILL SKIING

Although three billion watched the Winter Games on television, the Snowbasin Resort - the site of the downhill and super-G events, 40 miles north of Salt Lake - is till the best-kept secret in snow country. When Snowbasin got the nod to hold the marquee Olympic ski events, its owner dumped more than $100 million into the place - without adding any overnight lodging. The result? A little-touristed locals' mountain with three new day lodges, two high-speed eight-passenger gondolas, one high speed quad, and, best of all, a minitram that open trails formerly reachable only on foot. Better still, the terrain is some of the lower 48's finest. Its' steep (2,940 vertical feet from summit to base), gladed with pines and aspens, and furrowed with gullies that collect as much as 400 inches of powder each year.

The official downhill run is no longer in place as one demarcated course, and bombing the slope where Switzerland's Hans Burn won gold will get you into trouble with the ski patrol. But if you can still get a taste of Burn-esque speed by launching down the first stretch, a 64 percent grade, skis flapping, throat tightening, ears roaring with the wind.