Brighton
Saturday 26 January 2002

Weather

Conditions

A weekend of skiing with Gary Bullock (from The Open Group) and Walter Stahlecker (Hewlett-Packard). We left the hotel at 7:15. Ski rental at Breeze was relatively quick. By just after 8:00 we were sitting down to order breakfast at a small café just below Brighton and we were ready to ski when the lifts opened at 9. The weather was not friendly. Wind gusts up to 70 mph meant that the Great Western lift was not open.

Road to Brighton outside breakfast stop	Base area at start of day	Mount Millicent

Crest (1207) : Snow Drift, Lower Mary

First run at Brighton is usually a cruise down from the top of Crest Express, Today was no exception. The groomed slope was in great condition; the ungroomed areas at the edge of the runs was not promising, hard and frozen.

Top of Crest	Top of Crest	Pacific Highway
Walter Stahlecker getting ready	Gary Bullock getting ready

Crest (1207) : Snake Creek Access Tantamount

With Great Western out of action, we headed for Snake Creek, an uncrowded high speed lift serving a variety of terrain.

Snake Creek (1040) : Pioneer, Pine Martin

In places, particularly the ridge at the top of Ziggy run, the wind was blowing strongly. Doyle's Dive, the run under the lift was hard and rocky .. Not enticing. Our first run from Snake Creek was a gentle cruise down Pioneer and Pine Martin. We chose the easy option every time.

Bumps and blowing snow on Ziggy

The top of Snake Creek lift

Snake Creek (1040) : Sunshine

Back at the top of Snake Creek, conditions had not improved. High winds and blowing snow made life pretty unpleasant. I was looking for a specific run, with a little more challenge. This time I didn't find it; we had a pleasant enough cruise down to the lift.

Walter in blowing snow at the top of Snake Creek	The top of Snake Creek	Walter and Gary

Snake Creek (1040) : Thunderhead

Third time up Snake Creek, I found the route down that I was looking for. Bearing right off Sunshine run, we got to Thunderhead, a large rock with good (but ungroomed) snow conditions all round it. Below Thunderhead, the run out was ungroomed and mogulled, with the occasional rock to catch us. First time down we were very tentative.

Looking down towards Heber City

Clayton Peak (Not accessible because Great Western lift closed)

Snake Creek (1040) : Thunderhead, Lone Star

Once more at the top of Snake Creek, we tried Lone Star to check out the snow conditions. There were a few patches of powder, but nothing very exciting as we cut back to the base of Thunderhead for the run down to the lift.

Snake Creek (1040) : Thunderhead, Lone Star

For the next run, we did the same again, but ventured into the trees below Thunderhead. Conditions were surprisingly good and the trees pretty well spaced out.

Snake Creek (1040) : Thor

For the next run, we nominally followed Thor down to the lift, but for most of the time we were in the trees to the side of the trail. The best snow was definitely in the trees.

Snake Creek (1040) : Thunder Road, Hawkeye Sawbuck

After some fun in the trees, the next run was much more challenging. At the top of the lift we looked carefully at the top of Sawbuck, a double black diamong run. We allo decided to give it a go. We traversed across to an area that seemed more open than others and found ourselves on a seriously steep slope that seemed to end in thickly packed trees. Walter seemed to have no problems and started off down the slope with a great deal of confidence. I knew that I would get down it, but still it didn't look pleasant. Quite what Gary was thinking I don't know. As far as I know, he had never skied anything like this in his life before. The first couple of turns were great. Snow conditions were good. Each turn produced a small avalanche which meant that we lost more height than we intended, but the turns worked and that helped the confidence. There were a couple of places where we had to be precise in turned to move from one open patch to another, but overall we got down comfortably and skied down to the bottom.

Hawkeye Access

Crest (1207) : Deer Park Thunder Road Me-o-My

After out coffee break, we headed back to the same area, via the Crest express lift. Conditions had not improved. Me-o-my, while shown as black on the map, had been groomed and was not difficult.

The top of Crest lift	The top of Crest lift	Crest lift and Tantamount lift
Blowing snow at the top of Crest

Snake Creek (1040) : Deer Park Thunder Road Snake Bowl

Back at the top of Snake Creek, we headed right again into Double Black territory. This time we got it wrong. We traversed too far, into an area where there were more trees and we hadn't really given our legs time to loosen up after stopping for coffee. We got down, but not fluently or comfortably.

Snake Creek (1040) : Ziggy, Pioneer

So, next run was much more of a cruise to losen up. Near the bottom, we did take Ziggy with nice soft moguls.

Snake Creek (1040) : Ziggy Hard Coin

One year earlier, one of the diamonds had fallen off the sign to Hard Coin, a narrow run through the trees. Walter Stahlecker, James de Raeve and I ventured down and convinced ourselves that it was really fun. The time, the sign was correct. Gary, sensibly, decided that his legs were tired and took a cruise to meet us at the bottom. Walter and I headed into Hard Coin. Right from the top, it is a true double black, with tracks through the trees just a couple of moguls wide, demanding precise turns. First time down was great. I managed to put turns together rather than stopping after every one and got down to the bottom with adrenalin really running.

Snake Creek (1040) : Ziggy Hard Coin

So, we went back to the top and tried again. For me, going back was a mistake. My legs were tired and I ended up struggling for control and stopping too often.

Snake Creek (1040) : Thunderhead

Almost ready to call it a day, we headed back to the top and this time took a relatively high speed run around the terrain of Thunderhead. By now we knew where all the rocks were and could ski down much more aggrssively.

Snake Creek (1040) : Scout, Thunderhead

Back at the bottom of the lift, we decided that our legs would take one more run, so went back to the top and repeated our run round Thunderhead, if anything, even more aggressively and then carried on down to the bottom at the end of a good day.

It was about 2 pm when we finished. We stopped at the same café where we had breakfast, complete with Chicago blues music and an open wood fire, for lunch before returning to the hotel. By the end of the day, my right ankle was very sore, so I decided to try to "customise" my boots. Using the hotel hairdryer instead of the Salomon machine, I heated the liner for 15 minutes and then put the boot on. It seemed to make a difference, with a nice indentation for my ankle bone. We were planning to go out for dinner, but sheer inertia set in and we ended up just ordering food in the hotel bar.

Custom boot fitting with the help of a hair drier

Runs

Last updated: 29-Jan-02