Industry News
Utah has had an active January. After 25 days of virtually no snow, the faucet turned on, bringing over 8 feet of snow to northern Utah in a series of storms starting around January 9. Since then, it’s been nothing but powder riding and avalanches.
On Wednesday, Brighton Ski Patrol opened up its famous Milly Bowl, which is steep enough to avalanche. Because of all the new snow and the instabilities within the snowpack, patrol has been requiring skiers and riders to bring a beacon, a shovel, and a probe to ride in the bowl. According to the resort via an Instagram post, the reason is to “compact the bowl” a little bit more along with the avalanche mitigation work being done by ski patrol.
“The Milly Bowl is now open again for those with beacon, probe and shovel. This is in an effort to compact the bowl a little bit more in conjunction with our @brightonskipatrol. Our patrol will be checking at the top. The bowl may open later today for the general public, but please respect the current rules.” – Brighton Resort Instagram
It’s not every day that you see ski patrol mandating a beacon, shovel, and probe to be carried by visitors wanting to enter one of the resort’s best zones. Let alone to further compact the snow and decrease the avalanche risk, which has been elevated for several days on end. It’s wild times out in Utah right now.
Update: As of Thursday, January 18, Milly Bowl is open to the general public.
