With Brighton's lighted night skiing, you think it would be a great fit for those flying into SLC in the morning to make it out for afternoon into evening skiing. Unfortunately, we bought the pm lift pass on our way from the airport to Brighton. There website said all the lifts were open and didn't say anything about closing early. When we arrived we were informed that they were closing at 4pm even though our pass didn't start until 1pm. Then they closed aft 75 minutes of skiing at about 2:15pm due to brief lightning, which is understandable. Since they weren't reopening we checked with guest services. They would not give any discount and would only give a future credit minus $75 because they charged were charging people $25 for each run (we had done 3). It was an all around a bad experience with zero reimbursement for weather. And how hard is it to update the website that only 2 lifts are open and that they were closing early? Why sell a pass good until 9pm when you are closing at 4pm? Needless to say, I will never be returning to Brighton. The terrain is not that great so you think they would be trying to win over customers with great service. Do better Brighton.
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I rode Brighton for several days in early February in a period of extreme dryness. We got nothing the whole 6 days we were in Utah and they hadn’t received more than like 4 inches in the last 3 weeks. I still gave them a 3/5 in the snow category but that’s mostly because I know they get 500 inches a year and for how dry they had been the snow quality was actually totally rippable.
We rode at Brighton on a Monday, a Tuesday and a Friday and while the liftlines were definitely worse on Friday, at no point were they more than a 10 min wait. And really on Monday and Tuesday we basically rode right onto the lift all day. Parking was free and close to the lifts which is nice. Also we didn’t have any issue getting a table at the on mountain lodging at lunch time. The lift setup felt so weird to me because it felt like the smallest mountain ive ridden in a long time considering the 4 main lifts go to the very top of their own peak yet there wasn’t any restaurants or lodges up higher on the mountain. I gave the lifts a 3, they weren’t anything particularly special, they did the job and that was it.
Off-Piste is where I think Brighton would have really shined… but again, anything off the groomers were just absolutely icy as hell and totally unrideable. I gave it a 3 as well. There were some cool cliffs and boulder type things to jump off of which I enjoyed. Piste Trails I gave it a 4, the group of 6 of us all had a blast lapping the groomers fast as hell. One member of our party was learning and Brighton had high quality, wide, blues for him to practice on and he progressed incredibly fast. Also the terrain parks were phenomenal, definitely the best park ive ridden in Utah, gave me a strong Northstar, Cali vibe.
For child-friendly I gave it a 1, they really didn’t have anything going on that was particularly child friendly and the level of riders ripping around isn’t super conducive to kids zig zagging sporadically down the mountain. I didn’t place the value very high at a 2, I felt like there wasn’t a whole lot of terrain to ride, the good perk for us was that we had the Ikon so on the last day when we kinda got bored of Brighton again by lunchtime we decided to drive back to our condo at Solitude (5 mins away) and rode the afternoon at Solitude. I also gave Brigthon a 1 for nightlife because aside from night skiing there wasn’t anything going on in Brighton. The lack of a real base village area kinda hurts Brighton in my opinion.
As far as recommending Brighton to someone, I don’t know that I really would unless they were a terrain park enthusiast. Obviously I’m jaded from the terrible lack of snowfall but the mountain still felt small to me. And lastly, would I revisit??? I absolutely need to revisit that region when theres some better snowfall, unfortunately it’ll probably be awhile because theres many more places to see!
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great place!
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Brighton was the best all around resort we went to. We went to Solitude, Snowbird, and Brighton. I'm from Florida and am a decent snowboarder so the double black D's in Utah are not for me. I like to shred off trail and on trail. I am probably an intermediate boarder. Brighton has great lifts, food, tons of intermediate/expert/beginner trails, not very busy and night boarding! I loved Brighton the most out of the 3 I listed above.
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Brighton is GREAT! It fits all styles of riding, good black diamond trails, and the park is sick.
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Brighton isn’t a place I’d head to for a multi-day visit, but it’s definitely worth hitting up for a day or two when checking out the other Salt Lake City ski resorts.

On this visit it was possibly even busier than the last time. There were lift queues at the base and people everywhere around the day lodge. It seemed like every teen from SLC was there ripping up the parks and having a ball of a time.

Brighton offers an abundance of sidecountry options and these were the only spots to find some freshies. Surprisingly we came across many wallies in the sidecountry without avalanche safety gear.

See our thoughts on the pros and cons of Brighton on the overview page, and also see the USA ski resorts ratings page to see how we compare Brighton to other western US resorts.
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This was the first spot we hit, and the second best of the bunch (also hit Snowbird, Park City, and Solitude). Great snow, as challenging as you want to make it (single blacks were like hard double blacks back on the east coast), varied terrain. Cliffs, jumps, drifts, trees, all kinds of fun stuff.

Went with another boarder and a skier. Everyone LOVED this place. Just the right size too. Plenty big, but not overwhelmingly large to the point of feeling lost.

And it is the one place with night skiing???! And it's super cheap??! Lifts were a scoshe lame, but crowds and lines were mostly nonexistent so who cares?
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Love this resort. I've been going here for 5 years now and absolutely love it. The snow and terrain is suberb. It easily rivals its neighbors. The terrain park is really nice and the tree skiing is very nice. The food is decent and no real great lodging but it's a locals paradise.
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2/12/14 & 2/15/14

We arrived on 2/12/4 at Solitude about 4:30-5:00pm where we were staying and immediately shot over to Brighton for the 5pm-9pm night session. Although the night skiing is limited, there are plenty of runs open to keep your interest. Snowed a lot while were there and overnight!

We decided to come back on Saturday 2/15/14 so we could see more of the mountain and do the Super Session from 9am-9pm. Per suggestion from some locals we met the night before, we immediately headed for the Great Western Express chair lift. Wow! We were not disappointed. Spent all day on the mountain with a couple of stops at Maggie Green's bar. Super friendly employees and locals.
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Back country skiing is awesome here! Plenty of extreme terrain... I like to ski challenging terrain and it has plenty of that. I like to go off cliffs and traverse to fresh snow and I got lots of that here. On top of that it didn't really stop snowing much... I could ski fresh tracks every time... Also probably because there were not many people there either.

I just wish they have good nightlife :(

Pros: Easy to drive to from Salt Lake City, it has amazing snow (so light and fluffy), they get tons of snow... Not huge dumpings, but they get consistent snowfalls all throughout the season... The snow is very, very dependable. There are some bigger crowds (by the 4 canyon resort standards), the terrain is steep top to bottom. It was also very reasonably priced! They have better lifts than the other canyon resorts, but just relatively speaking - good.

Cons: The accommodations are not the greatest here. There is very little nightlife. You can travel to Salt Lake City for the nightlife though, but still, it's a town whereby the cutoff time for the bars is 1 am (lots of Mourman's *sp - sorry). Also, if you are driving to the mountain, the roads close often to vehicles that are not equipped.

Best suited for: Families and serious skiers!

It's good to hit all 4 mountains if you're in the area.
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