J.Spin
New member
With such a great early ski season in western Montana, Lost Trail?s Hollywood Bowl had been open for quite a while, but it wasn?t until the end of January that I actually got to make some lift-serviced turns in there. E and I planned to take Ty skiing on Sunday for his 3rd birthday, and with only shopping plans on Saturday afternoon, I decided to head out for a couple hours and make some turns. There had been another awesome powder day on Thursday (something like 22 total inches of new snow accumulation as I recall) but I hadn?t gone out to ski because I wanted to get things done at work, and I?d just hit the 28-inch powder Thursday before that! One?s powder perspective can get pretty warped when the snow just keeps falling. Actually, the easiest excuse for skipping a 22-inch powder Thursday at Lost Trail was that I knew I could get out for an even bigger powder Saturday.
Another 6-8 inches had fallen overnight Friday, so as I headed up Chair 1 on Saturday morning, I snapped some photos of the few tracks that had already been cut into the fresh coating of powder. I did a couple of laps on North Bowl while I waited for Chair 4 to open, and found the new powder to be rather light, probably in the 5 to 6 % H2O range. I got the impression that all the recent snow was drier than what had fallen the previous week, so even though they hadn?t quite received 28 inches, I bet the current powder skiing was better. When I got the word that Chair 4 was finally open, I headed there with the intention of finding out if I was right.
At the top of Chair 4 I headed immediately to Hollywood Bowl. I could see just a few tracks on the Ripper, so I knew I was one of the first skiers to get a shot at the upper Chair 4 terrain. The top hundred feet of the bowl was a bit wind blown, but below that the snow was bottomless dreamy fluff. The snow was definitely lighter than what had fallen the previous week, and conditions were very similar to when I?d hiked over to the Chair 4 area back on December 4th. This time, the main bowl had some tracks of course, but once I got off to the side it was just me and a whole lot of untracked snow. I ripped up some lines, stopped for the occasional picture, and found myself grinning all the way back to the bottom of Chair 4. I figured I would head further skier?s left to the Darwin Chutes for my next run.
My plans changed when I was just about to get on the lift, and it stopped. The owner of Lost Trail was around working on the situation, and said to everyone in line that it would be wise to take a run on Chair 3 while they took care of the problem (suggesting that it was more than a temporary lift stoppage). E was home watching the boys alone, and with our plans for the afternoon, I figured I?d head elsewhere for a few more turns before I left the mountain. Aside from a few holdouts (at least some of whom were holding out because they hadn?t yet had a chance to get in a run on Chair 4) everyone headed over to Chair 3. I went up, and got a couple of quick runs on Chair 5, which still had plenty of untracked powder. While I was over at Chair 5, it looked like Chair 4 had resumed operation, and although I debated heading over for a second run, I decided against it. A full cycle to get me back to the parking lot would be about an hour. It certainly would have been fun to get that second Chair 4 run to explore the chutes, but my run in the bowl had given me a pretty good powder fix, and I was still able to get home around noon.
Larger versions of the pictures are at:
http://www.JandEproductions.com/2006/21JAN06.html
J.Spin
Another 6-8 inches had fallen overnight Friday, so as I headed up Chair 1 on Saturday morning, I snapped some photos of the few tracks that had already been cut into the fresh coating of powder. I did a couple of laps on North Bowl while I waited for Chair 4 to open, and found the new powder to be rather light, probably in the 5 to 6 % H2O range. I got the impression that all the recent snow was drier than what had fallen the previous week, so even though they hadn?t quite received 28 inches, I bet the current powder skiing was better. When I got the word that Chair 4 was finally open, I headed there with the intention of finding out if I was right.
At the top of Chair 4 I headed immediately to Hollywood Bowl. I could see just a few tracks on the Ripper, so I knew I was one of the first skiers to get a shot at the upper Chair 4 terrain. The top hundred feet of the bowl was a bit wind blown, but below that the snow was bottomless dreamy fluff. The snow was definitely lighter than what had fallen the previous week, and conditions were very similar to when I?d hiked over to the Chair 4 area back on December 4th. This time, the main bowl had some tracks of course, but once I got off to the side it was just me and a whole lot of untracked snow. I ripped up some lines, stopped for the occasional picture, and found myself grinning all the way back to the bottom of Chair 4. I figured I would head further skier?s left to the Darwin Chutes for my next run.
My plans changed when I was just about to get on the lift, and it stopped. The owner of Lost Trail was around working on the situation, and said to everyone in line that it would be wise to take a run on Chair 3 while they took care of the problem (suggesting that it was more than a temporary lift stoppage). E was home watching the boys alone, and with our plans for the afternoon, I figured I?d head elsewhere for a few more turns before I left the mountain. Aside from a few holdouts (at least some of whom were holding out because they hadn?t yet had a chance to get in a run on Chair 4) everyone headed over to Chair 3. I went up, and got a couple of quick runs on Chair 5, which still had plenty of untracked powder. While I was over at Chair 5, it looked like Chair 4 had resumed operation, and although I debated heading over for a second run, I decided against it. A full cycle to get me back to the parking lot would be about an hour. It certainly would have been fun to get that second Chair 4 run to explore the chutes, but my run in the bowl had given me a pretty good powder fix, and I was still able to get home around noon.
Larger versions of the pictures are at:
http://www.JandEproductions.com/2006/21JAN06.html
J.Spin
