The first thing to do before your ski trip to northwestern Wyoming is rent "Shane."

The classic 1953 Western was filmed in Jackson Hole, and Grand Teton National Park provides the spectacularly craggy backdrop. Do not assume, though, that Jackson Hole, for all its Hollywood iconography, is the be-all and end-all of Wyoming skiing. Or scenery. Or authentic Western personality.

"Everybody thinks of Wyoming as a place of extremes," said Stuart Thompson, who owns and almost single-handedly operates the White Pine ski area 80 miles south of Jackson in Wyoming's emptiest range, the Wind Rivers. "Steepest terrain, most vertical this, most radical that. ... But it's not necessarily so," he said.

White Pine has a lot going for it, including 1,100 vertical feet of high-quality north-facing snow, 25 trails off the mile-long triple chairlift, natural, rolling terrain perfect for families and intermediates, and the genuine town of Pinedale in the valley.

White Pine is one of the oldest lift-served ski areas in the West. It opened in 1939, the same season as Alta, Utah. When Thompson and his wife, Mary, bought White Pine in the mid-1990s, the operation was still pretty primitive. They sold hamburgers out of a hole cut in the side of a horse trailer. You'd never know it now. The spacious, wood-and-glass lodge is wired for Wi-Fi and decorated with Mary's museum-quality collection of ski art. The two triple chairlifts are state-of-the-art Pomas. "We've got Deer Valley skiing," Stuart Thompson said, referring to the famously polished Utah resort, "without Deer Valley prices."

My next stop was Grand Targhee, on the other side of Teton Pass from Jackson Hole. You drive through Idaho to get there. The road leaves the spud-farming Teton Valley at Driggs and climbs steeply back into Wyoming, up to what the locals call "the Grand side of the Tetons."

They get away with this boast because the 13,770-foot Grand Teton is actually more prominent here than it is from the Jackson Hole ski area. And because the three Tetons, South, Middle and Grand, were named by French explorers who saw them first from the west side, from what was then called Pierre's Hole. The "grand" boast sticks, in skiers' minds anyway, because Targhee gets a lot more snow than Jackson Hole does.

The afternoon I arrived at Targhee's compact resort village, Jackson had just broken a mini-drought with a 13-inch storm; Targhee reported over 2 feet, and it was still snowing. The roofs all supported 6 feet of overhanging snow, like mushroom caps. The path to my room in the Teewinot Lodge was a corridor carved 6 feet deep through the drifts.

Targhee's operation is self-contained and environmentally progressive. A dozen simply designed buildings, all within easy walking distance of the lifts, contain the lodge rooms, general store, rental and pro shops, kids' club, spa, naturalist cabin, conference center, family movie theater, breakfast deli, fancy steak house and a high-beamed bar with a red-hot reggae band from Salt Lake City. It's like Biosphere in the snow.

The vibe is friendly in a way that the major destinations often find elusive, or a bother. The resort is smoke-free. And there is a seven-point manifesto writ large in the central plaza: "Dedicated To Our Environment, The Community and The Future."

In my future the next morning was a whole lot of powder skiing. At Snorkel's for breakfast, I sat beneath a giant photomural of a powder skier engulfed up to his goggles and breathing through an actual snorkel. Targhee is one of the few places in North America where this image is not hyperbole.

I didn't need a snorkel. The new snow had come in with a little wind and was more like meringue than talcum powder. But it covered every inch of what by any standard is a big mountain: 2,200 vertical feet over 2,000 acres; three high quad lifts; and thanks to the mountain's breadth — and a dearth of trees courtesy of an ancient burn — there is a giddy sense of choice as you descend. The farther down you go, the more options you seem to have. I didn't see my feet all day.

Jackson locals don't come over to Targhee much. It's only an hour drive. Sure, they have their own hill 20 minutes from home. But there is a snob factor, too. Targhee is not as steep as Jackson Hole. Few places are. Targhee does not have a Swiss-built tram that whisks you 4,139 feet to the summit.

But neither will you find a scrap of untrammeled snow at Jackson Hole the day after a storm. I skied there following my lonely sojourn at Targhee, and while the snow was cold and soft, it was not deep. And I shared the lifts, and lift-lines, with what seemed like the entire North American population of extreme skiers.

Don't get me wrong. Jackson Hole is everything it's cracked up to be. The reputation is earned: steepest, tallest, toughest, just as Stuart Thompson said.

It's just that, like a chosen few other Rockies towns with rich histories and good ski hills (and nearby airports and movie-gorgeous settings), the rush to claim a piece of this paradise has resulted in a, shall we say, split personality.

For example, I stayed one night at the Snake River Lodge and Spa a hundred yards from the tram dock. The concierge whisked my skis out of my hands. The bed would have satisfied a princess. The indoor/outdoor swimming pool had hot waterfalls and a fake-rock grotto.

I spent a second night in Jackson 12 miles from the ski area at the 400-room Virginian. The Virginian has a full-sized elk on the roof and two bighorn sheep bashing skulls in the smoky Saloon. My favorite spot in Jackson was a breakfast place next door to The Virginian that refused to take itself too seriously. The bacon and hotcakes came fast and generous. A big black-and-white still from the movie "Shane" hung on one wall.

The local cops had a table staked out for themselves. Another big table appeared to be reserved for guys in coveralls, coffee mugs in hand. A wooden sign on the wall behind identified it as the "Table of Knowledge." A second sign corrected the first. It said: "Table of B.S."