These Utah resorts recognized among best in the Mountain West

SALT LAKE CITY — Two Utah resorts — one known for skiing, the other for golf — were recognized among the best in the Mountain West in Condé Nast Traveler's 2026 Readers' Choice Awards.

In all, readers cast 798,867 votes in the magazine's 39th annual survey of everything having to do with travel. The survey is available through a secure website April 1 through June 30. Candidates are judged based on a standard five-point scale converted to a percentage: excellent, very good, good, fair and poor. The average of those ratings determines the final score.

Sundance Mountain Resort ranked No. 3, making it the highest-ranked Utah destination in the Mountain West category.

Situated in Provo Canyon at the base of Mount Timpanogos, 70% of the resort's terrain is permanently set aside for conservation.

This past January, Sundance opened a 63-room rustic luxury hotel called The Inn, offering ski-in, ski-out access. A new high-speed quad chairlift called Electric Horseman — a nod to a Robert Redford movie of the same name — will debut this winter. It will put skiers and snowboarders within reach of the back mountain in a single lift. It also opens 100 acres of new terrain.

At the opposite end of the state, Black Desert Resort ranked No. 5 on Condé Nast Traveler's list of top resorts in the Mountain West.

Set in a lava field surrounded by vermillion cliffs, Black Desert opened in May 2023 with 148 hotel rooms, 299 resort residences, a spa and wellness center, restaurants and a Tom Weiskopf-designed golf course.

The resort in Ivins has hosted the PGA Tour's Black Desert Championship, now called the Bank of Utah Championship, and the LPGA's Black Desert Championship. The course draws golfers from around the world and the resort plans to add three more nearby.

Other resorts in the top 20

Rounding out the top five are resorts in Montana and Colorado.

Paws Up Montana, a dog-friendly glampsite in the Blackfoot River Valley near Missoula, tops Condé Nast Traveler reader's choice ranking. Montage Montana, a five-star resort in Big Sky, ranked second.

The Ritz-Carlton, Bachelor Gulch, a ski-in, ski-out luxury resort in Beaver Creek, Colorado, came in at No. 4.

A couple of other Utah destinations made the top 20.

Amangiri, one of the world's most expensive hotels tucked away on the far edges of Utah's southern desert, ranked No. 12. ULUM Moab, an outdoor luxury resort near Canyonlands National Park in southern Utah, came in at No. 17.

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