I skied Brighton on February 8th. We had been treated to 8" the night before, and 9" this morning. There was a terrific base out there already, and now 18" of fresh.

We skied up Millicent bowl until it was nothing but chopped powder. Then we broke into two groups...some of the guys went into the backcountry off the traverse above Millicent bowl, and we headed over to check out Exhibition bowl. We were treated to waist deep in some spots, and it was terrific. We broke for lunch in the parking lot and enjoyed the gorgeous sun light to warm us up. After that, we headed over to the Snake Creek chair to pull some cool-down laps in the trees there. The snow was phenomenal...deep, soft, and fluffy. I had fresh tracks through the not-so-steep trees for all the runs in there.

The rest of my group went to the bar for the rest of the day, and I headed over to Great Western. I ironically met up with the first group that broke off earlier that morning. They had been through the backcountry gate off the top of Great Western and said the snow was terrible: wind-blown and hard. They were also about spent for the day, so we lapped Rein's Run and Endless Winter. The snow was chopped up, but still soft and deep. The run-out on Lonestar was terrific too...lots of little terrain features to play around on after some hard turns. We stayed here until last chair, then headed back to the parking lot.

Molly Green's is the only real apres ski location at Brighton (except the back of your truck with some beers). It's a private club, so you have to buy a membership for $5, which covers everyone at your table. A small price to pay for cheap pints of Squatter's after a day of skiing. If you want to ensure you get a table, make sure you show up before last chair.

Brighton is my second favorite resort in Utah (Alta being the first). I love the small, quaint resort. While it has a huge park scene and the crowd that goes with that, they mostly stick to Brighton's park and stay away from the rest of the terrain, leaving it open for pillaging. And Brighton's not terribly steep, either, which is OK for me when situations get tight (like with the trees and cliffs). The tree skiing at Brighton is some of the best I've experienced as well, and any terrain off the Millicent chair is well worth the lift ticket.

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Brighton is weak!! It is all beginners...even better are all the flats...sure you have Millicent and Great Western, but that is such a small amount of terrain... once that gets tracked(which takes about an hour) there is nothing left, unless you know exactly where to go...so it is an ok resort, just small and like I said before at the end of every hill is a mile of flats! Oh and the park this year is weak!! NO PIPE, 2 jumps and a couple of rails...lame!

I have been to Brighton on many numerous occasions. I happen to be a big fan of the resort. The reason being because for one, brighton is usualy the least crowded and usualy gets the most snow on powder days. The other reason is because most of Brighton's lifts are the fast quad chairlifts. The only downside about Brighton is that there is no real night life and that Brighton is the furthest resort up the canyon.

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Brighton has been a staple for our ski trips to Utah since we started going (OK, so only a year ago), but it's such a great place, that we go there at least twice a trip. This year, we kicked off our Utah ski trip with Brighton, and we were rewarded with 6" of fresh while we were there. On top of that, it had just dumped on the Wasatch range the day before, so we were killing fresh most of the day.

Brighton's a "small" resort compared to everything else in the Wasatch range: Alta and Snowbird have larger and more epic terrain, and Park City and the Canyons are spread out more. But Brighton--the little resort that could--has a secret. Terrific snow conditions, breathtaking views, fantastic backcountry, and epic tree skiing.

To go to Brighton is to find exactly what you are looking for: want tree skiing? Brighton has the best in the Cottonwood canyons. You can take any lift and drop in between two blue runs for moderate-sloped trees, or cat over to a double-black for steep, tight tree runs. My favorite area is skier's right off of the Snake Creek Express chair, between the steady-rolling blue runs. I also enjoy heading down skier's left of the cat track from Great Western and dropping just below the cat, running directly under the Great Western chair. This is some of the best tree skiing I have ever done. Even on windy days (such as our first day at Brighton, when 70+ MPH winds closed Great Western), we were able to take shelter in the trees and find pow that hadn't been swept away. Even when we returned days later, we found tracks through most of our previous tree runs, but with a little effort were able to find freshies again.

I haven't taken part in much of Brighton's backcountry (the gate off of the Great Western lift, I was told by a local, has some pretty burly terrain, and I doubted that I could keep up with my friends), so we opted instead to ski some of the "inbounds backcountry" off the Millicent lift. The Millicent lift is far skier's left (or directly to the right of the resort when looking up from the parking lot) and is a scary fixed double that takes you high up off the ground--not for the faint-hearted. When we arrived at the top, we found the two gates closed for the backcountry due to avalanche danger. Most of the front side off of the Millicent lift was gnared up with rocks and logs due to low snow conditions, but we were able to ski some small chutes and drop a few small cliffs, landing usually shin- or knee-deep in fresh snow. Another favorite spot for me is about 1/3 of the way down the cat track off of the Great Western lift. Drop into the double-black there with a seemingly gnarly line with tons of rocks, stumps, and brush. Clear the top half of the glade and be treated to a wide, steep, expanse with fresh snow for the taking.

We barely spent any time in the middle of the resort, where fun groomers await those not ready for tree or backcountry skiing. The groomers are wide, soft, and very easy to handle for beginner to intermediate skiers. I was amazed at the amount of newbies taking skiing lessons at Brighton. It seems as if the front side slopes here are conducive to learning, so that may explain the huge throngs of people with ski instructors. The real gem, for sure, in the middle of the resort (by "middle," I mean the two base chairs,) is the park at Brighton. During our second visit this trip (on a Tuesday), we saw some amazing snowboarders and skiers pulling tricks in the park. I saw a snowboarder so flawlessly stomp a rightside 9 that I thought he was pro. And then I watched 4 double-plankers pull truck drivers in machine-gun succession in the half pipe, followed by a girl on twin tips who popped 360s out of the pipe like I pop aspirin after a day of skiing. Before I knew it, the chair was at the top, and I left wanting to take the same chair again to watch the local park scene go off some more.

Moving off the slopes, Brighton is a completely unobtrusive resort. There’s not too much merchandising going on (ala Snowbird), prices for food and drinks are moderate, and there’s no mid-mountain restaurants waiting to fleece you for your cash. Everything is nestled into a small base village that you’d almost would think consisted of only the ticket office. Unfortunately, this small sized base village is also Brighton’s downfall: on a busy weekend, good luck trying to find a place to sit inside to warm up while you eat lunch. And the food service line—with only three checkouts—moves slower than the beginner hill quad. We spent 15 minutes inside just trying to find someone who was within 10 minutes of getting ready to leave, so we could poach their table. Otherwise, we were forced to sit outside the bathroom door to relax and warm up. Brighton’s teeny tiny base village came back to haunt the customers on this busy weekend. Although Brighton can turn the tables on this and say, “we’re focused on skiing and snowboarding,” people still need a place to relax, drink a Redbull, and recharge their batteries for more epic skiing.

In another resort review of Brighton, someone mentioned that the lifties don’t do a very good job managing lift lines. This may be true for the bottom half of the mountain, but once you get to the topside, liftlines (what few I participated in) moved quick and efficiently. Although, to the reviewer’s credit below, I rarely saw lifties as they were mostly hiding in their warming house. This may either mean that the customer’s who used the upper moutain’s lifts were just smart enough to pair up, or the upper half of the mountain just wasn’t used enough due to the whipping winds and cold. Either way, the liftlines on the busy Saturday we spent at Brighton moved quickly and efficiently, and I have no complaints there. Most of my complaints are reserved for the smallish base village—which is a surprise, considering that Brighton is managed by the same company that runs Big Sky MT.

While Brighton doesn’t have the expansiveness as Park City or the epic terrain of Snowbird or Alta, it does have it’s perks. It’s the perfect resort for high-intermediate to advanced skiers and snowboards to go and level up their abilities. The trees and backcountry are shorter, less burly technical runs that have a built-in comfort factor due to their size. That doesn’t mean that hairball terrain exists (it does), it’s just that most of the time at Brighton, you will find yourself in a scary situation that you can always get out of. While the groomers were alive and kicking with ski schools (and the quality of the groomers rates high,) I think Brighton is probably the least family-friendly of resorts. Stick with your Park City or Deer Valley for that. To me, it just seems like the terrain you get at those resorts is greater for moms and dads and kids to utilize. Brighton may just be too small for a “family” resort. And if you get a chance, shoot through the park and check out some of the hits and rails they have—some of the coolest (although few in number) that I’ve seen in Utah.

Brighton ranks #3 in my list of Utah ski resorts (right behind Alta and Snowbird), because I enjoy the variety of terrain and the fact that there’s always snow to be had. I also enjoy that the terrain is always a bit more friendly to my limited ability skiing, and anything that ends up being too burly for me to handle is always forgiving at the end.

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I've been to Brighton 2 years ago and I loved it. We went in mid March and got dumped on. It snowed for 3 days straight (3+ feet) and Park City only got 1 foot. Smaller but very fun mountain with great backcountry terrain.