Brighton Ski Resort - 2 Day Utah Ski Trip

I'll be honest, the first day was a bit...miserable.  I tried to be super dad and take both trek sisters, but wasn't really sure how it was going to work out since Bryn had never been skiing before. Well, it didn't really work out. I thought if I put Bryn in lessons, I could take Chloe out on the ski lifts for a couple hours. The only lessons she could do were semi-private lessons as the minimum age for group lessons is 4. I was going to leave Bryn with her very nice instructor, but I could tell she wasn't going to be very happy about it. 

Luckily my brother (Jeremy) came with us, and he was able to take Chloe with him and his kids up on a ski lift while I stuck around to help Bryn. The ski lesson lasted about 5 minutes. Basically we made it to the top of the moving carpet, and the ski instructor tried helping her slide a little bit at a time...but she wasn't having any of it. She's a little shy (like her dad) and a lot stubborn (like her mom), and just did not feel like trying at all. She basically just yelled, "Daddy I want you!" for the whole 5 minutes. I mean it's nice to feel wanted, but the sunk cost of a $75 ski lesson really hurt! When she started crying, we decided to give up and try another day. It didn't help that we had a late flight into SLC, so she was very tired and grumpy. ​I tipped the nice instructor $5 (don't judge, that's like $1/minute!) Luckily, again, I was able to call the Grandparents and they came up and picked Bryn up (isn't having family so nice!?), and she got to spend the rest of the day shopping with her mom. 

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Chloe has done an intermediate ski run at a little resort (Alta Sierra) here in CA, but I was a little worried how she would do on a longer and probably more challenging ski run. When I talked to her after her first run, she seemed fine but she did mention she fell down quite a bit. I took her back up the Majestic lift, and after a couple early falls, she had lost all confidence in herself. It took awhile (and a lot of tears) to get to the bottom. At this point I was really second guessing why we travelled so far to ski. We went into the lodge to rest and I tried to restore her confidence. I noticed there was a trail map right behind us and saw there was an easier run on the Explorer lift. I convinced her to give it a try. This was exactly what she needed. We were able to ski several times on this easier run to redeem the day (although the weather was quite awful with hail and wet snow).

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​It snowed several inches overnight which made the next day of skiing/snowboarding one to remember! The bad part was getting there. Everyone in Utah apparently wanted to be there that day, and it took about 1.5 hours to go 20 miles to get to the ski resort. We stuck it out and right before we got to Brighton, they started turning people around because the lot was full. We were only allowed to drop people off. Bryn wanted to try skiing again, but really just wanted to play in the snow. Since Grandma had to drive a car back and couldn't help me out, she had to go back down the canyon, but did get to play in the snow. ​

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Chloe and I had an epic day. We started out with one run on the Explorer lift, and I convinced her to give Majestic another try. She did awesome! We got back on what I thought was the same lift, but I accidentally got on Crest Express, which goes all the way to the top. Chloe actually recognized it was different, and when I realized I made the mistake, I may have lied a bit and told her it wasn't any harder. She handled it like a pro! We even went away from the easiest way down and took some pretty steep runs on the way down. You can see the top of the Majestic lift in the picture. It's so fun to see your kids do well at something they really enjoy. The powder was perfect.

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The Boring Stuff

I brought my snowboard, but we rented the trek sisters' skis from ARCS Ski & Board on Fort Union. They had to dig in the back, but they did find boots small enough for Bryn which I think is a size 7...even though she didn't really get much use out of them. I highly recommend them; they were very nice and helpful.

We stayed at the Hyatt Place SLC/Cottonwood, which is a great place to have as a base to access Big/Little Cottonwood Canyons. Although we weren't treated as nicely here as other Hyatts, it's a very nice hotel, and at 8,000 hgp points for rooms that go for $200+, it is a very good value.