The direct route from Schweitzer to Whitefish is mostly along Route 2 from Bonner’s Ferry to Kalispell. Libby is about halfway, and Turner Mt. has a 23 mile access road from Libby. Turner may be between the two major destinations of the interior Northwest, but it’s still 2+ hours drive from either and is a leading contender for most obscure area I’ve skied. It’s open just Fri-Sun, but you can rent the area privately on other days.
The access road is mostly straight and gradual, but the last 10 miles were snow covered and not well maintained with lots of ice and ruts. There’s one long switchback and you get an overview of the mountain with about 5 miles to go.
Turner has just one chair but it’s 2,000 vertical with a consistent fall line. Primary exposure is southeast but it’s firmly in the Great Gray North winter weather zone as seen in all of the pictures. Snow varied more by elevation, with maybe the top 20% of the mountain in winter snow and becoming more springlike the lower you skied.
With the drive and an adverse time change we did not start skiing until 11AM. Groomed runs all skied well by then, even though some may have been groomed 2-3 days ago, not surprising with such low skier density.
Turner may have been the third area of this trip with a Bigfoot statue.
After a first groomed run on Cabinet Avenue (the western boundary) we skied the nearly all ungroomed eastern boundary. Snow was decent on the upper part, Seventh Heaven.
The access road is in the center of this picture.
The run takes a sharp turn halfway down to Far North, which also has a more direct south exposure.
Even this was manageable for a while. There was a crusty section but fortunately that was short. The bottom Hole’s Hell was heavy spring snow.
Here’s Liz on Sundance Bowl on the upper mountain.
All of the runs near the lift on either side were listed as groomed, but in these cases only a strip about 15 feet wide was groomed. At most places that strip would get chewed up and mogulled fast but not here. It makes sense here because the rest of these runs would preserve powder in colder weather and or weaker midwinter sun.
The runs far skier’s right, Cabinet Ave. and Pneumonia Ridge, had more traditional wide grooming.
There is a short section of maybe 500 vertical off the backside, where the several day old powder was lighter.
It ends with a cat track to Cabinet Avenue.
Two of the chairs are decorated as Canadian and American flags.
There is a fairly direct road from Libby to the border, so in normal years they get some customers from Canada.
We skied 18,100 vertical and left for Whitefish about 3:30. Turner was ski area #247 for me and #179 for Liz.
The access road is mostly straight and gradual, but the last 10 miles were snow covered and not well maintained with lots of ice and ruts. There’s one long switchback and you get an overview of the mountain with about 5 miles to go.
Turner has just one chair but it’s 2,000 vertical with a consistent fall line. Primary exposure is southeast but it’s firmly in the Great Gray North winter weather zone as seen in all of the pictures. Snow varied more by elevation, with maybe the top 20% of the mountain in winter snow and becoming more springlike the lower you skied.
With the drive and an adverse time change we did not start skiing until 11AM. Groomed runs all skied well by then, even though some may have been groomed 2-3 days ago, not surprising with such low skier density.
Turner may have been the third area of this trip with a Bigfoot statue.
After a first groomed run on Cabinet Avenue (the western boundary) we skied the nearly all ungroomed eastern boundary. Snow was decent on the upper part, Seventh Heaven.
The access road is in the center of this picture.
The run takes a sharp turn halfway down to Far North, which also has a more direct south exposure.
Even this was manageable for a while. There was a crusty section but fortunately that was short. The bottom Hole’s Hell was heavy spring snow.
Here’s Liz on Sundance Bowl on the upper mountain.
All of the runs near the lift on either side were listed as groomed, but in these cases only a strip about 15 feet wide was groomed. At most places that strip would get chewed up and mogulled fast but not here. It makes sense here because the rest of these runs would preserve powder in colder weather and or weaker midwinter sun.
The runs far skier’s right, Cabinet Ave. and Pneumonia Ridge, had more traditional wide grooming.
There is a short section of maybe 500 vertical off the backside, where the several day old powder was lighter.
It ends with a cat track to Cabinet Avenue.
Two of the chairs are decorated as Canadian and American flags.
There is a fairly direct road from Libby to the border, so in normal years they get some customers from Canada.
We skied 18,100 vertical and left for Whitefish about 3:30. Turner was ski area #247 for me and #179 for Liz.