Brighton, UT 04/01/09

It doesn't completely suck. It's just that in comparison to the other 3 Cottonwood Canyons areas, it pales quite a bit. This is Admin's point that you're missing.
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This point is well taken. Any ski area can be evaluated on the absolute scale of one's experience or relative to its region. The standards of Utah are very tough. Even if the "I'll always take easy first tracks over gnar" philosophy keeps you away from LCC, it's hard to argue that Solitude and Snowbasin won't give you better terrain with the same midweek emptiness as Brighton.

This is the error ASC made in pouring $$$ into developing the Canyons. A decent area on an absolute scale, but in the Utah pecking order it's pretty far down, thus never likely to draw huge numbers.
 
Tony Crocker":15nsx0sm said:
This is the error ASC made in pouring $$$ into developing the Canyons. A decent area on an absolute scale, but in the Utah pecking order it's pretty far down, thus never likely to draw huge numbers.
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That makes no sense. The reason so many people go to Deer Valley (or Vail or Breckenridge) isn't because of terrain like the Daly Chutes.

Marc_C":15nsx0sm said:
It doesn't completely suck. It's just that in comparison to the other 3 Cottonwood Canyons areas, it pales quite a bit. This is Admin's point that you're missing.
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I understood Admin's point... I disagreed with him applying his personal likes and dislikes to me. He's displaying symptoms of Crocker Disease, see above. I'm not good enough (or too chickensh*t) to take advantage of Alta or Snowbird's toughest stuff, so why would I fight crowds for the privilege of skiing tracked-out everything?
 
jamesdeluxe":160an60s said:
I understood Admin's point... I disagreed with him applying his personal likes and dislikes to me. He's displaying symptoms of Crocker Disease, see above.
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Oh, fer chrissakes. I can't yank your chain over dinner and enjoy it?
 
Admin":3bajzpyi said:
Oh, fer chrissakes. I can't yank your chain over dinner and enjoy it?
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Fun time's over, Charlie... it's back to business.

However, you're finally coming to terms with the fact that you and Tony are very similar, and that's a good thing.
 
jamesdeluxe":27d697f5 said:
However, you're finally coming to terms with the fact that you and Tony are very similar, and that's a good thing.
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mika-with-gun-in-mouthWEB.jpg
 
If you're gonna post a photo like that, at least get someone who's competent and sincere about offing themselves. The likely trajectory would result in only blindness or vegetable status.
 
James,

Nice work on taking advantage and getting out to UT at short notice to sample the goods. =D> I've been completely jealous reading every report. Our recent sunny trip was fun, but what you had was really what we were hoping for. Now if only I could get the grandparents to be on 24-hour standby from January through March to take care of the kids... :-k

Not getting into the flat spots debate, but we liked Brighton overall. I noticed that you mentioned Millicent in this report, but a lot of the pictures were on the Great Western side. We really enjoyed that area when were out there - fun terrain, a whole bunch of different variations through the trees, and a good steepness. Doesn't seem to get talked about as much as it should. It also has a high-speed lift, but I think they've put one in on Millicent now, so that may have changed the equation.
 
NeedhamSkier":1x7o9ina said:
I noticed that you mentioned Millicent in this report, but a lot of the pictures were on the Great Western side.
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No photos because my camera battery had died.

Yep, the Millicent area has a nice consistent pitch (no flats!) and an open bowl (more similar to LCC), with lots of terrain features that boarders were dropping. Also, excellent trees on the skier's right and all along the lower third. I found the deepest snow of the day on this side of the mountain... several windloaded spots with waist-deep pow.

The HSQ there is really fast: only 4.5 minutes. I managed quite a few laps before having to bail for the airport at 2.
 
I was actually talking about the Great Western side in my post, but would agree that my words could just as easily describe Milly. Just goes to prove that 'it's all good'
 
That makes no sense. The reason so many people go to Deer Valley (or Vail or Breckenridge) isn't because of terrain like the Daly Chutes.
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The Canyons has similar terrain but is somewhat worse than its immediate Park City and Deer Valley neighbors in both snowfall and snow preservation.
 
jamesdeluxe":3rbbyd85 said:
No mention of the tree-well death (a NH guy with five kids) at Alta?
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Not yet, as I'm awaiting confirmation of how he died. Where did you hear a tree well? The word I got this morning was that it may have been a medical issue.
 
Based on their websites (and seeing that another foot is in the forecast for today #-o), Alta has received almost 100 inches more year-to-date snow than Brighton.

I'm sure that this has been discussed at length before, but I wasn't paying attention... what was the takeaway? I know that LCC generally squeezes out a bit more per storm than BCC, but eight feet? :-k
 
It varies from storm to storm and year to year, depending largely upon which direction the storms come from (LCC is favored on a NW flow, BCC on a westerly flow, Sundance and Snowbasin on a SW flow) and where any narrow lake effect bands set up. Many of our storms this season were on a northwesterly flow. From Saturday's avalanche advisory, Brett Kobernik wrote the following:

The Park City ridgeline and Big Cottonwood picked up about another 4 to 7 inches overnight, a few inches in the Provo area mountains and basically nothing in the Ogden area mountains. Little Cottonwood picked up 140 inches overnight. That’s just a joke folks reflecting the huge amounts of snow that’s fallen. They’re really only up to around 22 inches since yesterday morning. The last foot that fell is ridiculously light density. This does bring totals in Little Cottonwood to over 150 inches in the two week period.
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Those differences are telling.
 
I know that LCC generally squeezes out a bit more per storm than BCC, but eight feet?
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Long term averages here: http://bestsnow.net/utahnet.htm. BCC averages ~80% of Alta at comparable elevation, Snowbird ~90% of Alta. 8 feet over a whole season is close to that 20%.

As in most places there is some variation by elevation. Solitude has been publishing data for awhile that is close to LCC totals. I obtained 8 years of that data last fall and it is from 9,400 feet while the LCC data (according to those who provide me with it) is from base elevations. The Brighton data on my website is a long term weather station in the back yard of one of the homes near its base. Admin and I drove up there to check it out in 2005. Since then that data has become erratic.

As admin pointed out, patterns vary a lot by individual storm. In the early season of 2008-09 LCC's margin over the other places was huge. The past 2+ week's dumps have also been illustrative. Back on March 29-30 Wasatch storm totals were fairly even, so James, BobbyD etc. (wisely IMHO) chose to make their tracks at largely deserted Snowbasin. Last weekend LCC got way more than anywhere else, so if you wanted the best powder you needed to go there.
 
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