In the crisp, high-altitude morning air of Alta, Utah, The Greatest Snow on Earth® — a term coined in 1960, speaking to the astounding quality of the state’s powder — falls with the lightest touch. I set out, on skis, in the late-spring powder to spot the rare black rosy finch. The endangered, sparrow-sized bird breeds at the highest altitude (between 8,000 and 14,000 feet) of any North American species and is among few pink-plumed species. Studies of this elusive bird have uncovered genetic pathways shared between them and human communities in the Tibetan Himalayas. They brave snowstorms, gale-force winds, and bone-chilling temperatures with a resilience that borders on miraculous.

For spotting the rosy finch, Alta is the place, year-round. No mega-mountain condo developments or shops here. Instead, there’s a sustainability-minded community committed to long-term preservation of their mountain environment. The Alta Environmental Center and Tracy Aviary are part of a black rosy finch conservation and tracking program, using radio frequency identification via bird boxes and feeders installed on the mountain. My birding-on-skis guide leads me off-piste through pristine subalpine firs to where the objects hang in quiet, untracked glades.

There, chirping mountain chickadees, red-breasted nuthatches, and pine grosbeaks come and go. We wait and wait in the snow-covered greenery until a blur of black and neon pink flashes in, nibbles at the feeder, and disappears into the snowy sky. The black rosy finch is a fleeting vision of beauty and obscurity, a reflection of the intricate dance of life and survival, of adaptability and resilience encoded in the design of nature itself.

Come winter snow or summer sunshine, Alta Lodge promises an exhilarating mountain stay and ideal pushing off point for birding, hiking, or skiing. Built in 1940 and later renovated by John Sugden, a student of Mies van der Rohe, the Bauhaus-style property — with its mid-century Bertoia chairs and ski-in, ski-out location — feels like a classic European ski lodge, with floor-to-ceiling windows framing either skiers shushing down the powdery slopes or flower-filled alpine fields.