Southern Utah’s Brian Head Resort announced yesterday that it was sold to Mountain Capital Partners of Durango, Colorado. Mountain Capital, if you weren’t aware, started with a couple of regional resorts in Four Corners country and has grown to be the biggest player in the southwest. Key properties include Purgatory Resort CO, Sipapu NM, and Arizona Snowbowl. Brian Head joins small-but-mighty Nordic Valley Ski Resort and now doubles the company’s presence in Utah. Some Brian Head regulars claim to be a bit suspicious about the new “big corporate takeover” (MCP ain’t exactly Vail) but they aren’t complaining about the fact that their season pass is now good up at Nordic and a bunch of other properties. They also have a $150 option to upgrade to the Power Pass, which covers all the MCP resorts…photo above is not Brian Head, it was taken this morning at Lutsen Mountains in Minnesota. The midwest biggie is calling for a November 16 opening with 3 lifts and 6 or 8 runs, adding Moose Mountain by 11/23, and projecting 3 mountains, 6 lifts and 25+ runs by Turkey Day…and a pre-season “heads up” concerning discount lift tickets. Faithful readers dating back to the skiernet.com days recall that I’ve long been a pitch man for Liftopia. Well I’m pleased to say that another company called GetSkiTickets is offering a similar service, which precisely doubles your odds of scoring some sort of discount before you head for the hills. This company has been on my radar for some time, starting out very modestly and now quite established, successful, and with a darn good reputation. So here’s the link: GetSkiTickets.com and like Liftopia, a very modest portion of any tickets you buy will help defray the expense of this website, at no additional cost to you.