02-April-2024 Brighton is Bright!

After skiing in heavy snow and poor visibility yesterday today was such a thrill - deep blue skies all day long and nothing but sunshine!

I headed up Cottonwood Canyon to Brighton Ski Resort today. One of the interesting things I noticed on the way up was that there were 2 distinct swatches where the road had been climbing through the canyon with tall pine trees on either side and in each of these two spots (about 100 yards long) the trees were reduced to stumps with the tops all broken over towards the right (downhill) and they had been stripped of all branches and greenery . Obviously an avalanche went through here! This is avalanche country and it's avalanche time of year – as temperatures warm up and snow begins to melt the snow acts like a sponge and hold onto the water and the extra weight causes the snow to slide down the mountain. All the ski areas do a great job of avalanche control and you can often hear the boom of the explosives that they shoot into the snow pack to have a controlled release so that things don't build up and turn into big avalanches.

Had a fun encounter on the lift today – rode up with a mom, dad and young kid (20s) from Mexico City – the kid is a musician and had just released a song to Spotify. I put a pic of his song below – his name is Nathan Banks and we listened to a bit of the song on the way up in the chairlift. He currently has popular songs in Mexico in Spanish and I told him that he needed to compose some in English to grab the US and European markets (his English is fluent). Keep an eye out for this kid – he's got a great voice - and check him out on your favorite music service.

Speaking of avalanches .... at the top of one of the peaks you can climb out of the patrolled district to points way up high and ski down through virgin snow. There's a big sign warning of the avalanche danger and you need to have an avalanche beeper, shovel, radio/cell and partner. A few people were making the very steep trek up through the snow with their skis on their backs – no thank you! Just below is a ski patrol rescue hut with equipment ready to go - you can see how deep the snow here is! And it's high up - I was over 10,000 feet at the top of a couple of lifts - I can blame my panting on the altitude and not that I should be in better shape. 😂

You couldn't craft a nicer day to ski – it wasn't too warm yet so the snow condition was packed powder and perfect but it was warm enough to eat lunch outside on the sun drenched patio - always feels so much warmer when there is no wind! You rarely get a day like this in New England - it was awesome.

Cat Update:

I had pulled the string out of my drawstring pajamas and put it on the coffee table in the basement as a reminder to fix it last night. Ullr found the string and brought it upstairs this morning and it was his favorite toy for quite a while - he did get temporarily tied up near the leg of the table but freed himself and continued to enjoy his new toy. He's going to be so sad when I put it back in my pajamas!