Adventure Thursday is BACK

Had a GREAT day skiing at Brighton today!!! I, and a few of my Deer Valley buddies, had the day off today, so we made a plan to ski Brighton together. Besides myself, Brooks and Chris came out, and we got an early start (we were in the lift line before the lifts were open). Sandy met us there only a run or two later. After a few more runs we bumped into Ben and one of his buddies that's here visiting, so we were a group of 6 most of the day.

I wanted to go to Brighton because I recently signed up for a 'big mountain skiing' clinic at Alta/Snowbird... and skiing in a wedge on the flats of Deer Valley doesn't really prepare me for that type of skiing. Those that know me know I have a bit of pride, so I wanted to get some 'big mountain' practice in before the clinic.

Brighton is great for that type of skiing- they get tons of snow, it's steep, all the lifts are high speed quads... and my absolute favorite thing about Brighton is the anything goes attitude there. You want to duck a rope and ski out of bounds? Ok, but you're on your own. You want to ski in the double-diamond, experts only areas? Go for it... but know that a wrong turn might lead you off a 40 ft cliff. Seriously.

I don't recall mentioning that I wanted to practice big mountain skiing, but since I've been to Brighton more than the other guys I became the unofficial leader... which meant those suckers had to follow me down whatever gnar I could find. And we found some gnar! Cliffs, rocks, steeps, pow, tracked out crud snow, sun crusted snow, thaw-freeze snow... there was a caucophany of textures underneat our feet.

While not skiing scary lines, Chris and I peer-pressured Brooks into jumping off what I would call a medium to large sized cliff (considering how hard the snow for landing). He stuck it beautifully.

We're taught as instructors to be careful what we allow our kids to do, because "monkey see, monkey do" can be a real problem. Apparently Chris wasn't listening, because a run or two later Chris wanted to try his first cliff jump ever. The snow wasn't real deep or soft today, but we were able to find him a nice little drop to try out. He said he was nervous, but didn't seem to hesitate much before commiting and popping right off it. The landing was a non-event, and with a big smile he said he wanted to do more!

Since hucking cliffs is sometimes involved in big mountain skiing, and since it's quite possibly what I need to work on the MOST, we took some time jumping off things. We were like little kids... find a rock, jump in the snow. Find a bigger rock, jump in the snow. Chris' first one was pretty mellow, but his second was of decent size...

Chris' second-ever cliff jump. Brooks acts as air-traffic-control from below.

The biggest air of the day award goes to Brooks, who launched himself long distance off a boulder a little later in the day. The landing was soft and he nailed it. He came to a stop, then fell over :-) DOH! It was pretty sick though...

Brooks LAUNCHES off this rock, sails throught he air, and sticks it!

I think I need to award myself the wipeout of the day award, even though only Sandy and Brooks saw it. I got myself in a position where I needed to turn around in order to jump a small cliff and land in soft snow. By the time I managed turning around, I was pretty close to the drop. I think I commited fully, but I was so close that I didn't get any real speed and instead of launching out and away I just droped and sunk to my nipples. I followed this with an epic faceplant/cartwheel in the snow, and wound up on my feet 20 ft below the cliff (and my perfectly parallel-parked skis). It was painless, and hillarious, bruising only my ego. I seem to have this chronic problem where I do these drops going too slow and faceplant. Guess I need more practice... we'll have to hit Brighton again, ASAP!

All in all we had a blast. Found some new favorite spots on the mountain (and some spots I will never return to)... got some great skiing (with some great skiers).... and I nearly made it the whole day without falling, not bad considering the terrain we were on most of the day. Possibly one of my favorite ski days ever...