Marf Khan stood at the bottom of a 250-foot tall ski hill, staring it down like a timid David mustering up the courage to battle the giant Goliath.

Mount Brighton Ski Area’s highest peak was to be Khan’s crowning achievement on his first day with skis attached to his boots.

It was an achievement that could come one of two ways - either he would overcome his anxiousness or be dragged up the hill kicking and screaming by his two more experienced friends who talked him into joining them for a day on the slopes.

Khan and his friends are among thousands of Michiganians taking advantage of nearby slopes during what is being called the state’s best ski season in three years.

“I’ve done the bunny hill and the other small stuff,” said Khan, a graduate student at Wayne State University. “This is all that’s left. My first experience has been fun so far and I’m sure that (hill) will be a rush once I do it.

“It’s just gravity can be frustrating at times.”

Joe Bruhn, general manager of the ski area located in Brighton - about 42 miles southeast of MSU along Interstate 96 - said he couldn’t ask for much better conditions during the hill’s 40th season.

“We’ve been able to ski here every day steady since Dec. 1,” he said. “It’s been at least three years since we’ve been able to do that. In the past few years, we’ve had to overcome January thaws and December has been iffy.

“This season is great, in retrospect. Plus, people being able to see snow in their own backyards helps too. It’s something about actually seeing it that makes you want to ski.”

Bruhn said Mt. Brighton has made snow a few nights each week to maintain about a 38-foot base.

“Since that December storm, the stuff hasn’t really been melting, which makes it easy for us to keep in good shape,” he said.

Geography senior Jay Roberson said the non-stop opportunity for skiing is his idea of a winter heaven.

“It’s really nice to be able to get out whenever the idea hits me,” he said. “If I don’t have to worry about the hill being closed, I know I can’t get disappointed.”

Roberson began skiing nine years ago and has been an instructor at Mount Brighton for the past four.

“I’ve been hooked since the first day,” he said. “I guess I just like to go fast. Plus, it gives me something to do besides sitting on the couch hearing the weatherman complain about the cold.”

Computer science senior Trevor Williamson said he gets his rush from the unrestrained freedom of high-speed sailing downhill.

“There’s absolutely nothing to constrain you,” the president of Spartan Ski Club said. “It’s not like water skiing, where you have to go where the boat pulls you. You’re in charge when you downhill ski - you go where you want, how you want, as fast as you want, when you want.”

More than 500 members strong, the MSU ski club is the school’s largest student group and one of the biggest ski clubs in the country.

Williamson said the group prides itself on offering its members discounted annual trips to Rocky Mountain slopes and other foreign places. This year the club plans to take a group to the slopes of Australia.

“Most ski trips we offer go out west. Australia is something special,” Williamson said. “There is something about the more exotic slopes that make (skiing) so much more exciting. If you can conquer those conditions, you feel like you can do anything.”

While mid-Michigan slopes don’t offer the exotic excitement of large mountains, Roberson said the smaller slopes are perfect places to master the skills needed to take on bigger ones.

“Because conditions aren’t always the most ideal on the smaller hills, they do offer the best learning and practicing environment,” he said. “Things around here tend to ice up or become slushy pretty easily.

“And while there are countless conditions those tend to be the worst. If you can take those, you’re ready for whatever the big places can throw at you.”

Just moments before making his way alongside his companions to the chairlift ascending his 250-foot foe, Khan said there is no better time to fall in love with the sport than the present.

“I’m going to do it. I know I’ll love it. And I’m sure I’ll be back,” he said.