The quaint little blue house on a narrow street just up from Liberty Park doesn’t look like a castle. It’s not outfitted with a moat or a turret or even red velvet curtains. Yet, it’s the place Utah’s newest royal couple calls home.

Salt Lake City skiers Piper Kunst and Tristen Lilly became snowsports royalty this winter when they claimed the titles of Queen and King of Corbet’s.

The throne wasn’t easily taken. It was won on a battlefield — the expert-only Corbet’s Couloir ski run at Wyoming’s Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, which has a chute so steep and tight it can induce vertigo and claustrophobia. On Feb. 13, some of the best freeskiers and snowboarders in the world assembled on the cliff above the 20-foot drop into the chute. Armed with creativity and daring, each tried to throw down the best run of the competition.

The following night, the athletes — some bruised, bloody or hobbling from the effort — gathered to rewatch the carnage and, amongst themselves, determine their new heads of state.

Kunst felt as though the stars were aligned in her and Lilly’s favor. They’d both risen to the challenge and further stretched the limits of what athletes believed could be done in the contest, which was first held in 2018. Plus, the awards ceremony was held Feb. 14, and Kunst and Lilly are a real-life couple who met at Alta Ski Area four years ago. It couldn’t have been scripted any better.

“There’s a chance here, though, that we could both be on top and on Valentine’s Day. It’s perfect,” Kunst recalled thinking. “It was like, ‘This is a movie.’”

And they nailed the fairytale ending.

Lilly and Kunst are the latest in a long line of Utahns who have worn the Corbet’s crowns — or fringed chaps, which is what the winners were coronated with this year.

In 2021, Madison Blackley became the first queen from Utah and is still the only snowboarder — man or woman — to wear the Corbet’s crown. In every contest since, a Utahn has ascended to the throne. That includes Kunst’s first reign in 2022, when she won as a rookie, and Park City Olympic medalist Colby Stevenson’s victory in 2023. Ana Eyssimont and Tim McChesney gave Utah both titles for the first time last year, after the 2024 event was canceled due to lack of snow.

This year, the royal court is also stacked with Utahns. They swept the women’s ski division, with Valerie Festavan of Park City, Wynter McBride of Ogden and Eyssimont, respectively, filling in behind Kunst. In the women’s snowboard, Blackley took second behind Ellie Weiller, a rookie from Salt Lake City.

“I think I’m technically a princess,” Weiller said.

Lilly attributes Utah’s strong showing to two things. For one, it’s close to Jackson Hole, so it’s a stocked pond when contest organizers need to fill out their roster. Also, Utah skiers and snowboarders generally crush.

“You’ll see kids doing backflips under the chairlift, like, every single run,” he said. “You’ll never, ever hear who any of these kids are because there’s so much talent everywhere. The level of riding up in the canyons is freaking mental.”

He and Kunst proved that point. Neither is a professional skier. Lilly works at the Rustler Lodge in Alta. Kunst makes her living as a watercolor artist. Still, both pulled off tricks that had either rarely or never been done at Corbet’s Couloir.

Kunst backflipped into the couloir — the drop of which is higher than her house. She paired that with a mid-mountain jump, some smooth carving and a soaring flip off the final kicker that ended with a crash (She does not, she noted, spend any time in the terrain park and her jumps are all self-taught). Kunst had attempted the backflip last year, when she placed third among women skiers, but hadn’t landed it cleanly. This year, landing it was her only objective.

“I’m happy that I did it,” she said, “and now I don’t have to do it again.”

Lilly, meanwhile, came to Jackson Hole with a thirst for the crown. He knew it would take a trick that had never been done — an “NBD” — and he was pretty sure a full-speed front flip into the couloir would set the right tone.

But it was what happened after the flip that put Lilly over the top.

He landed perfectly, did an effortless backflip over the same midmountain jump as Kunst had hit and then headed to the skier’s right side of the face — where only one other competitor, Jackson native Wyatt Gentry, had traversed. There he found himself teetering on the edge of a cliff and what appeared to be a sheer, 50-foot drop. Without a moment’s hesitation, he turned and billy-goat hopped to a lower landing, from which he skied toward the final kicker and the exhilarated crowd below.

“Where I maybe had the drop, the jump and then the main jump, he had, like, two other hits in his run — flips or tricks,” Weiler said. “And it was just insane. It was wild. I didn’t know you could do that.”

As king and queen, Kunst and Lilly each received a privy purse of $10,000. They’ll use most of it to pay bills and rent on their little, blue castle, Kunst said. Yet they might set a little bit aside for a celebration at the other castle that they call home: Devil’s Castle atop Little Cottonwood Canyon.

“We’re going to head back to Alta,” Lilly said, “and have a friggin’ hoot.”