J.Spin
New member
A link to additional pictures and video from the day is available at the bottom of the report
Lost Trail had reported 15 inches of new snow since the beginning of the week, and with potentially more snow coming in on Sunday, Saturday looked like the better day to ski with the boys in terms of weather. The highs at 7,000-8,000 feet were predicted to be 25 to 30 degrees F with minimal wind, so it seemed warm enough to bring Dylan out on the slopes as well. As we?ve done a couple of times in the past, we wanted to have the whole family ski together, but since Dylan was already a bit big for the front pack, we decided to take him out in one of the child carrier backpacks. Lost Trail was hosting snowmobile races as they seem to do each year, and the parking lot was filled with lots of cool race trailers and fancy snowmobiles. It was a little tougher than usual to find a parking spot, but I found a nice one in the southeast corner among the trailers and other equipment. Ty was quickly ready to go, so he and Mom headed off to the lodge while I prepped the rest of the gear and took care of Dylan.
The races were taking place on South Face, so as we rode up Chair 1, we all got a fantastic view of the competitors as they throttled up the slope. It was amazing how much performance those guys could get out of their sleds. The steeper part of South Face is probably in the range of 30 degrees, and the racers seemed to fly right up it. There were even a few extra terrain features added to the route to make it more challenging, and you could see just how hard the drivers had to work to stay on their sleds with the combinations of speed, air, pitch, and snow.
We had brought all our food, kid supplies and extra clothes with us on the slopes in our packs, so that we?d be able to eat lunch at the yurt and spend more time over in the Chair 4 area. Our route to Chair 4 took us down North Bowl and toward Chair 5, but we were stopped by a rope as we approached the Chair 5 lift line (Bobcat trail). At first we were worried that Chairs 3 and 4 were closed for some reason, but we could see people below the rope over in the Chair 5 area, so it was something else. It turns out that the rope is not a closure rope, it?s actually just a precaution rope to warn people that they are about to pass through the bottom of the terrain park slope. I guess they don?t want unsuspecting skiers to catch a young jibber in the face as they pass beneath the jumps. We weren?t sure what was going on with the rope at the time, so we took the circuitous route on the little trail that passed around the rope and down to Chair 5.
From the top of Chair 5, we headed down the Bear Claw Ridge trail, and Ty handled the steep section well. We then continued on to Candy Stick and the bottom of Chair 4. Off Chair 4, we did a run from the mid-station down, skiing in the lift line area and the surrounding trees. Conditions were nice, and Ty got a lot of nice comments from people on the lift as we skied underneath it. As we neared the bottom of our run, Ty started showing signs of being tired, so we knew it was definitely time for lunch at the yurt.
On the way to the yurt, we had an exciting encounter. We were recognized by Cliff (A.K.A. Idaho Cliff) from the First Tracks!! Online Discussion Forums. Cliff hails from Salmon, Idaho, which is on the other (south) side of Lost Trail Pass. Cliff knows the Lost Trail area really well, and has helped clarify Lost Trail-related questions on the forum in the past. It still amazes me that there could actually be two Lost Trail locals on the same nationwide ski forum, especially with the relatively small size of Lost Trail. We had a chance to get acquainted for a few minutes before Cliff headed off to ski, and we headed to the yurt for lunch. Cliff, it was nice to meet you; hopefully your spring ski season is going well.
It was obvious that the good news about the yurt had spread around the Lost Trail community. For the first time ever, there were no open tables for lunch in the yurt. Gone were the days in which Ty and I would walk into the yurt for lunch and be the only ones in the structure. With the interior tables filled, we ate lunch at the picnic table outside. It was actually a beautiful, essentially perfect, spring ski day to be outside. In fact, it was almost too beautiful outside, since the lack of any clouds made for intense sunshine reflecting off the snow. It wasn?t too long before Ty lost interest in eating lunch and decided to play on a snowy slope near the bottom of Chair 3 that other kids had been using for fun. Unfortunately for Ty, the steep powdery slope was a bit too much for him to scale on his own, so I had to head over and help him. Even after I kicked some nice steps into the slope, it was still to steep for Ty, so I helped him up with a combination of pushing and pulling. Then Ty was able to slide down the hill (and so was I, since I was up there as well).
Eventually, the crowd in the yurt tapered off a bit and we were able to get a table inside. The picnic table had been great, but it was nice to get everyone out of the bright sun for a bit as well. Throughout lunch, people were very intrigued to find Dylan down at the yurt. There?s no road access to the yurt in the winter, and with Dylan out of the pack, it wasn?t immediately obvious how he had gotten down there. He certainly was a bit of an anomaly. Dylan couldn?t even walk back then, so he obviously hadn?t skied to get there. We filled people in on how he?d gotten there in the pack, and we had a good discussion with another couple who were thinking of starting their youngster on skis. One of my favorite parts about skiing around with the boys is answering people?s questions about the tools and techniques we?ve used for our ski outings. It?s fun to open people?s eyes to the realization that you CAN ski with toddlers and infants. You probably aren?t going to be skiing 50-degree couloirs and the like, but you can sure have plenty of fun at a typical ski area.
After assessing Ty?s energy level, we decided not to head all the way back up to the Chair 4 area, but instead decided to take Chair 3 to Chair 5. We hit the Raven trail, followed it up with a couple runs on Lynx, where I ventured into the trees and found some nice powder. On our last run off Chair 5, we took the Bear Claw Ridge trail. For something a little different, we kept skiing on down to Side Street, which had been groomed and turned out to be a pretty good option for Ty. We could tell that Ty was on his last legs (so to speak) because he needed help down the steep part of Side Street. It?s only a blue slope, and while he typically would have been able to handle it fine, he asked for help from Mom and needed to ski between her legs. I switched the digital camera to movie mode for that run and captured a QuickTime video. The video is just unedited footage, but it sums up the run pretty well, and can be accessed through the link at the bottom of the report. After Side Street, it was obviously time to call it a day, so we rode up Chair 3 and headed to the parking lot. While we packed up the gear, Ty had a resurgence of energy and practiced jumping off the snowbanks at the edge of the parking lot.
Ty made some nice skiing improvements on the day, and we noted three things that he?d learned. He realized that he could build up speed to get himself through upcoming flat areas, and also began to use skating as a method to get himself through those flats. In addition, he began to change up his turning radius to fit different terrain and conditions. He ended up with 7 runs for 5,050? vertical feet on the day, which I think was pretty typical for his vertical in that timeframe.
Additional pictures and video from the day are available at:
http://JandEproductions.com/2006/11MAR06.html
J.Spin
Lost Trail had reported 15 inches of new snow since the beginning of the week, and with potentially more snow coming in on Sunday, Saturday looked like the better day to ski with the boys in terms of weather. The highs at 7,000-8,000 feet were predicted to be 25 to 30 degrees F with minimal wind, so it seemed warm enough to bring Dylan out on the slopes as well. As we?ve done a couple of times in the past, we wanted to have the whole family ski together, but since Dylan was already a bit big for the front pack, we decided to take him out in one of the child carrier backpacks. Lost Trail was hosting snowmobile races as they seem to do each year, and the parking lot was filled with lots of cool race trailers and fancy snowmobiles. It was a little tougher than usual to find a parking spot, but I found a nice one in the southeast corner among the trailers and other equipment. Ty was quickly ready to go, so he and Mom headed off to the lodge while I prepped the rest of the gear and took care of Dylan.
The races were taking place on South Face, so as we rode up Chair 1, we all got a fantastic view of the competitors as they throttled up the slope. It was amazing how much performance those guys could get out of their sleds. The steeper part of South Face is probably in the range of 30 degrees, and the racers seemed to fly right up it. There were even a few extra terrain features added to the route to make it more challenging, and you could see just how hard the drivers had to work to stay on their sleds with the combinations of speed, air, pitch, and snow.
We had brought all our food, kid supplies and extra clothes with us on the slopes in our packs, so that we?d be able to eat lunch at the yurt and spend more time over in the Chair 4 area. Our route to Chair 4 took us down North Bowl and toward Chair 5, but we were stopped by a rope as we approached the Chair 5 lift line (Bobcat trail). At first we were worried that Chairs 3 and 4 were closed for some reason, but we could see people below the rope over in the Chair 5 area, so it was something else. It turns out that the rope is not a closure rope, it?s actually just a precaution rope to warn people that they are about to pass through the bottom of the terrain park slope. I guess they don?t want unsuspecting skiers to catch a young jibber in the face as they pass beneath the jumps. We weren?t sure what was going on with the rope at the time, so we took the circuitous route on the little trail that passed around the rope and down to Chair 5.
From the top of Chair 5, we headed down the Bear Claw Ridge trail, and Ty handled the steep section well. We then continued on to Candy Stick and the bottom of Chair 4. Off Chair 4, we did a run from the mid-station down, skiing in the lift line area and the surrounding trees. Conditions were nice, and Ty got a lot of nice comments from people on the lift as we skied underneath it. As we neared the bottom of our run, Ty started showing signs of being tired, so we knew it was definitely time for lunch at the yurt.
On the way to the yurt, we had an exciting encounter. We were recognized by Cliff (A.K.A. Idaho Cliff) from the First Tracks!! Online Discussion Forums. Cliff hails from Salmon, Idaho, which is on the other (south) side of Lost Trail Pass. Cliff knows the Lost Trail area really well, and has helped clarify Lost Trail-related questions on the forum in the past. It still amazes me that there could actually be two Lost Trail locals on the same nationwide ski forum, especially with the relatively small size of Lost Trail. We had a chance to get acquainted for a few minutes before Cliff headed off to ski, and we headed to the yurt for lunch. Cliff, it was nice to meet you; hopefully your spring ski season is going well.
It was obvious that the good news about the yurt had spread around the Lost Trail community. For the first time ever, there were no open tables for lunch in the yurt. Gone were the days in which Ty and I would walk into the yurt for lunch and be the only ones in the structure. With the interior tables filled, we ate lunch at the picnic table outside. It was actually a beautiful, essentially perfect, spring ski day to be outside. In fact, it was almost too beautiful outside, since the lack of any clouds made for intense sunshine reflecting off the snow. It wasn?t too long before Ty lost interest in eating lunch and decided to play on a snowy slope near the bottom of Chair 3 that other kids had been using for fun. Unfortunately for Ty, the steep powdery slope was a bit too much for him to scale on his own, so I had to head over and help him. Even after I kicked some nice steps into the slope, it was still to steep for Ty, so I helped him up with a combination of pushing and pulling. Then Ty was able to slide down the hill (and so was I, since I was up there as well).
Eventually, the crowd in the yurt tapered off a bit and we were able to get a table inside. The picnic table had been great, but it was nice to get everyone out of the bright sun for a bit as well. Throughout lunch, people were very intrigued to find Dylan down at the yurt. There?s no road access to the yurt in the winter, and with Dylan out of the pack, it wasn?t immediately obvious how he had gotten down there. He certainly was a bit of an anomaly. Dylan couldn?t even walk back then, so he obviously hadn?t skied to get there. We filled people in on how he?d gotten there in the pack, and we had a good discussion with another couple who were thinking of starting their youngster on skis. One of my favorite parts about skiing around with the boys is answering people?s questions about the tools and techniques we?ve used for our ski outings. It?s fun to open people?s eyes to the realization that you CAN ski with toddlers and infants. You probably aren?t going to be skiing 50-degree couloirs and the like, but you can sure have plenty of fun at a typical ski area.
After assessing Ty?s energy level, we decided not to head all the way back up to the Chair 4 area, but instead decided to take Chair 3 to Chair 5. We hit the Raven trail, followed it up with a couple runs on Lynx, where I ventured into the trees and found some nice powder. On our last run off Chair 5, we took the Bear Claw Ridge trail. For something a little different, we kept skiing on down to Side Street, which had been groomed and turned out to be a pretty good option for Ty. We could tell that Ty was on his last legs (so to speak) because he needed help down the steep part of Side Street. It?s only a blue slope, and while he typically would have been able to handle it fine, he asked for help from Mom and needed to ski between her legs. I switched the digital camera to movie mode for that run and captured a QuickTime video. The video is just unedited footage, but it sums up the run pretty well, and can be accessed through the link at the bottom of the report. After Side Street, it was obviously time to call it a day, so we rode up Chair 3 and headed to the parking lot. While we packed up the gear, Ty had a resurgence of energy and practiced jumping off the snowbanks at the edge of the parking lot.
Ty made some nice skiing improvements on the day, and we noted three things that he?d learned. He realized that he could build up speed to get himself through upcoming flat areas, and also began to use skating as a method to get himself through those flats. In addition, he began to change up his turning radius to fit different terrain and conditions. He ended up with 7 runs for 5,050? vertical feet on the day, which I think was pretty typical for his vertical in that timeframe.
Additional pictures and video from the day are available at:
http://JandEproductions.com/2006/11MAR06.html
J.Spin
. I've got several more reports on the way to finish off the season (we just got back from camping and skiing with the boys in Glacier National Park over the weekend, and I've got some lengthy spring skiing reports from Lookout Pass, Moonlight Basin, and Sun Valley as well). Stay tuned!