Somehow, the Big Cottonwood Canyons resorts (Brighton and Solitude) opened on November 7, 2009, while the Little Cottonwood resorts (Alta and Snowbird) remained closed. Without a season pass commitment on account of a possible move to back east, I was more than willing to ski at Brighton or Solitude to get the ski season started.
So, Steve and I met up at the Big Cottonwood Canyon park and ride lot, drove up Big Cottonwood Canyon, and settled on Brighton as our ski area of choice, given the availability of more compelling terrain.
Compelling is a relative word, however. Open today was only one main lift, Majestic, which offered only 800 vertical feet of skiing. (The tiny Explorer lift was also open.)
Despite the limited availability of terrain, the skiing wasn't too bad and the weather was beautiful. The coverage was thin, and there were icy spots, but the two intermediate runs open provided plenty good skiing to get the season started.
Around lunchtime, however, Majestic's lift line developed into quite a crowd (of snowboarders), so we took only a few more runs and then left.
While the terrain was limited to basically just Shoulder and Hawkeye, it was still fun to ski some runs. Our last run of the day on Hawkeye, I even ventured off the groomed part of the trail and found some soft bumps to make things just slightly more interesting. A successful first (official) day of resort skiing is in the books.