Brighton
Sunday 8 February 2004

Weather

Conditions

Story of the Day

This was the first day skiing with Chris. There had been about 6" of fresh snow overnight. Getting our luggage out to the car through the snow was interesting; breakfast was delayed because the staff had problems getting to the hotel. It was cold and heavily overcast when we left the hotel (near the airport). We picked up skis from Breeze on Foothill Drive and drove up to Brighton.

Car covered in fresh overnight snow

For our first run, we took the short Majestic lift, just to loosen the legs before the longer runs from Crest. It was cold and overcast, but with just a hint of blue in the sky.

Under Majestic lift	From Majestic lift
The top of Majestic lift	The top of Majestic lift
The top of Majestic lift	Chris at the top of Majestic lift
The top of Majestic lift	The top of Majestic lift
The top of Majestic lift

For the first part of the morning, we cruised the blue runs from Crest Express lift. I'm not sure whether we were colder on the lift, or skiing down, it was touch and go.

Eventually, we crossed across to the new Snake Creek Express lift that had replaced a slower chair for some more challenging runs.

Doyle's Dive, directly under Snake Creek lift is on the harder side of black when conditions are bad, with plenty of rocks and trees on both sides restricting the width of the skiable area. Today, conditions were pretty good. The top 50m was "wind-groomed" but down below the crest level, there was plenty of fresh powder. We still had to watch out for rocks, particularly on the steeper section near the top.

Chris on Doyle's Dive

Chris on Doyle's Dive

Next we moved on to one of my favourite runs at Brighton, Thunderhead. Named, because of a large mound which forms the focus of the un, it is reached by a cruise along the ridge from the top of the lift and then a run down Sunshine, getting up sufficient speed to bear right onto the almost flat top section of Lone Star run. A few hundred yards along, there is a small gap to the left of the run which leads onto the top of Thunderhead. The lead in is always mogulled. When conditions are poor, it is necessary to ski around the hill; when conditions are good like on this day, it is possible to ski up and over the top into a steep but short powder face. The run out from the bottom of the rock is mogulled, but not steep.

We enjoyed the run so much that we immediately went back and did the same again, but this time skiing back down to Brighton Center for a break to get warm.

After our coffee break, we headed back to the long Great Western. This is not as fast as they other express quad, so gives more recovery time between runs. At the top, there is a zig-zag cat-track and a much more challenging run straight down under the lift to get to the top of Elk Park Ridge. We took the direct path every time except the last when our legs were getting rather tired. First run was down the steepest black Wrangler. This was quite heavily skied with some hard-pack near the top. Not much fun, so we would not return.

Great Western Lift	Chris on Great Western
Mike on Great Western	Great Western Lift

For our next run, we headed down the double black Endless Winter from top to bottom. This was a mixed run. It is steep in places with a few cliff areas and lots of trees. We found ourselves with a few difficult turns in tight places and one place where we picked up speed traversing through bushes a little steeper than we would have liked, but overall it was a good run. By the bottom we were getting tired.

For our next run, we took Elk Park Ridge as far as we could and then turned down Desperado which is fact merges into a pretty open area. This was very cut-up, with nasty crud just below the top surface.

Chris on Desperado

We used our final run on Great Western to gain height to cross back towards the main central area and on the lift decided to try to ski off all the lifts we had not yet covered before calling it a day.

The first lift that we had not done was the short Scout chair on the nursery slope. Both Chris and I were enlisted to help youngsters around the age of 6, who were on lessons. My pair talked almost incessantly all the way up. Next we needed to get across to the other side of the valley. Walking was one option; taking Crest Express and then skiing across was much preferable.

Evergreen is a slow double chair, but with virtually no-one using it. In fact it only runs at weekends when it functions as part of the link to the nearby resort of Solitude. We had an uneventful run down to the bottom of Millicent lift

From Evergreen	From Evergreen
From Evergreen	Millicent lift

What proved to be our last lift of the day completed the set. Millicent runs almost parallel to Evergreen but reaches a lot higher on the mountain. Near the bottom of the run, we cut across to the track back towards the side of the resort where we started.

From Millicent

Some very tired legs were glad to see the back of skis and boots for the day. We had a very pleasant sandwich lunch at the store in Brighton and headed towards Powderwood via a supermarket.

Checking in to Powderwood proved to be a long-winded and frustrating process. First of all, when we arrived, our condo wasn't ready, so we had to wait for an hour in Mcdonalds. Then the condo we were given was completely unacceptable, with various faults and a bucket of whitewash in the kitchen. Eventually, we were transferred to another condo which was to the level we normally expect.

After a light dinner at Ruby Tuesday, Chris returned to the condo, while I drove down to the airport to pick up Sue.

Runs

Last updated: 17th September 2004