#16: Brighton New Crest Elevate + Mid-Mountain Lodge
Subsequent up, we now have a collection of upgrades that handle some critical points on paper however fall flat in follow. For the 2023-24 season, Brighton spearheaded two main capital initiatives: first off, the resort changed its workhorse Crest Specific quad with a brand-new six-pack, bringing a capability enhance to the resort’s hottest raise. As well as, the resort constructed its first-ever mid-mountain lodge, including the primary alternative for friends to take a seat down inside with out going all the best way all the way down to one of many bases.
Let’s begin with what’s arguably the much less controversial of those upgrades, the Crest 6 raise. Brighton’s new Crest raise could be essentially the most superior chairlift within the Cottonwoods, with a easy trip, contoured seats, and a 20% quicker trip time than even the outdated high-speed quad, which was no slouch itself. As well as, the six-place seating and wider chair spacing makes for extra environment friendly chairlift operations than the outdated setup, with fewer misloads. Nevertheless, the brand new Crest 6’s loading setup isn’t excellent. Fairly than the outdated quad setup the place friends might line up on either side of the raise, the Crest 6 solely hundreds from the skiers’ proper aspect of the raise, creating extra congestion on that aspect of the hill and making it extra of a slog to load the raise in the event you’re coming from the skiers’ left Milly zone. As well as, whereas the Crest 6 may even see fewer misloads than the outdated quad, its on-paper capability isn’t really any increased, so the raise’s affect on raise strains hasn’t been all that noticeable. Lastly, whereas that is actually only a minor nitpick, the Crest 6’s large LED backside terminal display screen does look a bit misplaced at this in any other case local-feeling resort.
