Skiing:  Brighton

Although I hate to turn on the masses to this place, I love Brighton. Brighton is a secret locals area, we want you to go to Park City and Deer Valley! Stay away from Brighton…. I see you are still here. If you will bear with me, I’ll give you a tour of the resort.

I am somewhat biased towards Brighton as it was the first resort I was able to drag my wife to. My wife is from Illinois and the idea of skiing on a mountain was somewhat foreign to her. At Brighton you can buy a beginner lift pass which lets you on the Explorer and Majestic lifts. The Explorer lift is a triple lift serving easy green runs, this lift runs very slow to allow beginners to load and unload easily. This is a good lift to teach beginners on, my wife rode this lift with confidence. Once the beginner feels some confidence they can move up to the Majestic lift. The Mary, Lost Maid and Majestic trails allow the beginner to have a long fun ride.

The intermediate skier can ride any lift in the resort. One of the best intermediate trails is the Western Trail. This trail is accessed off the Great Western lift. This trail is 1700 vertical feet of great views. The Snake Creek chair also offers good intermediate skiing, usually the Snake Creek chair will offer better snow just by its virtue of a higher elevation. Brighton has the highest base elevation of any Wasatch resort.

Although I keep referring to skiing Brighton I should be saying riding Brighton. Brighton is one of the boarding capitals of the US. Brighton has embraced Snowboarding since its inception. Brighton is one of the few resorts where I have seen more boarders then skiers. They have an awesome pipe and great boarding terrain. There are a number of boulders on the trails which lend themselves to great jumps.

For the funnest (read rowdiest) terrain at Brighton you should be on the Millicent lift. Milli, as its know to the locals, is a double chairlift which brings you up on the shoulder of Mt. Millicent. If you traverse to skiers right you will find some rather exciting chutes through the rocks and trees. It does not get any easier the further you traverse, no matter which way you go down you will have to negotiate hop turns down ski length wide tracks through the rocks or trees. The Great Western lift also offers some great steeps. Take the Western Trail about 100 yards, dive into the fall line there. You will funnel down into an aspen lined and rock filled gulley, this is a steep run which will get your blood pumping.

The lodging here is not the best. Brighton is best done as a day trip from the Valley or elsewhere. I stayed at the Brighton Lodge before I moved here and cannot recommend it. The rooms are very small and it is not quite what you would think of a ski lodge.

Don’t let yourself be sucked into eating at the lodge! The best food at Brighton is found at Molly Green’s. Molly’s is a private club located adjacent to the Crest lift. Utah’s drinking laws are kind of strange.
We have what you call private clubs. Anyone can enter a private club but you must buy a membership or temporary membership. One loophole in the law is that you can be “sponsored” into a bar. If you play your cards right you can find a member to sponsor you. They are not real strict on the sponsorship deal here, pretty much walk in and someone will sponsor you. Buying a drink for the local who sponsored you is always a good idea, especially if it is me!! The food here is far superior to the standard resort fare served in the lodge, for the same price.

Brighton has received permission from the Forest Service to replace the Millicent chairlift. They are supposed to replace Milli and Evergreen with a high speed quad. This should make Brighton an even better place to ride.

Brighton is a place to avoid the first two Wednesday’s of December. Brighton offers Quad Wednesday’s the first two weeks of December. This allows four people to ski for the price of one. These days seem to be the day every person in Salt Lake picks to play hooky or call in sick.

Although some will complain about the number of snowboarders here, I think you will find some of the best boarders in Salt lake tearing up the terrain here. Although I am a die-hard skier I enjoy watching a boarder rip through the powder!

All in all I think you should stay in Park City, never come to Brighton!! Leave this to us.

 

Additional Resources

---

SNOW REPORT

Brighton Snow Report

---

Return to Skiing Index