The mother lode of steep and deep

The Brills hope to make prices for unguided skiing relatively low, but for now, prices that include a guide range from $99 to $129 a day, depending on the date, and reservations are required, since there are only so many guides available on a given day. (Until this season, permits only allowed 80 skiers per day and the Brills expect to keep in that range until unguided skiing begins.)

Silverton's not even for all expert skiers. The high altitude, periodic hiking and the requirement to ski in groups makes for a methodical pace. Skiers often won't get more than five runs in, which is hard for some to accept when they've paid as much as $185, including rentals.

"I've heard people complaining that they only got five runs," said Doug Wall, a Silverton resident and bar owner. "But it's a backcountry experience - backcountry with a lift."

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Obstacles are unmarked. On many parts of the mountain, guides point out hazards the best they can, then make the first tracks while ordering the rest of their group to stay to the left or right.

Wall and most other locals in the town of Silverton defend the young ski area and its adventurous owners, speaking almost reverently about the resourcefulness the Brills showed in obtaining their chairlift - a retired double from Mammoth Mountain that they bought for $20,000 - and doing much of the tree-stump clearing and cement-pouring required to install it.

While the Brills recently received permits to build a proper base lodge, all they have for now is a white, metal-framed, weather station-like structure that was towed to the spot where it rests, just above the base of the lift. The bathrooms are more like outhouses. The rental shop is an old bus. And when skiers take runs that don't lead back to the lift, an old brown UPS truck that serves as a shuttle picks them up and takes them back to the main base area.

Still, few complain at the end of the day. Instead, some of the most rugged, skillful skiers around sit back on second-hand sofas inside the base camp, sipping beer served from a keg behind a makeshift bar, recounting their runs and humbly thanking the Brills for providing what none of America's conventional resorts could.

"It's such a great story. I got a sense of what skiing might have been like 30 years ago," said Mike Conners, another repeat customer. "I know tons of people who really love them for what they've accomplished."

CONTINUED: If you go ...

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