J.Spin
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A link to additional pictures can be found at the end of the report.
On Sunday, we returned from Vermont to find that the weather in Montana had changed rather dramatically. Whereas when we left, we were in the midst of one of the longest periods of snow cover that we?d ever witnessed in the Bitterroot (about a month); we returned to green grass at the airport and temperatures several degrees above freezing. It actually felt pretty good to stand around in the relatively warm air while we loaded up our luggage into the car, although I wouldn?t have traded it for the white Christmas we got to have in Vermont. Based on what I heard from people that spent the holidays back in Montana, the period was sort of warm and soggy, and all the valley snow had obviously disappeared. The weather had also warmed a bit in Vermont during the middle of our holiday trip, but fortunately not enough to melt the valley snow, and we even got a couple fresh inches of snow to cover all the trees a few days before we headed back to Montana. One good thing about the resumption of more typical Bitterroot winter weather was that it came with plenty of moisture. Although the snow level had moved well up from the valley elevations (3,000?-4,000?), to more like 6,000?, a lot of snow had accumulated at the higher elevations over that time. The Saddle Mountain SNOTEL (elevation 7,900?) snow depth reading had increased 20 inches since we?d left. It rose from a reading of 31.7 inches on Dec 22, 2005, to a reading of 51.7 inches on Jan 1, 2006. This was accompanied by 3.3 inches of accumulated liquid precipitation, and although I don?t have the snowfall data, I?d say they?d received at least a couple of feet of snow if it eventually settled down to 20 inches.
Fortunately, it turned out that Monday was a holiday, so I decided to take Ty up to Lost Trail and keep his weekly ski routine going. I was keen on checking out the new yurt at the bottom of Chairs 3 & 4, so even though E was staying home with Dylan because she had to catch up on work, Ty and I packed a substantial lunch for ourselves. My other goal for the day was to tour the mountain with Ty, which would hopefully give him some variety in his ski terrain, and also let me check out what other green trails might work well for him. In the valley, it was mostly sunny, and the thermometer was indicating surprising temperatures of 40 to 50 degrees F. We encountered some Sula sheep on our trip up to the pass (actually only I encountered them since Ty was totally asleep). It was a group of five HUGE rams, some of which had horns many inches thick that looked like tree trunks. These were the biggest rams I?ve ever encountered, and they were standing in the highway like they owned it. I had to almost come to a complete stop to squeeze between them, and a large fellow off to the right stared at me as I passed with a ?Yeah, you got that right, keep moving buddy? look in his eyes. He was big enough to look into the car as I drove by, and it felt like he could have knocked the entire car over if he wanted to ram into it. I?m not sure what that group had been eating but boy, they were big. By the time we reached the top of the pass, the temperature was down to around 30 degrees F, and clouds were hanging around the south side of the mountain. However, looking northward, I could see that there was sun in the Chair 4 area and it looked quite inviting. The Life Flight helicopter had just arrived at the same time as us, and they were taking out a female that had cracked a vertebra (from what I heard but can?t confirm) in the rail park. That?s the second time we?ve seen the helicopter in about a month, and who knows how many times it?s been there when we haven?t
We started out with a run down North Bowl to get to the Chair 3 terrain. Since there had been so much new snow as of late, the flat areas were soft and slow. While this made for great ski conditions, it was very slow for Ty. Even though I had waxed his skis, there was still a lot of walking (and pushing) required. On the steep section of Speedway, Ty needed plenty of speed control from the leash. When we reached Boomer, Ty headed off to the left side and made some tracks in the powder (mostly walking) but it let him get more familiar with the ungroomed snow, and slowed him down enough so that I could get a couple of pictures. From there, we continued on to Gunsmoke, which I was hoping would be a good training trail for Ty. To me, it had always felt like a flat trail that really wasted vertical. Well, that was looking at it from an advanced skier?s perspective. Once I headed down it with Ty, I found out that the top was actually pretty steep (far too steep for Ty to control his own speed) and the rest was a series of relatively steep drops followed by flat spots. While this type of trail might offer fun variety for someone at the next level of skiing, Ty spend most of the time either being restrained by me on the steep stuff, or walking and being pushed on the flat stuff. He never got a chance to get into a groove and it was obvious Gunsmoke wasn?t going to be on the top of our list of desired trails. Now that I look at it on the trail map, Gunsmoke is actually a blue, which is probably due to those steep pitches we found. One thing I did notice on the trail was that the last few hundred vertical feet (maybe elevations 6,400? ? 6,700?) had some harder snow. Presumably, the freezing level crept up to around 6,700? at some point, because the difference in surface conditions was dramatic. There was plenty of light powder covering everything above the groomed base at this point, so perhaps the warming was a few days back.
At the bottom of Gunsmoke, we reached the new yurt. It is still very low key at this point, and I wasn?t even sure if it was open. I poked my head in the door, which revealed a warm carpeted area with lots of empty tables, and a lone figure tending to a nice new woodstove. I recognized the man at the woodstove as one of the mountain employees, so Ty and I were actually the only visitors. There is a small building attached to the side of the yurt, which has some kitchen facilities. From what I?ve heard, these will eventually be used to serve food. Ty and I enjoyed our lunch, and then Ty played around in the snow outside the yurt while I got a few pictures. It was really interesting that we didn?t encounter any other skiers at the yurt during our entire lunch, since the parking lot was pretty full and it was actually a busy ski day due to the holiday. I think that most people don?t know what the yurt is about, and figure it might be a building for employees. That?s what Nancy thought when I spoke with her later in the day, so they may need to put up some signs to familiarize people with the new structure as it comes into more use.
Our next stage of the tour was to head up Chair 3 and then hit Chair 5. Off Chair 5, we skied the Raven trail, which although short, has a good consistent pitch for Ty. We then crossed back under the lift and took Candy Stick, which had some flat spots, but was all around far better than Gunsmoke in terms of Ty?s skiing. Then we went up Chair 4 to try Oreo. The difficult part of getting to Oreo with Ty was having to hike the few hundred feet of distance up to the real summit (with two pairs of skis). I carried the skis, and Ty walked part of the way, but the soft snow was tough for him and I had to carry him at times. Having to do a little back and forth getting both Ty and the skis up was quite a bit more work than usual. As far as the skiing on Oreo went, it was basically another case of either too steep or too flat. Ty headed off into the powder on the first steep pitch of the trial, and took a massive digger on his head. Fortunately the snow was deep, so he wound up pretty happy. We?d done a lot of traveling around the mountain by this point, and Ty?s legs were getting tired. So we headed back to the main base to call it a day. I wanted to head right to the car, but Ty insisted on going into the lodge and getting some food. We?d already had a huge lunch, but he must have really been burning the calories. I looked for a ski rack for our skis, and the first couple I found were these strange little ones that only stood about a foot off the ground. I thought they were some sort of strange snowboard rack at first, but then realized they were the normal chest high racks? buried in snow. I guess Lost Trail hadn?t been raising those racks with all the recent snow accumulation, and now they?re buried. Unless they try to dig them out, they?re going to disappear after a couple more storms. While eating in the lower lodge, we ran into Nancy, and later Andy, and caught up on their day?s adventures. Ty still didn?t want to leave the mountain, but fortunately I was able to show him that everyone else was leaving and the lifts would soon be shutting down. He was still not fully convinced that we should go, but it swayed him enough to let me bring him out to the car. It cracks me up the way he can be dead tired, but mentally still think he can get out and ski. I guess everyone does that to some degree.
After our tour of the mountain, I still haven?t found anything that has the combined consistency of pitch and length that Meadow Run/Meadow Trail has for Ty. The Raven Trail is pretty consistent but short. I was actually thinking of trying to do a mid-station unload off Chair 4 and hit terrain in the lift line area with him. It might be a little steeper than his usual terrain, but the pitch if far more consistent. As it turns out, we hit it two days this weekend with excellent results, so see the upcoming January 7th and 8th trip reports for details and pictures. In terms of weather, the current weekend brought a few inches of new snow. I ran into Echo Friday morning while dropping the boys off at daycare, and she said she had been hoping for a powder day on Saturday. It didn?t happen, although Sunday did turn into at least a mini powder day. An even bigger storm may be coming in during the week, about which the Missoula NWS says the following:
A LARGE PLUME OF DEEP PACIFIC MOISTURE IS CURRENTLY POISED TO BE PICKED UP BY THIS WESTERLY FLOW AND BROUGHT ACROSS THE AREA TUESDAY AND TUESDAY NIGHT. SIGNIFICANT SNOW... MEASURED IN FEET INSTEAD OF INCHES...APPEARS LIKELY IN THE HIGHER TERRAIN OF NORTHERN IDAHO AND WESTERN MONTANA ABOVE ABOUT 4500 FEET TUESDAY INTO TUESDAY NIGHT.
?so that is also potentially good news.
A few pictures from the day can be found at:
http://www.JandEproductions.com/2006/02JAN06.html
J.Spin
On Sunday, we returned from Vermont to find that the weather in Montana had changed rather dramatically. Whereas when we left, we were in the midst of one of the longest periods of snow cover that we?d ever witnessed in the Bitterroot (about a month); we returned to green grass at the airport and temperatures several degrees above freezing. It actually felt pretty good to stand around in the relatively warm air while we loaded up our luggage into the car, although I wouldn?t have traded it for the white Christmas we got to have in Vermont. Based on what I heard from people that spent the holidays back in Montana, the period was sort of warm and soggy, and all the valley snow had obviously disappeared. The weather had also warmed a bit in Vermont during the middle of our holiday trip, but fortunately not enough to melt the valley snow, and we even got a couple fresh inches of snow to cover all the trees a few days before we headed back to Montana. One good thing about the resumption of more typical Bitterroot winter weather was that it came with plenty of moisture. Although the snow level had moved well up from the valley elevations (3,000?-4,000?), to more like 6,000?, a lot of snow had accumulated at the higher elevations over that time. The Saddle Mountain SNOTEL (elevation 7,900?) snow depth reading had increased 20 inches since we?d left. It rose from a reading of 31.7 inches on Dec 22, 2005, to a reading of 51.7 inches on Jan 1, 2006. This was accompanied by 3.3 inches of accumulated liquid precipitation, and although I don?t have the snowfall data, I?d say they?d received at least a couple of feet of snow if it eventually settled down to 20 inches.
Fortunately, it turned out that Monday was a holiday, so I decided to take Ty up to Lost Trail and keep his weekly ski routine going. I was keen on checking out the new yurt at the bottom of Chairs 3 & 4, so even though E was staying home with Dylan because she had to catch up on work, Ty and I packed a substantial lunch for ourselves. My other goal for the day was to tour the mountain with Ty, which would hopefully give him some variety in his ski terrain, and also let me check out what other green trails might work well for him. In the valley, it was mostly sunny, and the thermometer was indicating surprising temperatures of 40 to 50 degrees F. We encountered some Sula sheep on our trip up to the pass (actually only I encountered them since Ty was totally asleep). It was a group of five HUGE rams, some of which had horns many inches thick that looked like tree trunks. These were the biggest rams I?ve ever encountered, and they were standing in the highway like they owned it. I had to almost come to a complete stop to squeeze between them, and a large fellow off to the right stared at me as I passed with a ?Yeah, you got that right, keep moving buddy? look in his eyes. He was big enough to look into the car as I drove by, and it felt like he could have knocked the entire car over if he wanted to ram into it. I?m not sure what that group had been eating but boy, they were big. By the time we reached the top of the pass, the temperature was down to around 30 degrees F, and clouds were hanging around the south side of the mountain. However, looking northward, I could see that there was sun in the Chair 4 area and it looked quite inviting. The Life Flight helicopter had just arrived at the same time as us, and they were taking out a female that had cracked a vertebra (from what I heard but can?t confirm) in the rail park. That?s the second time we?ve seen the helicopter in about a month, and who knows how many times it?s been there when we haven?t
We started out with a run down North Bowl to get to the Chair 3 terrain. Since there had been so much new snow as of late, the flat areas were soft and slow. While this made for great ski conditions, it was very slow for Ty. Even though I had waxed his skis, there was still a lot of walking (and pushing) required. On the steep section of Speedway, Ty needed plenty of speed control from the leash. When we reached Boomer, Ty headed off to the left side and made some tracks in the powder (mostly walking) but it let him get more familiar with the ungroomed snow, and slowed him down enough so that I could get a couple of pictures. From there, we continued on to Gunsmoke, which I was hoping would be a good training trail for Ty. To me, it had always felt like a flat trail that really wasted vertical. Well, that was looking at it from an advanced skier?s perspective. Once I headed down it with Ty, I found out that the top was actually pretty steep (far too steep for Ty to control his own speed) and the rest was a series of relatively steep drops followed by flat spots. While this type of trail might offer fun variety for someone at the next level of skiing, Ty spend most of the time either being restrained by me on the steep stuff, or walking and being pushed on the flat stuff. He never got a chance to get into a groove and it was obvious Gunsmoke wasn?t going to be on the top of our list of desired trails. Now that I look at it on the trail map, Gunsmoke is actually a blue, which is probably due to those steep pitches we found. One thing I did notice on the trail was that the last few hundred vertical feet (maybe elevations 6,400? ? 6,700?) had some harder snow. Presumably, the freezing level crept up to around 6,700? at some point, because the difference in surface conditions was dramatic. There was plenty of light powder covering everything above the groomed base at this point, so perhaps the warming was a few days back.
At the bottom of Gunsmoke, we reached the new yurt. It is still very low key at this point, and I wasn?t even sure if it was open. I poked my head in the door, which revealed a warm carpeted area with lots of empty tables, and a lone figure tending to a nice new woodstove. I recognized the man at the woodstove as one of the mountain employees, so Ty and I were actually the only visitors. There is a small building attached to the side of the yurt, which has some kitchen facilities. From what I?ve heard, these will eventually be used to serve food. Ty and I enjoyed our lunch, and then Ty played around in the snow outside the yurt while I got a few pictures. It was really interesting that we didn?t encounter any other skiers at the yurt during our entire lunch, since the parking lot was pretty full and it was actually a busy ski day due to the holiday. I think that most people don?t know what the yurt is about, and figure it might be a building for employees. That?s what Nancy thought when I spoke with her later in the day, so they may need to put up some signs to familiarize people with the new structure as it comes into more use.
Our next stage of the tour was to head up Chair 3 and then hit Chair 5. Off Chair 5, we skied the Raven trail, which although short, has a good consistent pitch for Ty. We then crossed back under the lift and took Candy Stick, which had some flat spots, but was all around far better than Gunsmoke in terms of Ty?s skiing. Then we went up Chair 4 to try Oreo. The difficult part of getting to Oreo with Ty was having to hike the few hundred feet of distance up to the real summit (with two pairs of skis). I carried the skis, and Ty walked part of the way, but the soft snow was tough for him and I had to carry him at times. Having to do a little back and forth getting both Ty and the skis up was quite a bit more work than usual. As far as the skiing on Oreo went, it was basically another case of either too steep or too flat. Ty headed off into the powder on the first steep pitch of the trial, and took a massive digger on his head. Fortunately the snow was deep, so he wound up pretty happy. We?d done a lot of traveling around the mountain by this point, and Ty?s legs were getting tired. So we headed back to the main base to call it a day. I wanted to head right to the car, but Ty insisted on going into the lodge and getting some food. We?d already had a huge lunch, but he must have really been burning the calories. I looked for a ski rack for our skis, and the first couple I found were these strange little ones that only stood about a foot off the ground. I thought they were some sort of strange snowboard rack at first, but then realized they were the normal chest high racks? buried in snow. I guess Lost Trail hadn?t been raising those racks with all the recent snow accumulation, and now they?re buried. Unless they try to dig them out, they?re going to disappear after a couple more storms. While eating in the lower lodge, we ran into Nancy, and later Andy, and caught up on their day?s adventures. Ty still didn?t want to leave the mountain, but fortunately I was able to show him that everyone else was leaving and the lifts would soon be shutting down. He was still not fully convinced that we should go, but it swayed him enough to let me bring him out to the car. It cracks me up the way he can be dead tired, but mentally still think he can get out and ski. I guess everyone does that to some degree.
After our tour of the mountain, I still haven?t found anything that has the combined consistency of pitch and length that Meadow Run/Meadow Trail has for Ty. The Raven Trail is pretty consistent but short. I was actually thinking of trying to do a mid-station unload off Chair 4 and hit terrain in the lift line area with him. It might be a little steeper than his usual terrain, but the pitch if far more consistent. As it turns out, we hit it two days this weekend with excellent results, so see the upcoming January 7th and 8th trip reports for details and pictures. In terms of weather, the current weekend brought a few inches of new snow. I ran into Echo Friday morning while dropping the boys off at daycare, and she said she had been hoping for a powder day on Saturday. It didn?t happen, although Sunday did turn into at least a mini powder day. An even bigger storm may be coming in during the week, about which the Missoula NWS says the following:
A LARGE PLUME OF DEEP PACIFIC MOISTURE IS CURRENTLY POISED TO BE PICKED UP BY THIS WESTERLY FLOW AND BROUGHT ACROSS THE AREA TUESDAY AND TUESDAY NIGHT. SIGNIFICANT SNOW... MEASURED IN FEET INSTEAD OF INCHES...APPEARS LIKELY IN THE HIGHER TERRAIN OF NORTHERN IDAHO AND WESTERN MONTANA ABOVE ABOUT 4500 FEET TUESDAY INTO TUESDAY NIGHT.
?so that is also potentially good news.
A few pictures from the day can be found at:
http://www.JandEproductions.com/2006/02JAN06.html
J.Spin
