Big Sky 1/18/18 - 1/22/18

[Jcb890]

Our flight to Bozeman was pretty good - originally we had a connection in SLC from BOS, but got changed to MIN, which makes it about an even leg from each airport. We wound up arriving almost 2 hours earlier than planned which was nice. However, when we got our rental RAV4 and got on the highway, the car had an unsafe and awful wobble... so back to the airport for a different one. So, that ate up much of our "extra" time when we had arrived, but whatever.

Saw a huge herd of elk crossing the road on the way into Big Sky, maybe 200 or 300 lining both sides of the road... that was pretty neat. No pictures though since it was dark out.

Day 1:
Slept in since we didn't get to the place we were staying at until around 1 am. Got to the mountain around noon just when it was turning from a beautiful bluebird day to somewhat cloudy. The light on the mountain was pretty flat, so it made getting used to things a bit challenging. Still, we had a fun day. I got my wife back up on the Swift Current lift which freaked her out last year and got her onto a nice wide blue with some good pitch (Lobo - probably my favorite groomed trail). Took some nice photos of my wife riding with Lone Peak in the background (the 1st is cropped/zoomed).

Once she was accustomed to the Swift Current lift I headed to the Powder Seeker to check out the bowl area since I didn't get up there at all during last year's visit. It hadn't snowed in a couple of days, but the snow was still good and if you traversed over towards the more difficult chutes over near the rocks it was great snow.

A view from the top of Swift Current lift:



My wife on Lobo with Lone Peak in the background:



The ride up Powder Seeker 6 - Heated w/ a bubble, not bad!:

 

[Jcb890]

Day 1 (continued):

An (overcast) view up to the peak from the top of the PS6:


Another view upwards, from the Turkey Traverse:


Annnnnd another view upwards looking up one of the chutes at a ground-eye view to show pitch:


Did a few laps off the PS6 and called it an afternoon. We ate at the Gallatin Riverhouse Grill which is maybe 10 minutes away from "downtown" Big Sky. If you go to Big Sky, like BBQ and don't eat here, you're fuckin' up.

 

[Jcb890]

Day 2:
Under-predicted powder day! Original prediction was a 3-5" total... 5" overnight and another 4-6" as it snowed all day was just amazing. Visibility was obviously awful, but that didn't matter. 1st run of the day I went up to the Lone Peak Tram. It was about a 15-20 minute wait, but I didn't mind, it gave me a chance to chat with some locals about the terrain off the Lone Peak Tram. I asked them if it was similar to the Headwaters Double terrain (chutes) which I had ridden my previous trip last year and had intimidated me since it was, in my opinion, more challenging than anything I had/have ridden in New England. They said it was about the same steepness and that if I did Headwaters chutes I'd be all set (they lied, but it was OK).

The ride up the tram was nice, 15 in each tram-full, but we weren't too packed in. I was the last to get on so I felt lucky I got to follow these 2 guys who I was chatting with. I wish I had taken more pictures, but as I said, visibility was poor. To be completely honest, I was once again quite intimidated by the mountain and took my sweet ass time making it through the gates, which were a pain in the ass. No time for pictures, gotta make it down. Right after the gates, the snow was a bit choppy and holy crap was it steep. After a couple hundred feet of choppy snow though, it changed to simply amazing conditions with perfect powder. What a blast! 3K of vertical the first run of the day from the summit kicked my ass so I made it back to the main face to find the wife and do some fun powder laps. We called it a day in the middle-afternoon with everything getting bumped up and our legs both turned to rubber.

Overall it really was a great day. My only regret was that I didn't take more pictures. Took on the hardest terrain I've tried to date and a bunch of stuff I didn't get to see/do during last year's trip.

For dinner we visited Buck's T-4 Lodge and had a great dinner with a nice steak and some bourbon on the rocks. We went here last year too! :lol:

A slow, snowy ride up the Shedhorn Double with a view of the trees and powder... the peak barely visible in the background:


A view up towards the peak from the Shedhorn Double looking up towards Marx, Lenin and the Dictator Chutes:

 

[Jcb890]

Day 3:
A glorious bluebird day. We did some nice soft groomer laps in the morning then I went off to check out some more challenging terrain again. The trees off of the Ramcharger Quad were great! Last year these same runs and the majority of the snow off the groomed terrain was wind-blown, icy and choppy. Not this time! The Thunder Wolf Quad was a great time in the afternoon too, the Elk Ridge trail is a nice wide groomed blue with some steep pitches and you can drop off into steeper trees which were a blast.

Man the crowds here on a Saturday are brutal! Sometimes I even had to wait for 5 or 6 chairs to get on! Powder stashes everywhere still and great snow in the trees. :lol:

We went to the Lone Peak Brewery for dinner and had some good beer and burgers.

Lone Peak from the base area:


Some of the terrain off of the Thunder Wolf Quad - pow leftovers:

 

[Jcb890]

Day 4:
Another bluebird day... pretty cold though. The goal today was to do groomer laps and hit 40K vert. Mission accomplished! 40.2K vert and 44.1 miles ridden!

The secondary goal was to not get the score of the Patriots vs. Jaguars game ruined for me while riding since the game started at 1 pm in MT. Apparently my wife overheard someone saying the 3rd quarter score and at one point saw on her phone who won... but thankfully she didn't ruin it for me! I spent the better part of the next few hours yelling at either the Patriots or the spotty WiFi after being forced to watch the game on NFL Game Pass. Crazy game, go Pats! :lol:

Not much time for pictures today, but here's a couple nice views...

Oh and we finally tried somewhere new for dinner and got a pizza and mac 'n cheese from Ousel & Spur Pizza Co. in "downtown" Big Sky. The pizza was pretty damn good for pizza in Montana. Much better than the pizza we tried from Milkies Pizza & Pub last year. Mac 'n cheese was just OK.

 

[Jcb890]

Day 5:
Last day :sad:

Another under-projected/under-predicted powder day! The original predictions were for only 1-2" of snow, but we woke up to 2" from overnight and then another 4-6+" throughout the day made it a blast. Glorious. Did a few blues with the wife until she was exhausted, then I went and rode in the woods for the rest of the day. I had been eyeing the woods off the Swift Current lift and finally followed a local skier in there... it didn't disappoint! The trees around Crazy Horse, Buffalo Jump, Tango Trees, Rice Bowl, etc. were just a blast. I don't like glades in the East mostly, but this was great. To me as a snowboarder, it was completely different than what I'm used to - steep and deep with nicely-spaced trees.

My wife back on Lobo:


The trees off of Swift Current:

 

[Jcb890]

Day 5 (continued):

Did I say the woods were fun?:



Obligatory ice-'stache pic:


What a great end to the vacation! Though the day didn't exactly start off so great when I lost a mitten off the lift on a piece of off-map terrain the first time up (which I found out was waaaay steeper than it looked while on the lift). Thankfully I had my liner on still... so I tried to go and retrieve my mitten. That didn't work out so well though. I rode past the mitten and stopped maybe 50-75 feet downhill from it. I attempted to hike up, but after 3 steps in snow sinking up to my waist and getting tired I gave up, called the mitten a loss and attempted to strap in as I fell in the hole in the snow I made attempting to climb up. Finally made my way to the groomed trail near the base exhausted and sweating to death... mittenless and defeated.

Thankfully I had a spare pair of gloves in the car, which was a quick shuttle ride away.

For dinner we went back to the Riverhouse Grill again for an early dinner, went back up to the Big Sky mall and then packed.

The next day was a travel day... and an example of why not a lot of people fly to/from Bozeman. We showed up to the airport for our 5:30 am flight and were told it was cancelled after checking the night before on delta.com, but we only wound up leaving an hour or so later to MN. That wasn't so bad. This time MN had gotten a blizzard though and people had been stuck there a while, so our original flight was cancelled and we had a 3 hour lay-over. We were supposed to originally get back into Boston at 1:49 pm, but that didn't happen. At least Delta's computer was screwed up so we got free checked bags.



My pictures don't do Big Sky justice. It is absolutely gigantic. We didn't even go over to the Moonlight/Madison side this trip because there was so much I didn't get to last trip, I don't regret it though it is fun over there. It reminds me of New England trails a bit since it's more tight with more windy turns.

We enjoyed our time there very much, again. My wife asked me when we were moving to Big Sky... if only we could afford it.

 

[cdskier]

Great stuff. Those glades do look pretty awesome! The place looks enormous just from your pictures...can't imagine how it really looks in person.

 

[legalskier]

Awesome, thanks for the TR.

 

[speden]

Man you lucked out getting all that snow while you were there! The glades look great. Nicely done.

You sure know you are in cattle country when you go out to eat there. Everywhere we went they had BBQ beef, steaks, and burgers.

 

[Glenn]

Wow! Great pictures! Looks like a really good trip.

 

[Jcb890]

Great stuff. Those glades do look pretty awesome! The place looks enormous just from your pictures...can't imagine how it really looks in person.

Thank you. The glades were a ton of fun. Big Sky is absolutely gigantic. I rode hard for 5 days and never even went over to the Moonlight/Madison side this time and completely skipped some other pods of trails I had done last trip. One thing that is great is that it really has terrain for every ability level from complete beginner to ridiculously tough and steep alpine terrain, chutes, trees, etc.

Awesome, thanks for the TR.

You're very welcome, I'm glad you enjoyed it. It took me a lot longer to write than I imagined! :lol:

Man you lucked out getting all that snow while you were there! The glades look great. Nicely done.

You sure know you are in cattle country when you go out to eat there. Everywhere we went they had BBQ beef, steaks, and burgers.

We definitely lucked out with the weather. But, even if it didn't snow at all the conditions would have been fantastic. Thank you.

I had a good laugh when talking with some locals (the same guys from the Tram)... I asked if they had any good ideas for food I might not have heard of and they suggested I try a sushi place if I like sushi. But, I had to stop them and politely remind them I was from New England. As good as it may be, I'm not going out to dinner in Montana to get sushi or seafood.

Wow! Great pictures! Looks like a really good trip.

Thanks! Not bad for cell phone pictures. We had a blast!

 

[slatham]

I have wanted to good for the past couple of years and my stoke is even higher now. Great TR and pics. Thx.

 

[Jcb890]

I have wanted to good for the past couple of years and my stoke is even higher now. Great TR and pics. Thx.

Thank you sir, I'm glad you liked it.
It seems like they have had a fantastic season this year with new snow at least once a week. Pretty much everything is open and was riding fantastic. I would say the coverage was similar to our trip in Mid/Late February last year and that's what I heard as well from a couple of locals. The snow and conditions were definitely better this year than last. Everything off-trail was in play, covered, deep and soft.

 

[bdfreetuna]

Apparently I can't even fathom the size of this place, but great TR, excited to go some day (weeks?)

 

[AmmergauerTele]

Great TR, best part is the lack of people in all the photos.

 

[Jully]

Awesome report! Can't wait to get out there some day soon. Was worried with the death of the MAX, but maybe next year on the Ikon!

 

[Jcb890]

Apparently I can't even fathom the size of this place, but great TR, excited to go some day (weeks?)

It really is gigantic. We went to Copper in Colorado last year (2500 acres) and were blown away, having Killington at 1500 acres as the biggest we'd been to before. Then, we did Big Sky a month after Copper (5500-5600 acres) and were astonished. It truly is massive.

Great TR, best part is the lack of people in all the photos.

Thank you! Even on Saturday, we never waited more than 5 minutes in a lift line and most times there was either no line or hardly any. Thursday, Friday, Sunday and Monday were all ski-on for the most part, at most maybe a 2-3 chair wait. It is pretty much the middle of nowhere also, so not all that easy to get to. Another thing we liked.

Awesome report! Can't wait to get out there some day soon. Was worried with the death of the MAX, but maybe next year on the Ikon!

Thanks! I was seeing that too, but its on the Ikon. If you're on the fence, I would definitely recommend it. It has terrain for any ability level too, from great beginner options to plenty of options for the most hardcore skiers/riders. I'm not sure what type of backcountry is available around, but just driving around in the area it looks like there's plenty of places you could hike to on your own and have some fun adventures.

 

[kingslug]

The top of that place is probably the most extreme summit of all the resorts in the US. No easy way down...but fun.

 

[Jcb890]

The top of that place is probably the most extreme summit of all the resorts in the US. No easy way down...but fun.

I was pretty impressed when I saw a couple people doing Big Couloir on my way up, that is no joke.
Last year I saw someone who hiked and did a solo-descent of the North Summit Snowfield which looked awesome.