Home

Jen Brill was having a rough winter last year.

The co-owner of Silverton Mountain was cooped up with a broken leg, keeping her from guiding at the progressive, "lift-accessed backcountry ski area" she and her husband opened in 2001 after Aaron Brill had found a patchwork of old mining claims at the end of a six-mile road out of a sleepy mountain town and dreamed of building a ski Shangri-La in the heart of the San Juans.

On top of that, the Brills were embroiled in a lawsuit with a property owner who sued them for alleged trespassing by skiers and riders.

But on an early April morning, Jen Brill is all smiles. The lawsuit was resolved when Silverton Mountain bought the owners' 164 acres, filling in holes skiers had to awkwardly avoid and bringing Silverton's skiable terrain up to 1,819 acres - making it the state's sixth-largest. After another busy winter offering guided skiing every week - Thursday through Sunday - Brill enjoyed opening up the mountain April 5 to unguided skiing for the second year.

"A lot of our guides and patrollers never get a chance to free-ski the mountain," Brill says of her staff of about 30, which includes five interns who she claims "have more (avalanche) control work in one internship than other people do in five years patrolling."

The more than 400 inches of snow that fall annually on the daunting high-altitude bowls and choke down to tight couloirs, chutes an d steep glades - zero percent of which is rated as beginner/intermediate - demand constant vigilance.

Jen Brill is busy greeting visitors at the base area tent, handing over the lengthy liability waivers that read, "You are skiing avalanche paths. Minimize your time spent in them."

That's just one of the tangible clues you're not at a normal ski "resort." There's no oriental rugs you'd find at a Deer Valley lodge or tissue dispensers you'd see at Vail. In fact, there's not even running water, just an outhouse behind the wood stove-heated tent filled with old van seats for chairs. You're just dealing with a "ski area" in its most pure and basic form - an area for skiing, period, with more than 500 acres belonging to the Brills and the rest leased from the Bureau of Land Management.

After $50 for the unguided ticket (the guided ticket ranges from $99 to $129), it's a ride up the one and only double chairlift. But first, the lift operator scans you like an airport security officer to make sure you have on a working beacon. All skiers and riders are required to have a beacon, shovel and avalanche probe.

The lift takes you up as far as 12,300 feet. From there, depending on levels of fitness and ambition, you can hike up the 45-minute boot-pack without a guide as far as the Billboard summit. Deciding on a run down either the east or west face yields more than 2,000 vertical feet of turns to the valley floor that spits you out onto a dirt service road, where an old laundry truck picks up the few groups and delivers them back to base, where that same liftie is waiting to turn the chair back on for another lap.

Guided skiing still is available ($99 a day or $39 a run) for those wanting to commit to the hike beyond Billboard to Storm Peak (13,487 feet), and some skiers probably could benefit from a little guidance in navigating the terrain for the first time.

"It's incredibly gorgeous and the snow was fantastic, but we had to traverse a cliff on a rope and lower ourselves down," Albuquerque, N.M., resident Jordan Bateson said of his unguided adventure. "It's gnarly for sure. People say it's scary steep, but you can get down, you just keep hiking and can make it as hard as you want."

Joe Zuaro, a 57-year-old from Northfield, Vt., enjoyed the backcountry feel of the "radical terrain," knowing he was in an avalanche-controlled environment.

Brill estimates being open four days a week and having to cap skier numbers under the BLM land-use permit at 80 for each guided day (475 for the unguided days, although their busiest day was 250) keeps the "experience good" for up to three weeks without new snow. But that never seems to be a problem. The mountain was hit with 45 inches in the past week and now, in the sixth year running, Brill has seen steady growth and numbers increase each year.

But it's still all about the skiing, "trying to make the numbers work," keeping the employees and the customers happy and being in the right place at the right time.

"You hear skiers talking how, 'Oh, you shoulda been at Alta in the 50s, Jackson in the 70s or Big Sky in the 80s,'" Brill said. "It's nice to be in the year 2000 and be part of something as it starts."

Soaking in the spring sun in a wooden lounge chair outside the tent after a full day, season pass holder Greg Lawler knows it may not last forever, but he's glad to be a part of that something: "How many ski areas in the country can you go to, there's 20 cars and the lot is full?" the Ridgway resident asked. "It's such a throwback, mom and pop ski shop - this is as good as it gets as far as I'm concerned. It's going to get ruined, but I just want to be here now and be able to say, 'I remember when.'"

Unguided skiing continues on weekends through the end of the month and then according to demand. For more information, visit www.silvertonmountain.com.

- To reach Dave Shively, call 871-4253

or e-mail dshively@steamboatpilot.com