Fresh Powder At Brighton

We’ve been coming to Utah one week a year for a decade, racking up eighty-something ski days in the process. To choose a single “best” day from such a crowded field would seem a Herculean task. And yet we can state, with absolute certainty, that the day we spent at Brighton in April 2008 has a firm grasp on the #1 spot.

For this day to claim the top spot was the result of a perfect convergence of four factors:

1. The Crowd (or lack thereof)

Geographically, Brighton is located just past Solitude resort in Big Cottonwood Canyon. This has metaphorical significance because, on this particular day, there was, literally, NOBODY there. So it can be accurately stated that Brighton is, in every way, beyond Solitude. 

2. The Snow 

Utah’s tourism revenue increased exponentially when they changed their slogan from “Take My Wives, Please” to “The Greatest Snow on Earth.” To the uninitiated, the latter tag line might seem hyperbolic, or at least arrogant. But it isn’t. 

3. The Crew

In 1997, Güzo and Schlüz’ discovery that a mutual love of speed and bumps and trees, and an “unsafety first” attitude, negates any skier/snowboarder bullshit. This marked the genesis of an annual pilgrimage. Five years later, Charity arrived and quickly demonstrated the same recklessness in her skiing as she did when she married Güzo. And thus was born an unholy trinity – one knuckledragger and a pair of two-plankers (“I smell a sitcom!”) – and we’ve been pushing our luck together ever since. We’ve been out with lots of different people over the years. With groups large and small. With skiers and riders of varying abilities and diverse philosophies. And good times we have had. But every year as the herd is trimmed to three, we are once again blessed by God and Saint Michael and Saint George with the right to shred bumps and the power to rip powder. And it is good.

And of course the terrain was kick-ass. Brighton is considered relatively small by Utah standards. Which is to say, it’s fucking huge.

So there we were with the whole place to ourselves. We started our day soaking up the knee-deep freshies under the new Milly Express high speed quad. For east coast kids, we acquitted ourselves pretty well. But enough words. Check this out:

Snowbird

In a way, each of us has his own Snowbird to face. For some, shyness might be their Snowbird. For others, a lack of education might be their Snowbird. For us, Snowbird is a big, dangerous mountain that wants to kill us.

Snowbird is a HUGE resort, full of rock outcroppings and cornices and cliffs and chutes and, surprisingly, large predatory cats. (See below)

Fresh off our monster powder day at Brighton, we were dragging ass a bit as we rolled into Snowbird. But the sunny skies and lingering freshies (sun-baked but still relatively soft) got us in the mood in short order, and we spent most of the morning working out the kinks around Mineral Basin. After that we moved over to the front side and found some nice steep soft groomers to play with and occasional powder stashes to callenge our happily-fatigued legs.

There were two noteworthy events which transpired on this day. The first, of course, was meeting the local wildlife. (See below). The second was our first ride through the Peruvian Tunnel, a 600-foot shaftway dug straight through the mountain enabling access to Mineral Basin from the front side without having to take another tram ride. Movement through the tunnel is accomplished by means of a conveyor belt and the experience is not unlike that of a gallon of milk making its way through the checkout (only with more bad 80’s music). Check it out:

Kurt 2.0

Before we begin, we wish to note for the record that we like the old Kurt. Nice guy. Swell fella. But he’s a JINX.

For 8 years, we went to Utah with Kurt every winter. And those years started out promissingly enough: tons of powder, face shots all around, and, as a bonus, the chance to witness the bizarre phenomenon of Kurt’s intelligence declining proportionally to every foot of altitude he gained. (‘You see, the thing about Beam and coke is, you’ve got Beam AND you’ve got coke.’) But, as the years passed, we noticed a disturbing trend: No Snow. In Utah! How could this be?

We searched the heavens and the earths for an explanation, and, like Archimedes in the bathtub, the solution suddenly presented itself. Every time Kurt left town, the snow started falling. And kept falling. Until he returned. And then it stopped. And kept stopping.

And so, relucatant as we may have been, we put out a call across the land, seeking a replacement Kurt.

We had low expectations (see: Kurt 1.0) but were delighted when we found an ideal substitute in our very first candidate. Kurt 2.0 has all of the features as the original, but with a few important upgrades. First, and most important, he brings snow. Lots of snow. Acres of fresh white inches. The guy’s a damned rabbit’s foot. Also, he can cook. And, he’s got a medical background, which could come in handy if we continue to push ourselves beyond the limits of our collectively decaying physicality. 

Alas, poor Kurt 1.0, we knew him well. But now he must be relegated to the scrap heap of history along with the other famous jinxes such as Babe Ruth, that stupid Wrigley Field goat, and that douche who said God couldn’t sink the Titanic.