After skiing until the lifts closed at Lost Trail on Friday March 24, we drove to Philipsburg, MT. In light of the weather and the advice of locals we took a longer route to avoid Hwy 569.
Lodging options are limited in Philipsburg. We stayed at the Kaiser Hotel where Tony and Liz stayed Sunday to Wednesday.
Disco reported 10 inches of new snow in the 24 hours prior to Saturday morning. It was not the country club skiing we had enjoyed at Lost Trail the previous day, but it would be hard to call it crowded. This pic was taken about an hour and fifteen minutes after the lifts opened.
This picture of the Granite chair was taken at noon.
We spent the morning lapping ungroomed single blacks off of Granite.
On the way to lunch we skied some trees on the front side that were generally moderately pitched, but held very good snow.
After lunch, my daughter and I lapped Limelight while my wife explored the front side and returned to ski more off of Granite.
For our last run of the day, we again returned to the base through trees on the front side. It was snowing very hard at the end of the day and it was blower light and dry.
It was snowing in Philipsburg when we returned to town.
On Sunday morning, Disco reported 12 inches since the lifts closed. I do not believe this was correct. We were not more than 10 minutes behind first chair and everything appeared much more tracked up than it should have been. It was deep however, so I suspect much of that 12 inches fell during Saturday afternoon before the lifts closed. The snow was also a bit thicker and wind affected than it had been at the end of the day on Saturday. We weren't complaining as it was also definitely deeper.
We warmed up with a couple of front side runs sticking to the fall line near the Anaconda lift.
We then spent the morning lapping whatever looked best off of Granite. Below is the Granite lift at 11:17 a.m.
There were still stashes in obvious places for the slightly adventurous.
My daughter and I took a single run down the West Limelight bowl just before lunch.
After lunch we mostly lapped Limelight, but also met back up with my wife for another Granite run.
After skiing we hoped to make it to Billings, but caught up to the storm in Bozeman and had to stop there for the night. The driving on I-90 was intermittently treacherous for the first couple of hours on Monday morning.
After Billings, it was clear all the way to Fargo-Morehead, where we stopped for the night. We woke up to -2F and more snow, which again slowed us down for the first hour or so.
With both storms, it took us just a little under 17 hours to get home from Discovery. RT total for the entire trip was 2,854.7.
That is a lot of driving, but we all agreed it had been worth it to be able to stay flexible to chase the best conditions and have tires good enough to safely and efficiently get us up to Lost Trail from Darby and to Discovery from Philipsburg in the snow. It was also really nice to ski such friendly, affordable, and convenient resorts. A lot of Colorado or Big Sky and Bridger would have been a considerably shorter drive for us, but we agreed we were happy to go further to find the kind of ski areas we appreciate most.
Lodging options are limited in Philipsburg. We stayed at the Kaiser Hotel where Tony and Liz stayed Sunday to Wednesday.
Disco reported 10 inches of new snow in the 24 hours prior to Saturday morning. It was not the country club skiing we had enjoyed at Lost Trail the previous day, but it would be hard to call it crowded. This pic was taken about an hour and fifteen minutes after the lifts opened.
This picture of the Granite chair was taken at noon.
We spent the morning lapping ungroomed single blacks off of Granite.
On the way to lunch we skied some trees on the front side that were generally moderately pitched, but held very good snow.
After lunch, my daughter and I lapped Limelight while my wife explored the front side and returned to ski more off of Granite.
For our last run of the day, we again returned to the base through trees on the front side. It was snowing very hard at the end of the day and it was blower light and dry.
It was snowing in Philipsburg when we returned to town.
On Sunday morning, Disco reported 12 inches since the lifts closed. I do not believe this was correct. We were not more than 10 minutes behind first chair and everything appeared much more tracked up than it should have been. It was deep however, so I suspect much of that 12 inches fell during Saturday afternoon before the lifts closed. The snow was also a bit thicker and wind affected than it had been at the end of the day on Saturday. We weren't complaining as it was also definitely deeper.
We warmed up with a couple of front side runs sticking to the fall line near the Anaconda lift.
We then spent the morning lapping whatever looked best off of Granite. Below is the Granite lift at 11:17 a.m.
There were still stashes in obvious places for the slightly adventurous.
My daughter and I took a single run down the West Limelight bowl just before lunch.
After lunch we mostly lapped Limelight, but also met back up with my wife for another Granite run.
After skiing we hoped to make it to Billings, but caught up to the storm in Bozeman and had to stop there for the night. The driving on I-90 was intermittently treacherous for the first couple of hours on Monday morning.
After Billings, it was clear all the way to Fargo-Morehead, where we stopped for the night. We woke up to -2F and more snow, which again slowed us down for the first hour or so.
With both storms, it took us just a little under 17 hours to get home from Discovery. RT total for the entire trip was 2,854.7.
That is a lot of driving, but we all agreed it had been worth it to be able to stay flexible to chase the best conditions and have tires good enough to safely and efficiently get us up to Lost Trail from Darby and to Discovery from Philipsburg in the snow. It was also really nice to ski such friendly, affordable, and convenient resorts. A lot of Colorado or Big Sky and Bridger would have been a considerably shorter drive for us, but we agreed we were happy to go further to find the kind of ski areas we appreciate most.
