Park City Ski Trip 2018: Day 6

Brighton, Part Trois

Can you tell which resort is our favorite?

Brighton. It's obviously Brighton. Carol, Christina, and Kim on the lift.

Christina and I were up early and ready to hit the slopes, so we left alone while Carol, Kim, and Ethan caught up on their beauty rest.

Everyone knows the best part about skiing is shoving your feet into ski boots in the morning.

The two of us boarded Crest Express at 10:05 AM, which means today counts as the earliest start yet for the trip (and maybe the earliest start to a ski day in our history). Having recently snowed, we were excited to conquer some fresh powder. It really was a beautiful day. One of our first runs was a black diamond, Wren Hollow, and I had to stop and take in the tranquility of the scene. There was not a breeze in the trees and we were practically the only ones on the mountain, so it was quiet like only a remote mountain scene can be.

(future site of GoPro footage)

After a good seven or eight runs, we opted to take an early (for us) lunch break, which worked out perfectly because Carol, Kim, and Ethan had by then made their way up Big Cottonwood Canyon and they joined us for a meal. We had some tall beers, chili cheese fries, and chicken tenders. One of the cardinal rules of skiing is that you're allowed to eat whatever you want, in whatever quantities you want.

After lunch, we made our way up Snake Creek Express for a rambunctious outing. Today was my best day of the trip and I made sure to dive into the woods for plenty of bobbing and weaving through the trees.

Ethan and I ride together whenever possible.

I even managed to squeeze in a double black diamond for the first time on this trip (Hard Coin), which was as terrifying as it was terrifying. But I survived to ski another day.

Après-ski

At this point in the trip, we're feeling fairly wrung out and abused so Christina, Ethan and I treated ourselves to a soak in the Powderwood hot tub. While enjoying the bubbles and restorative powers of hot water, we made some new friends: two ten-year-old ski buddies named Eli and Elena and Elena's mother Cate. We shared slope stories, discussed video games, and the finer points of elementary school math curricula. Their group typically skis at Deer Valley and we hope to run into them if we opt to go there later in the week.

One of our new "après" routines is playing the board game Pandemic, which we did today. Very fun, except that we lost and the world was destroyed by outbreaks. Can't win them all, I suppose. For dinner we had fried cod, salad, and roasted vegetables. Ethan helped with the prep, as usual.

Ethan grapples with the hazards of battering fish with one's bare hands.

Christina and Ethan treated us to some custom brownies (they baked Reese's peanut butter eggs into them) and we watched some GoPro footage before calling it a day. What a great trip.