Clear, some very light hazy cloud at high altitudes. Weather mild, snow in great condition, perhaps a little heavy near the bottom.
Overall
We finished our Technical Managers meeting around mid afternoon, and decided to head up Big Cottonwood Canyon to Brighton to try the night skiing. Tom McFarland, the Unisys Technical Manager, recommended that we give it a try and offered to get us into the private club afterwards for an informal dinner.
So Walter Stahlecker, Allen Brown and his son Ashly, Petr Janecek and I, called at the ski rentals on Foothills Drive and got up to Brighton almost exactly at 4 pm when the night skiing starts.
Park City claims the longest illuminated run in the rockies, but Brighton beats it hands down for night skiing. Firstly, the lift in use is a long high speed quad, so cold is not so much of a problem and secondly, there is a much larger area and variety of skiing available for all standards.
The Petr Janecek crash
We started off in daylight and Petr Janecek was determined to demonstrate his prowess. About half way to the bottom of the first run, he headed straight down a steeper section and clearly was not going to be able to make the turn at the bottom. He didn't and executed a spectacular tumble in the ungroomed snow and just missed the trees.
Through the trees with Allen Brown
As the light was beginning to fade. I started off a run with Allen Brown following. We took a wrong turning and the trail we were on narrowed ...
High speed cruisingLow speed pizza
Great skiing for about 3 hours.
