Finally some snow!

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Hey everyone, I know it's been a while, so I'll try to get somewhat up to date on what I've been up to the last week or two. I am in Bozeman now, and have been here a little over a week. It's a fun little place, I guess a big city by Montana standards, but still small compared to what I'm used to in CA. My only complaint so far is no late night food except the Pita Pit which I don't plan to visit again.

So, last I wrote I was leaving Jackson for Idaho I believe. I drove over the hill to Driggs the night before the little backcountry adventure just to avoid having to get up too early, I'm still lazy at heart. Driggs is a great place if you like to know everyone in town on a first name basis, within 30 mins of arriving I had driven the entire downtown, found a hostel, and bumped into Eric, the guy I planned to do the trip with, while walking down one of the only streets in town on my way to one of the only restaurants in town. But everyone was incredibly friendly and seemed to be very proud of their little mountain paradise. I found my burger joint and a bluegrass band later on, but called it a night pretty early.

The next day I met up with Eric, who happened to live one block from the hostel. Our third member, who also was the level three avalanche mountain guru of the group needed to drop out, so it was down to myself, totally new to the area, and Eric, who has plenty of b/c experience, but really just picked this mountain (Mt Baldy) after driving by it a number of times and thinking it would be cool to ski. We had some short route descriptions from two books, and that was it. We left his place around 8 and drove south.

Mt Baldy is a pretty prominent peak jutting out from Swan Valley in Idaho. There is national forrest once you get up to the foot of the mountains, but everything else in the valley is all privately owned ranch land (more on that later). We parked at a campsite on the southwest side of the mountain, geared up and started hiking. Because of the low snow year and the southern exposure the first half or two thirds of the climb was on dirt with our skis on our back. The peak is at about 10,000, and the climb was around 4,000, but we couldn't put our skins on until we were pretty close to the top. We were hoping for a somewhat southern route to ski off the peak in order to end up in the same drainage as the car, but as we climbed and looked at any possible southern route it was clear that this would be impossible, too little snow and too much evidence of slides. But we kept hiking, summit fever I guess. As soon as we reached the top and could look into the north facing bowls we found a great route to ski, the only problem was it lead to the wrong drainage and would leave us with many miles (maybe 10??) of hiking across flat ground back to the car. In this age of immediate and constant contact, Eric tried to reach some friends to arrange a pick up (yes, there was cell service up there), but no one was around and willing to play taxi driver. We never really considered hiking back down the way we came, skiing was always in the cards, but I think we also completely misjudged the hike back to the car. But anyway, the sking was fabulous. Not a track on the mountain except for all the deer, elk, and bobcat(?) tracks. I'll have a few pictures up later on which show the route and the view from the top. But great snow, good turns, and we eventually found a snowmobile track once we reached the north drainage to follow back out to the ranch land. We literally skied as far as the snow would take us, over grass, dirt, and cow patties. Which left us with our skis on our backs hiking across cow pastures and jumping barbed wire fences. We eventually decided to head for the nearest road and have one person hitch hike back to the car while the other watched the gear. This turned out to be not necessary because within a mile of our hitchhiking destination (after the caw pastures we walked for a few miles on an old dirt road, can only imagine what the ranchers families thought as they were eating dinner and spotting two guys with skis over thier shoulders walking down an empty dirt road miles from the nearest patch of snow) we got picked up by a very very generous Idahoan. I guess he had watched us walk for a while from his home and felt sorry for us, and gave us a lift all the way back to the car. A long and tiring day, but well worth it even for only one run.

I stayed in Driggs a few more days, just waiting for some weather. I really wanted to get a powder day at Grand Targhee, but the snow never came, and after two days in Idaho I left for Bozeman.

I arrived after the first snow in a long long time here, only 5 inches, but better than the warm sunny spring days they were getting. I skied on the first Sunday I arrived (the 6th). Bridger is an interesting place, basically just a community ski hill, but the history shows a lot of annual snow, and there is a bunch of terrain called "The Ridge" which is the most technical in bounds stuff I have ever seen. I'm still learning the place, trying to memorize the chutes and remember which ones don't end in cliffs, and I've been meeting plenty of locals who are willing and excited to show me around, so it's been fun, and of course challenging! And Bridger really has the feel of the town ski hill, it's the type of place where all the locals know eachother and even the MSU professors skip classes to go skiing.

One of the first people I met skiing here was an MSU student. We ran into eachother nearly every day last week, and at one point I expressed some interest in heading down to a place called Cooke City for a weekend of backcountry skiing. Kyle, the MSU student and a damn good tele skier, seems to spend more time skiing than nearly anything else, and was interested in the trip. So we left midday on Friday (11th). Cooke City is just on the eastern edge of Yellowstone NP, and to get there from here the drive heads through the northern part of the park before exiting at the north east gate. Cooke City is also in some pretty big mountains (the Absaroca Beartooth although my spelling may be off) which get a lot of snow. I had been recommended to get in touch with Bill at the Bike Shack who could give us a snowmobile tow out into the woods and recommend a route.

I don't have much winter camping experience, but I did learn that it's best to just abandon the toes, mine stayed cold for most of the weekend. But even with cold toes the skiing was worth it. There had been some snow not long before we arrived, plus it stormed most of the day Sat and through the night and Sunday. We had true powder runs every time, but we also played it pretty safe and only skied a short north facing pitch (over and over), everything else was giving us bad mental images of avalanches. But man was it fun, backcountry face shots are truely a thing of beauty! The hike out was not though. We simply packed in such a rush that we brought way too much (food, clothing, extra shoes), and instead of a snowmobile lift back into town we had planned to ski down into Cooke City. With all the new snow we were lucky to have snowmobile tracks to follow, and we made our way with only one disagreement about the route, and really no mishaps, but every part of my body hurt when we finally skied into Cooke City, and all I wanted was a hot meal, which we wasted no time in treating ourselves to.

And one last fun thing to note, I skied Big Sky yesterday for the first time in perfect conditions, 20" of new snow in the 2 days before and crystal clear blue skies without a hint of wind, which is rare at that place. One of the things that's been on my "To do before I die" list is ski the Big Couloir at Big Sky. Sorry, no pictures because I forgot the camera, but check out the Big Sky website, the couloir drops from the peak of the mountain just below the tram down into the bowl below. We checked in with Ski Patrol as soon as we reached the top (they make you sign a waver and sign up for a "tee time" to ski the thing), and found out that there was a free spot at that time. Hmmm, first run of the day down the couloir? We (Kyle and I again), quickly decided not to pass up the shot. You start by hiking down a slightly nasty skree field just to get to the mouth of the chute, then stare about 1500 vertical feet down a chute that is about 40 feet wide most of the way. The first two turns are steep, like touch the mountain with your elbow steep, but it quickly "levels" out. By the time I reached the halfway point where Kyle was waiting I was completely winded, adrenaline, nerves, and tired muscles, but after a short break we skied the remainder and then had perma grin for the rest of the day. Great mountain and a great great run.

Ok, I think that's enough for now.

Eamon

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Photos

Our route
actually more through the trees, but following that gully

POWDER
Cooke city trip (all the rest are as well)

Kyle skis the mushrooms
More Cooke City b/c skiing