Brighton — How about a little respect for Mt. Brighton, huh?
Sure, it’s just a Southeast Michigan ski hill, a modest little mound of dirt in Livingston County that’s all of 230 feet high. It takes maybe two minutes, at most, to make a run down the hill. It’s not very big or spectacular.
But it can lay claim to something that hundreds of huge resorts out West can only dream of.
Mt. Brighton is home to an Olympic snowboarder. A two-time Olympic snowboarder. One of the best in the world.
His name is Jake Vedder, he’s in Italy this week going for an Olympic medal, and yes, he developed his craft at Mt. Brighton.
As we tune in this week to see the world’s greatest snowboarders duke it out for Olympic glory, let’s give some respect to the little ski hill in Livingston County. Jake Vedder is living proof that you don’t need to grow up near a big mountain if you want to be an Olympic snowboarder. You can do it in Southeast Michigan.
Jake, who is 27, grew up in Pinckney, just down the road from Brighton, and he’s been one of the world’s best snowboarders for the better part of a decade. His mom and dad knew right away that he belonged on the slopes, so they started taking him to Mt. Brighton almost from the time he could walk. You would find him there almost every day with his older brother, Michael.
“It was a good spot for my parents to just drop us off,” he told Hour Detroit magazine. “It was kind of like daycare on the hill and gave us something to do in the wintertime.”
Jake competes in snowboard cross, which is a race down the hill, and he competed for the Pinckney High School team at Mt. Brighton as a freshman and sophomore. That’s what everyone realized that he belonged on the national stage, so he started competing nationally and then internationally.
He won his first big event in 2016, taking the gold medal at the Winter Youth Olympics in Norway. From there, he was elevated to the U.S. National Team, and in 2022, he made it to the Olympics in China, finishing sixth in the snowboard cross competition.
He made the Olympic team again in 2026, and now he’s in Italy preparing to go for the gold. The snowboard cross competition takes place early Thursday morning, Feb. 12. It’s a good bet that everyone in Pinckney and back at Mt. Brighton will be getting up early to watch it.
At every step of his journey, Jake has worn his love for Mt. Brighton on his sleeve. He recorded a promotional video for the ski hill in 2016, and he talks about his home base every chance he gets.
He recently took part in a video series called “The Grind,” which is chronicling his journey from Mt. Brighton to the Olympics. He took the filmmakers to his hometown of Pinckney and then to the slopes where he got his start.
“This is where it all started,” he said, standing on the balcony of the restaurant at Mt. Brighton that overlooks the hill. “Growing up in Pinckney, I played a lot of different sports and transitioned into just focusing on snowboarding when I was about 13. My mom and dad would just drop us off here. I was a park rat.”
And now the park rat is going for Olympic glory.
It’s interesting to note that of the 24 men and women who make up the 2026 U.S. Olympic Snowboarding Team, only three are from the Midwest. One is from Wisconsin, and two are from Michigan: two-time Olympian Jake Vedder of Pinckney and five-time Olympian Nick Baumgartner of Iron River in the U.P. Most of the others are from Colorado, California, and Oregon.
The slopes at Mt. Brighton are packed every day during the winter with kids who can’t get enough snowboarding and skiing. If any of them have the same dreams that Jake did, he’s proof that even a little ski hill in Livingston County can make it all come true.
Buddy Moorehouse teaches documentary filmmaking at Hillsdale College.
