ALTA, Utah — To reach this tiny ski town at the top of a canyon, you jump on an easy flight to Salt Lake City, followed by a 45-minute drive into the mountains. But somewhere along the way you go through a time warp.

Alta has been a ski area for 68 years, priding itself on its ability to fend off change and development through much of that time. Skiing purists and Utah locals have been quietly enjoying its beauty for decades, but some of us are defecting here from pricier, more upscale resorts elsewhere because it reminds us of why we fell in love with the sport.

"I had never skied Utah, but once I had, it's now my annual pilgrimage," said lifelong skier Seth Bingham, who grew up in Denver and swooshed down his first mountain at age 9. He is now an attorney who also works two days a week at a ski resort in Durango, Colo.

Bingham and I met on a snowy afternoon at Alta, when my father and I happened to share a table with him while stopping for lunch at a midmountain lodge.

Like Bingham, my family is serious about skiing. Legend has it that my father used to pack lunches and eat them on the lift because he couldn't bear to waste time away from the slopes. Ever since he first put me in ski boots at age 4, I have been a skier, and I even went to college in Colorado so I could be close to the mountains where I spent so much time as a kid.

But a lot has changed in the ski industry there since I was younger. Towns are sprawling, resorts are expanding, prices are skyrocketing (lift tickets at one major resort are up to $85 a day). The skiing is still excellent, and we certainly haven't abandoned our first love. But in Alta, we have found a throwback to simpler times — when aprés ski was a bowl of chili by the fire, not martinis and a two-hour wait for dinner.

The first time my dad and I went to Alta, a few years ago, we loved the atmosphere as we drove into the old silver-mining town, where most of the businesses are locally owned, including the five lodges at the base.

We felt a tug of nostalgia as we inched up the mountain on the main chair lift, which was then a slow-moving double-seater that felt very 1970s and took nearly 20 minutes to reach the top. The trip takes you from a base of about 8,350 feet above sea level to about 10,400. Alta's highest point is 10,550.

The lift was replaced in 2004 with a faster four-seater that now zips to the top in about eight minutes. At other resorts, skiers typically welcome these types of improvements, but at Alta, loyalists were dismayed that the resort gave in to modernity, and it took an entire season for most of them to come around, according to Alta spokeswoman Connie Marshall.

Alta lovers tend to be alarmed if anything changes (there was once an uprising over new furniture in one of the lodge lobbies), and so the resort takes very seriously any proposals to upgrade or renovate.

"People say, 'This is why I love it here. We go other places to get the bells and whistles,' " Marshall said. "People feel like they've come home when they're here."

Boasting more than 500 inches of snow each season — a dry, fluffy snow resulting from a combination of desert effects and the Great Salt Lake — Alta is also unmatched in terms of quality runs and deep powder that seems to last forever.

Part of that is because Alta still doesn't allow snowboarders on its 116 runs, which cover 2,200 ski acres. At the risk of offending my snowboarding friends, I have to say this is another reason why I like skiing here — I love snowboarders, but without them, the loose snow doesn't slough off the mountain as quickly.

Without all the glitz, the resort also manages to keep its prices reasonable. Lift tickets this year are $52 a day, with savings for multiple-day purchases, and comfortable slopeside lodging can be found for under $250 a night.

"At Alta, it's not about the customer experience of showing you how well-heeled the mountain is, it's just about the skiing. It's all about the skiing," Bingham said. "And you're willing to put up with a little bit of quirkiness to get that."