The "q" portion of my trip got shortened as I now needed to be in Jackson Feb. 5 to meet Liz, who decided to join me for the last week of my trip.
So as coldsmoke noted the options for Feb. 4 were Lost Trail, Discovery and Snowbowl. Lost Trail makes the drive to Jackson more tedious, Discovery is not fully open, so I chose Snowbowl. I was quite sure Snowbowl had the most interesting terrain, but there were potential issues with the south exposure plus being there on a Saturday with just 2 double chairs. Snowbowl was indeed busy on Saturday with lots of local kids up for weekend programs. But in the morning many of them were using a T-bar serving a race course and I had just a few minutes wait for the 2,000 vertical Grizzly chair ~10AM. Only on my final ride ~3:15PM on the upper 1000 vertical Lavelle Creek lift did I wait more than 5 minutes.
As for the skiing, I felt right at home at an area eerily similar to Mt. Baldy at home. It's amazing to see all these local kids in lessons, because every run I saw marked green would be blue at 95% of the ski areas in America. For the true first timer there is a rope tow at the bottom, period. So if these kids persist with skiing they become very good in relative short order. The smaller kids are not supposed to ride lifts without an adult, so singles are requested to ride up with those in classes. I rode up once with 6 year old Corey, who had to be picked up by the liftie on the center bar chair even though he was already skiing the steep bowls. This was the same procedure I had to use with Adam at that age on the Thunder chair at Baldy. Corey was about a year ahead of Adam in skiing that level of terrain. Smart kid too, very articulate on the ride up and his dad owns a software company in Missoula.
I cruised a couple of the groomers on Lavelle Creek to warm up. Then I rode a lift with a local Mark, who offered to show me a first run into the 2,600 vertical main bowl. This was the second day of full sun, so with relatively steep fall lines all at least partially south exposed one had to pay close attention to aspect and time of day like a spring day at Baldy, despite it being early February in Montana at about 30F.
We skied the scattered glades of Far East, which faced more west than south and with trees providing shade retained a packed powder surface. The same was true of mogulled Angel Face and skier's left of Chicken Chute. The latter 2 runs are in the center of the pic below with Far East the open patch in the trees above left of Chicken Chute.
We then rode up Grizzly and Mark thought the Grizzly run paralleling the lift and facing SE into the morning sun might be softening up. I decide to go that way too, but by the time I got to the top of the run Mark was already disappearing into the trees at the bottom of the first pitch, despite skiing on skinny 20 year old 205 cm skis in the spring moguls. The snow had softened but the run of 2,000 vertical was still a workout.
Next 2 laps I used both lifts to ski East and West Bowls from the top. These visible here looking up from the Grizzly chair.
These runs are reminiscent of Holcumac and Eric's at Baldy in topography, exposure and surface conditions. They are longer ~2,000 vertical and get far more consistent snow coverage than Baldy. I did inquire with the locals about the south exposure and came away with the impression that I saw one of the better days there. A week ago it was colder and there had been high winds that packed the recently fallen snow in the bowls into windbuff. One of the locals raved about how easy the skiing was in that condition, implying that it was not a common occurrence. Therefore when the warmup hit on my weekend the surface layer softened into corn over a supportable base. If the warmup occurs over tracked up powder the skiing can be grueling as I've observed in March at Jackson.
Unlike my fair weather Saturday, I was told the low capacity lift system is overwhelmed on powder days. It can take over 2 hours to get on the mountain so people start showing up at 7AM, another Baldy analogy.
One way Montana Snowbowl is NOT like Baldy is food service. There is a wood-fired pizza oven and I had a delicious jerk chicken quesadilla for lunch.
After lunch I got in 3 more top to bottom runs. Top of the mountain from Grizzly lift.
View down one of the West Bowl variations.
View toward Missoula halfway down West Bowl
Next was West Ridge, which really wore me out as the snow was less smooth than East an West Bowls.
Notice the tree shadows directly facing me. This was about 2:30PM so there was also occasional crunchy snow in the shade.
Last run up top I took it easy, following the flat North Dakota Downhill around to the groomed Paradise run.
22,000 vertical and exhausting like many of my Baldy days. Except this time I get only one day off before taking on Jackson Hole.
So as coldsmoke noted the options for Feb. 4 were Lost Trail, Discovery and Snowbowl. Lost Trail makes the drive to Jackson more tedious, Discovery is not fully open, so I chose Snowbowl. I was quite sure Snowbowl had the most interesting terrain, but there were potential issues with the south exposure plus being there on a Saturday with just 2 double chairs. Snowbowl was indeed busy on Saturday with lots of local kids up for weekend programs. But in the morning many of them were using a T-bar serving a race course and I had just a few minutes wait for the 2,000 vertical Grizzly chair ~10AM. Only on my final ride ~3:15PM on the upper 1000 vertical Lavelle Creek lift did I wait more than 5 minutes.
As for the skiing, I felt right at home at an area eerily similar to Mt. Baldy at home. It's amazing to see all these local kids in lessons, because every run I saw marked green would be blue at 95% of the ski areas in America. For the true first timer there is a rope tow at the bottom, period. So if these kids persist with skiing they become very good in relative short order. The smaller kids are not supposed to ride lifts without an adult, so singles are requested to ride up with those in classes. I rode up once with 6 year old Corey, who had to be picked up by the liftie on the center bar chair even though he was already skiing the steep bowls. This was the same procedure I had to use with Adam at that age on the Thunder chair at Baldy. Corey was about a year ahead of Adam in skiing that level of terrain. Smart kid too, very articulate on the ride up and his dad owns a software company in Missoula.
I cruised a couple of the groomers on Lavelle Creek to warm up. Then I rode a lift with a local Mark, who offered to show me a first run into the 2,600 vertical main bowl. This was the second day of full sun, so with relatively steep fall lines all at least partially south exposed one had to pay close attention to aspect and time of day like a spring day at Baldy, despite it being early February in Montana at about 30F.
We skied the scattered glades of Far East, which faced more west than south and with trees providing shade retained a packed powder surface. The same was true of mogulled Angel Face and skier's left of Chicken Chute. The latter 2 runs are in the center of the pic below with Far East the open patch in the trees above left of Chicken Chute.
We then rode up Grizzly and Mark thought the Grizzly run paralleling the lift and facing SE into the morning sun might be softening up. I decide to go that way too, but by the time I got to the top of the run Mark was already disappearing into the trees at the bottom of the first pitch, despite skiing on skinny 20 year old 205 cm skis in the spring moguls. The snow had softened but the run of 2,000 vertical was still a workout.
Next 2 laps I used both lifts to ski East and West Bowls from the top. These visible here looking up from the Grizzly chair.
These runs are reminiscent of Holcumac and Eric's at Baldy in topography, exposure and surface conditions. They are longer ~2,000 vertical and get far more consistent snow coverage than Baldy. I did inquire with the locals about the south exposure and came away with the impression that I saw one of the better days there. A week ago it was colder and there had been high winds that packed the recently fallen snow in the bowls into windbuff. One of the locals raved about how easy the skiing was in that condition, implying that it was not a common occurrence. Therefore when the warmup hit on my weekend the surface layer softened into corn over a supportable base. If the warmup occurs over tracked up powder the skiing can be grueling as I've observed in March at Jackson.
Unlike my fair weather Saturday, I was told the low capacity lift system is overwhelmed on powder days. It can take over 2 hours to get on the mountain so people start showing up at 7AM, another Baldy analogy.
One way Montana Snowbowl is NOT like Baldy is food service. There is a wood-fired pizza oven and I had a delicious jerk chicken quesadilla for lunch.
After lunch I got in 3 more top to bottom runs. Top of the mountain from Grizzly lift.
View down one of the West Bowl variations.
View toward Missoula halfway down West Bowl
Next was West Ridge, which really wore me out as the snow was less smooth than East an West Bowls.
Notice the tree shadows directly facing me. This was about 2:30PM so there was also occasional crunchy snow in the shade.
Last run up top I took it easy, following the flat North Dakota Downhill around to the groomed Paradise run.
22,000 vertical and exhausting like many of my Baldy days. Except this time I get only one day off before taking on Jackson Hole.
