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: