Mt. Brighton

Hey, it's five minutes from my house, and I learned to ski there. I'm on the patrol, and I like the place.

My friends who turn their noses up at the local hills because they go out west a couple of times a year, I think that's stupid.

 

The latest news from the inside is that Vail plans this year to:

• Completely retro and/or overhaul the Red, Black and Yellow lifts.
• Green and Blue will be replaced with a single quad.
• Silver will be slightly moved and shortened to utilize more of that hill.
• Bunny will have a re-grade and magic carpet or two.
• Intermediate may have magic carpet in place of one of the ropes, for more advanced beginner lessons.
• The handle bar tow in the terrain park will be gone, along with fence running along the side of it, widening the park. The Orange chair will be removed, and that area will be enlarged with fill. The terrain park will be on the front where it is, with an additional park on the back where the orange chair is. This is being built and designed by Chris "Gunny" Gunnarson, the owner of Snow Park Technologies. They’re looking for about 40,000 yards of fill for various places around the hill.
• Part of the pond will be filled in below yellow for longer race lanes which will make it legal length for some of the bigger races.
• Enhanced lighting will be put in the terrain park and on the race hills.
• Top of the line snow making systems will be put it.
• The current snack bar location will become the brown bag area. The current brown bag area will be the new snack bar area with new kitchens, flooring, lighting etc. Starbucks will be onsite.
• The stairs leading to the hill will all be re-done.
• The current locker area/Shumakers (they will be gone) will be the new "kids Program" area.
• The current restaurant will be re-fitted with a new kitchen, making it an open kitchen that the public can see.
• Season pass holders will no longer go to the window for tickets, will just be scanned as they enter the ski area.
• And then a lot of stuff about replacing the rental skis and all snowboards.

 

A lot of welcome changes. I'm already pleased about how much more snow they blew this past season. They're bringing in a winch cat so they can groom Challenge. And it looks like the blanket rule against inverts is going away (a rule that I HATED having to enforce on those people who were obviously good enough to do them).

Mt Brighton (or Mt Trashmore, as many locals call it) is perhaps the weakest of the four manmade hills in the greater Detroit area.  It has the least vertical drop and the oldest lifts.  It's the closest hill to my house, and I almost always opt to drive twice as far to go to Holly.

Some positive things about Mt Brighton:

• it's close
• it has steeper terrain than the other local hills
• there's plenty of easy terrain too, so it's a great place to learn how to ski (it's where I took my first lessons)
• The backside of the east hill is considered by some to be the best bump run in the midwest - it's steep, and faces south so the moguls soften up on sunny days.
• It's rarely crowded
• There's a pretty strong beer-league racing scene, plus HS racing teams on weeknights. (this doesn't make it crowded, though because all these people are waiting to run gates)
• It's not actually built on a landfill, as the local rumors would have it
• It's been in the Movies!  The first scene of "Aspen Extreme" was filmed at Brighton.

So, Brighton does have some things going for it.  If you live in the area and ski, it's worth a trip to see if it's for you.  It's not for me, although I do make an appearance there once or twice a year.