abc
Well-known member
Ski Area: Big Sky, Moonlight Basin, Bridger (Montana)
Dates: March 23-30, 2013
Conditions: Mid-winter to variable Spring Conditions
Weather: mix of sun, cloud, fresh snow, temps ranges 20 - 40's.
The price of missing the alpinezone mini-gatogether was a flight to Bozeman on that very weekend!
Day 0: 6pm flight out of Newark and 11:20 arrival at Bozeman, which is 2 hrs behind ours. Really it's 1:20 by my body's habit. So I barely made it to the motel with my eyes half shut... unpack some essentials and collapsed into bed at 12:30
Day 1+2: Bridger:
Day 1 dawn bright and early. The plan was to meet up with other people at 8 in the lobby to car pool to Bridger, a "small" area on the outskirt of Bozeman. It's "small" only by western standard, it's BIG and full of gnarly stuff. I was, after all, part of the Epicski.com annual gathering! And skiing is serious business for this gang!
Fortunately, some of the group got stuck at Denver by the storm. And those who made it arrived as late as I was. So the mood was a lot more mellow than the usual. Still, as soon as we got off the chair, it was "bat out of the cave" at mark speed!
Temperature was in the low 20's, very little skier traffic. The groomers were so SWEET, we stayed on it for a good while just enjoying the smooth curdory, before finally diving into the un-grooms. Fortunately for me, we stay in relatively sane terrains for our first day. Some bumps, gulleys and some trees. Mostly only mellow angle stuff.
Day 2, we got one of the local instructor taking us around. He stepped it up pretty quickly. I decided I wasn't up for it and broke off with a few others. After lunch, the gang headed over to an inbound area that requires avalanche beacon! Having seen how serious the non-beacon terrain, I begged off again. This was a pattern that will repeat many times. At this point, I was still thinking I merely save my legs for the more serious stuff at Big Sky the next few days.
Day 3-7: Big Sky + Moonlight Basin
Day 3, Big Sky. First a few groomers at high speed. The mountain was empty as ghost town. But wait, the lodges were all full! It's just there's so much terrain the slopes were completely empty even when the base ewas fully booked!
Next, we moved to a huge bowl at the lower half of the main peak. Here I met my match. The skiing was not too difficult. Although it was pretty steep at places, they don't get enough traffic to form big bumps. The difficutlty for me was the very long traverse to get to the good stuff. The traverse were narrow and windy, goes ups and down, sometimes you can't see where it's going but had to blindly charge ahead. It really grates on MY nerve.
I was glad when I had to drop in on the steep slope, for that was more familiar ground as far as I was concern.
After a couple run on the bowl, we lined up for the tram to take us up to the top of Lone Peak. 20 mins later, I found myself standing on top of 10,000 ft and looking down a good 2000' verticle drop straght down!!!
Here is what makes Big Sky totally different than most other places. Most of western mountains I've been to, you drop into the steep part of a bowl, make a few turns and lose a hundred feet or so of vert, the slope significantly flatten out. The rest is a piece of cake. Not Lone Peak! Its slope kept the same steep angle for quite a long way!!! It makes for a very dramatic and intimidating visual, looking straight down into the abyss! And it's really taxing for the legs too because the steep was relentless. It feels like it will never end!
If you crave for steep, especially long sustain steep. Big Sky is Big Heaven for you! If however, you've never skied more than 5 turns of super-steep, Big Sky will be a rather rude awakening!
At the bottom of Liberty bowl, after all that steep, there're sweet trees to reward those who still got legs left!
The rest of that day was a bit of a blur. I was only focusing on 2-3 turns in front of me the whole time!!! Snow was a mixed bag of half-thaw/half-frozen slush and packed powder. Some enjoyable, some not.
Day 4 was at Moonlight Basin. We didn't have too good of luck there. The steep headwater chutes were quite boneny so only half of the group did it. Many of the trees were crunchy. Only the groomer were in excellent shape so that's where some of us spend most of the day on.
Day 5 Big Sky. Today my legs were really tired. So I decided to take it a bit easier. "Easier" in Big Sky means we hit the Challenger chair, black and double black terrain. The chair dumps its cargo onto a tiny plateur that has only room to fit maybe 5 pairs of skis. So lingering at the off-ramp wasn't really an option. But to get off the plateur involves a quick drop onto a 2 track travers, not my favorate! Though to be fair, the traverse was short and we were soon dropping off this wide open flank of a minor peak. That is, except the bottom of the open face had a choke point of trees! My choice of line brought me face to face to a sign that reads "Caution: Cliff area"! Looking around there didn't seem to be any other way out. I thought I was seriously screwed. Fortunately, proceeding ahead bravely, I found a sneaker's route bypassing the cliffs. I was spared the test of my hucking ability.
The remainder of the day, we lapped that chair but stayed away from that cliff choke path. Traded it for something a bit steeper but more open. And to finish, I went down a mellow natural half pipe to ping-pong about just to decompress...
Some in our group went up on the tram again and skied various paths of the Dictator chutes. Sustain 40+ degree slopes for over 1000' vert!
Day 6, Big Sky. The day before got quite warm. So we knew it would be coral reef in much of the mountain. In the morning, we found some nice groomer to cruise on. A few went to try the bowl at lower mountain and wasn't impressed by the snow. So we stop for lunch early and ate slowly...
Then the group decided to head back over to the Challenger chair again. That chair was everyone's favorate. Because it's north facing, its got the best snow. And although it's fairly steep and got some sizable bumps at places, it's well within the capability of almost all in the group.
Just as we were having fun lapping it, the weather decided to drop a bit more snow on us! Not enough to improve the snow surface right away, but just enough to make visibility next to non-existant! One of the woman in the group missed a turn on the travers and fell head first down the steep slope. Though she calmly collected herself and hiked back to re-join the group. I was really concerned I might, in the poor visibility, ended up back on the cliff area! So I stayed on the more open part of the face and got out of there as soon as I could.
Day 7, Big Sky. Most of the group had headed out on their way home. Only 5 of us met up to ski one last day at Big Sky. It snowed a couple inches overnight, just enough to coated the mountain with "hero depth" of powder. We hooked up with a snowboard instructors as our guide. She led us into a lot of really nice powdery trees.
If that was it, it would have been a good ending for our stay. But we still had a few hours of daylight so we headed over to the lower mountain bowl off the triple again. Not comfortable with the long traverse, I decided to drop in early when I saw a big patch of un-tracked... I could see there's a cliff band below but the snow above it was nice and soft. I slowly inch close trying to find a clear path through the cliff. But I couldn't see clearly so ended up traverse above the cliff to an openning of the rocks to re-join my buddies on the "safe" way down. On the chair back up, I could see there're ways through the rocks, it's just the slope was too steep to see it from above! Lacking a good landmark to reference the path through the cliff band, I had to let the untracked snow alone...
The cloud had left the peak by then. My buddies were game to take the tram up ski Liberty Bowl again. But I had a bus to catch and left early. My legs were totally shot at that point. I couldn't see how I could do the 7 mile descend from the top of the peak back to the base standing up!
(didn't take too many pictures, will hunt around my buddies collection to find a few to add here tomorrow)
Day 8, 4:30 wake up call for a 6am flight. Back at JFK at 3 and home around 5. Exhausted and happy!
Dates: March 23-30, 2013
Conditions: Mid-winter to variable Spring Conditions
Weather: mix of sun, cloud, fresh snow, temps ranges 20 - 40's.
The price of missing the alpinezone mini-gatogether was a flight to Bozeman on that very weekend!
Day 0: 6pm flight out of Newark and 11:20 arrival at Bozeman, which is 2 hrs behind ours. Really it's 1:20 by my body's habit. So I barely made it to the motel with my eyes half shut... unpack some essentials and collapsed into bed at 12:30
Day 1+2: Bridger:
Day 1 dawn bright and early. The plan was to meet up with other people at 8 in the lobby to car pool to Bridger, a "small" area on the outskirt of Bozeman. It's "small" only by western standard, it's BIG and full of gnarly stuff. I was, after all, part of the Epicski.com annual gathering! And skiing is serious business for this gang!
Fortunately, some of the group got stuck at Denver by the storm. And those who made it arrived as late as I was. So the mood was a lot more mellow than the usual. Still, as soon as we got off the chair, it was "bat out of the cave" at mark speed!
Temperature was in the low 20's, very little skier traffic. The groomers were so SWEET, we stayed on it for a good while just enjoying the smooth curdory, before finally diving into the un-grooms. Fortunately for me, we stay in relatively sane terrains for our first day. Some bumps, gulleys and some trees. Mostly only mellow angle stuff.
Day 2, we got one of the local instructor taking us around. He stepped it up pretty quickly. I decided I wasn't up for it and broke off with a few others. After lunch, the gang headed over to an inbound area that requires avalanche beacon! Having seen how serious the non-beacon terrain, I begged off again. This was a pattern that will repeat many times. At this point, I was still thinking I merely save my legs for the more serious stuff at Big Sky the next few days.
Day 3-7: Big Sky + Moonlight Basin
Day 3, Big Sky. First a few groomers at high speed. The mountain was empty as ghost town. But wait, the lodges were all full! It's just there's so much terrain the slopes were completely empty even when the base ewas fully booked!
Next, we moved to a huge bowl at the lower half of the main peak. Here I met my match. The skiing was not too difficult. Although it was pretty steep at places, they don't get enough traffic to form big bumps. The difficutlty for me was the very long traverse to get to the good stuff. The traverse were narrow and windy, goes ups and down, sometimes you can't see where it's going but had to blindly charge ahead. It really grates on MY nerve.
I was glad when I had to drop in on the steep slope, for that was more familiar ground as far as I was concern.After a couple run on the bowl, we lined up for the tram to take us up to the top of Lone Peak. 20 mins later, I found myself standing on top of 10,000 ft and looking down a good 2000' verticle drop straght down!!!
Here is what makes Big Sky totally different than most other places. Most of western mountains I've been to, you drop into the steep part of a bowl, make a few turns and lose a hundred feet or so of vert, the slope significantly flatten out. The rest is a piece of cake. Not Lone Peak! Its slope kept the same steep angle for quite a long way!!! It makes for a very dramatic and intimidating visual, looking straight down into the abyss! And it's really taxing for the legs too because the steep was relentless. It feels like it will never end!
If you crave for steep, especially long sustain steep. Big Sky is Big Heaven for you! If however, you've never skied more than 5 turns of super-steep, Big Sky will be a rather rude awakening!
At the bottom of Liberty bowl, after all that steep, there're sweet trees to reward those who still got legs left!
The rest of that day was a bit of a blur. I was only focusing on 2-3 turns in front of me the whole time!!! Snow was a mixed bag of half-thaw/half-frozen slush and packed powder. Some enjoyable, some not.
Day 4 was at Moonlight Basin. We didn't have too good of luck there. The steep headwater chutes were quite boneny so only half of the group did it. Many of the trees were crunchy. Only the groomer were in excellent shape so that's where some of us spend most of the day on.
Day 5 Big Sky. Today my legs were really tired. So I decided to take it a bit easier. "Easier" in Big Sky means we hit the Challenger chair, black and double black terrain. The chair dumps its cargo onto a tiny plateur that has only room to fit maybe 5 pairs of skis. So lingering at the off-ramp wasn't really an option. But to get off the plateur involves a quick drop onto a 2 track travers, not my favorate!
Though to be fair, the traverse was short and we were soon dropping off this wide open flank of a minor peak. That is, except the bottom of the open face had a choke point of trees! My choice of line brought me face to face to a sign that reads "Caution: Cliff area"! Looking around there didn't seem to be any other way out. I thought I was seriously screwed. Fortunately, proceeding ahead bravely, I found a sneaker's route bypassing the cliffs. I was spared the test of my hucking ability. The remainder of the day, we lapped that chair but stayed away from that cliff choke path. Traded it for something a bit steeper but more open. And to finish, I went down a mellow natural half pipe to ping-pong about just to decompress...
Some in our group went up on the tram again and skied various paths of the Dictator chutes. Sustain 40+ degree slopes for over 1000' vert!
Day 6, Big Sky. The day before got quite warm. So we knew it would be coral reef in much of the mountain. In the morning, we found some nice groomer to cruise on. A few went to try the bowl at lower mountain and wasn't impressed by the snow. So we stop for lunch early and ate slowly...
Then the group decided to head back over to the Challenger chair again. That chair was everyone's favorate. Because it's north facing, its got the best snow. And although it's fairly steep and got some sizable bumps at places, it's well within the capability of almost all in the group.
Just as we were having fun lapping it, the weather decided to drop a bit more snow on us! Not enough to improve the snow surface right away, but just enough to make visibility next to non-existant! One of the woman in the group missed a turn on the travers and fell head first down the steep slope. Though she calmly collected herself and hiked back to re-join the group. I was really concerned I might, in the poor visibility, ended up back on the cliff area!
So I stayed on the more open part of the face and got out of there as soon as I could. Day 7, Big Sky. Most of the group had headed out on their way home. Only 5 of us met up to ski one last day at Big Sky. It snowed a couple inches overnight, just enough to coated the mountain with "hero depth" of powder. We hooked up with a snowboard instructors as our guide. She led us into a lot of really nice powdery trees.
If that was it, it would have been a good ending for our stay. But we still had a few hours of daylight so we headed over to the lower mountain bowl off the triple again. Not comfortable with the long traverse, I decided to drop in early when I saw a big patch of un-tracked... I could see there's a cliff band below but the snow above it was nice and soft.
I slowly inch close trying to find a clear path through the cliff. But I couldn't see clearly so ended up traverse above the cliff to an openning of the rocks to re-join my buddies on the "safe" way down. On the chair back up, I could see there're ways through the rocks, it's just the slope was too steep to see it from above! Lacking a good landmark to reference the path through the cliff band, I had to let the untracked snow alone... The cloud had left the peak by then. My buddies were game to take the tram up ski Liberty Bowl again. But I had a bus to catch and left early. My legs were totally shot at that point. I couldn't see how I could do the 7 mile descend from the top of the peak back to the base standing up!
(didn't take too many pictures, will hunt around my buddies collection to find a few to add here tomorrow)
Day 8, 4:30 wake up call for a 6am flight. Back at JFK at 3 and home around 5. Exhausted and happy!
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