J.Spin
New member
The past week?s snowfall, (especially the Wednesday night storm) seems to have delivered a good punch of snow to Montana. The Missoula National Weather Service reported 24 hour snowfall totals as high as 17 inches (Crater Meadows at 5,960? in the Northern Clearwater Mountains), Big Sky reported 20 inches in the past few days, and Bridger Bowl reported over 50 inches of snow this week. Lost Trail reported only 4 inches of new snow from the Wednesday night storm, but the 7 inches they?re received on Sunday would at least soften up the base.
Since Friday was Lost Trail?s last planned weekday of operation, I figured I would go up for a few runs, even though they hadn?t received a huge dump. They were only running Chair 2 due to the expected amount of people, but since they also had the rope tow running at the bottom of the Femur Ridge Bowl, all of the main trails could be accessed. I made it to the parking lot about 10 minutes before opening, so I was part of the first group heading down to Chair 2 when they dropped the rope. The snow on Drifter had been hit by the wind, creating a variable consistency with a few areas of wind crust. I was hoping this wouldn?t be the case on other trials.
After the ride on Chair 2, several people had the same idea as me and headed to Southern Comfort. There were only a few select trails that had groomed surfaces below the new snow, and I think most people knew those would be the best bet with this amount of powder. Southern Comfort was excellent, even if the powder was a little thick, but it had avoided any substantial wind packing. I enjoyed untracked turns all the way to the bottom until I just ran out of pitch. Far Out had been groomed except for the sides, so I followed a few people onto Salmon for my next run in hopes of more plentiful powder. I don?t think they ever groom Salmon, so the base was inconsistent and I touched down at times. After about 5-10 turns, I decided that Salmon just wasn?t going to cut it for powder turns, so I cut through the woods and skied the untracked skier?s right of Far Out. Here the snow was fantastic, sheltered from the wind and sun, and about a foot deep in places. It?s too bad they had groomed so much of the run. For my next couple of runs I headed to the other side of the hill. I caught some of the first tracks in the bowl below Femur Ridge, which had excellent snow, and then I skied North Bowl. North Bowl had some nice areas of powder 6-12 inches deep along the skier?s right outside the grooming tracks.
After 5 runs in about an hour, I decided to head to work. Before leaving, I caught up with E, who was there with her 5th grade class for a ski day, and Bruce, who was out again with his family. I filled them in on the conditions, letting them know that Southern Comfort was pretty tracked out at this point, but the Femur Ridge Bowl was looking really good with only about 10 tracks. With Bruce?s knowledge of the area, I knew he?d be able to track down some fresh snow anyway. It was snowing lightly when I left, and E said that it snowed on and off throughout the day, sometimes very heavily. It sounds like accumulations were light, but I think tomorrow will be a good day to visit the Saddle Mountain trees when they finally open up Chair 4. This amount of snow should fit nicely with the pitch there. We?re supposed to be in a relatively moist pattern for at least the next week. However, temperatures will be pretty warm at times so we?ll have to see what happens with the base depths.
J.Spin
Since Friday was Lost Trail?s last planned weekday of operation, I figured I would go up for a few runs, even though they hadn?t received a huge dump. They were only running Chair 2 due to the expected amount of people, but since they also had the rope tow running at the bottom of the Femur Ridge Bowl, all of the main trails could be accessed. I made it to the parking lot about 10 minutes before opening, so I was part of the first group heading down to Chair 2 when they dropped the rope. The snow on Drifter had been hit by the wind, creating a variable consistency with a few areas of wind crust. I was hoping this wouldn?t be the case on other trials.
After the ride on Chair 2, several people had the same idea as me and headed to Southern Comfort. There were only a few select trails that had groomed surfaces below the new snow, and I think most people knew those would be the best bet with this amount of powder. Southern Comfort was excellent, even if the powder was a little thick, but it had avoided any substantial wind packing. I enjoyed untracked turns all the way to the bottom until I just ran out of pitch. Far Out had been groomed except for the sides, so I followed a few people onto Salmon for my next run in hopes of more plentiful powder. I don?t think they ever groom Salmon, so the base was inconsistent and I touched down at times. After about 5-10 turns, I decided that Salmon just wasn?t going to cut it for powder turns, so I cut through the woods and skied the untracked skier?s right of Far Out. Here the snow was fantastic, sheltered from the wind and sun, and about a foot deep in places. It?s too bad they had groomed so much of the run. For my next couple of runs I headed to the other side of the hill. I caught some of the first tracks in the bowl below Femur Ridge, which had excellent snow, and then I skied North Bowl. North Bowl had some nice areas of powder 6-12 inches deep along the skier?s right outside the grooming tracks.
After 5 runs in about an hour, I decided to head to work. Before leaving, I caught up with E, who was there with her 5th grade class for a ski day, and Bruce, who was out again with his family. I filled them in on the conditions, letting them know that Southern Comfort was pretty tracked out at this point, but the Femur Ridge Bowl was looking really good with only about 10 tracks. With Bruce?s knowledge of the area, I knew he?d be able to track down some fresh snow anyway. It was snowing lightly when I left, and E said that it snowed on and off throughout the day, sometimes very heavily. It sounds like accumulations were light, but I think tomorrow will be a good day to visit the Saddle Mountain trees when they finally open up Chair 4. This amount of snow should fit nicely with the pitch there. We?re supposed to be in a relatively moist pattern for at least the next week. However, temperatures will be pretty warm at times so we?ll have to see what happens with the base depths.
J.Spin