He was there when Snowbird first took flight and helped it through lean times — recently retired Bob Bonar looks back at nearly a half-century at this iconic Utah resort

Snowbird • Bob Bonar first stepped foot in Utah’s Little Cottonwood Canyon in 1969 to spend a winter off from college working at Alta Mayor Bill Levitt’s lodge beside the old mining town’s famed ski area.

The Southern Californian was more of a beach guy than a skier, but he quickly took to Utah’s world-renowned snow in the Wasatch Mountains' daunting, avalanche-prone terrain. He returned the next winter as a college dropout and rookie member of Alta’s ski patrol.

“I made $125 a month and enjoyed lots of good powder skiing,” Bonar recalled. “Avalanche control was just getting going.