Season 32

I'm back... and season 32 has started.
Now that I am officially unemployed (or should I say "actively looking for a job") I can workout, go out and do all the stuff I never had time to do!
Well not quite.
Work has not let me go yet. I still have to finish that paper.
Life has not made things easy either interfered with my motivation over the last couple of weeks.
But the earth didn't stop. Time is ticking and days flying by. I have to get going.
Has I write these lines, I have 4 short days left in Montana before my forced vacation in France.
The snow finally came (not too much but almost enough) and with this I declared started my 32nd ski season.
I know, the first winters were not quite ski-seasons, and it might be more accurate to start counting from the day I actually stepped on skis for the first time. But see, I don't remember when that was.
Anyway. My rule, created a couple of years ago, is that I have to ski at least n days during season n. It gets more challenging every year which is really cool. Of course, beyond the nth ski day, it becomes the more the better...

So here we go: n=32 (I am so geeky I know)
and here went day 1 and day 2!

Day 1 was on November 28th at Lookout Pass with Oggy and Junior. They always open early because they always get tons of snow first. I haven't gone there for the last 2 years: it's not really my favorite hill. They do get powder, but when it happens, the road gets really bad, and it's not quite steep enough to really take advantage of it. I guess this time it wasn't an issue. No fresh snow, and barely enough coverage on the lower portions of the area. I can't believe they even opened some if it. It was baaaad. I still had my workout since I had the good idea to take my teles that day. It was cold enough too... For recovery we headed to the Syme hotel in Hot Springs were we met Oggy's brother and the brother's girlfriend. Nice hot water soaking, decent dinner, great breakfast, and back to the Bitterroot Valley.
So I am still not super fond of LP, but I have to admit I love being able to ski in November...

Day 2 was a short, sunny, very cold day. On Wednesday, December 2nd, I headed all by myself to Lost Trail. It hasn't opened yet but they had already started working on grooming the runs. The Gnome Collector, who had called me the day before to brag about a trip to Big Sky, actually showed up too. Ha ha. I was ready to go when he arrived so I figured I would see him on the hill later.
I chose to hike up Speedway to the top of chair 1. As cold as it was, I had taken off 3 of my layers by the time I reached the halfway point. I should always hike on freezing days.
I picked Thunder as my first run. hmmm. Nice fresh powder, but not too good of a base. Quick feeling with my pole indicated about 4-5 in of depth hoar, a 2-3 in easily breakable icy layer, and on top probably 6in of fresh snow. So I could feel the rocks underneath more than once. Not that great. The snow was quite heavy too.
I reached the forest road where I put the skins back on. I figured there was no point in going further down, it would only get worse.
On the road, I found the tracks of the Gnome Collector and followed them. They were going all the way to the top of chair 1 and then snowboarding down the South Face, which is what I also did (wait SKIING! me not snowboarding!). It turned out to be quite good!
Unfortunately, because of a poor choice of socks, the blisters has started and I decided to head back to the car instead of climbing for another run.
And my conclusion for day 2 is : Lost Trail is still the best area around here.

So what is coming up now? Well I have one more chance to go before I leave: that would be on Wednesday. Mrs K talked last night about going to Lolo Pass. That would be nice...
But will I have time? I have to take Buster to the vet, find him a cat-sitter for January, write my paper, pack my stuff, interrupt my phone, insurance contracts, go to the bank, write my paper, pack my stuff, write my paper...arrrrrrrrrrrgh

Day 15

A little more snow fell on the Bitterroot last week. Unfortunately, it stopped on Thursday, and once again I went to Lost Trail to ski packed snow.
In my future life, I'll be able to take ANY Thursday off to ski powder. And ANY Friday off too. ANY day off.
The weather was nice, not too windy, not too cold.
I took the teles again, I feel I can cheat less and less.
Oggy took me with him at the end of the day to sweep the SacJack trees and Sacajewea. There's nothing like having the whole mountain for ourselves...
The weather forecast looks good: snow likely everyday. Hopefully, some fresh snow for Saturday this time...

BIG!

Monday, third day of our trip, we skied Big Sky.

No fresh snow, once again, although it was pretty cloudy most of the day. 

We took the avalanche gear, because I was really hoping we'd get to ski the BIG couloir... the one that starts from the right side of the peak.

I didn't happen. The Ancient chickened out and convinced Junior and I that it was icy. I believed him. I thought I saw big bands of ice going across the thing while we were in the tram. I t was probably just some weird shadows...

We had a good day, though. Did a few runs from the very top, the afternoon I skied with Oggy and even convinced him that he could ski the Liberty Bowl with us. Of course, at that point, he was by far the fastest on the run and after 5 turns and the Ancient and I begging for rest (and air), trash talk had started.

After a long good day, we met a friend of Oggy who had skied the Big Couloir twice and loved it. No ice by the way. Darn it! Next time, no matter what the weather is, what the snow is, I AM DOING IT!!!!

Ran back to the condo, took a quick shower and jumped in the car with Junior (5 hour drive and he was still talking...) while Oggy and the Ancient stayed for a few more days on the slope of that big mountain. I hate work.

Day 13

So Bridger was day 12.

On Sunday, we decided to ski Moonlight Basin. Still no new snow... I figured I'd work on my (poor) tele skills, and it turned out to be a very very tiring day!

We parked at Moonlight Lodge, a very fancy place, and probably very expensive, however, since we took passes only for Moonlight Basin, the tickets were not too expensive. And it was really not crowded at all, which I thought was surprising considering how nice the weather was.

I had a hard time skiing down black diamonds, however, by the end of the day I felt confident enough to follow Junior and the Ancient up the headwaters. This is the wall that tops the ski area. You have to hike a little bit to get to the chairlift that goes up there. And wow! it's steep! OK, I cheated a little bit, and went down doing alpine turns, but believe me, it's still a good balance exercise!

The Ancient and I decided to call it a day and meet Oggy at the lodge while Junior kept going. I felt a little old that day. The hot tub was barely enough to relax my poor legs, and by 10pm, everybody was sound asleep (it might be due in part to the fact that we each ate a pound and 1/4 of meat for dinner?).

On the snow again

Fresh snow seems to be on the way... good news after a week end that looked more like spring than sometime in February! Nice week end though, a very welcome break away from work.

Friday after work, Junior and I jumped in the ski-mobile and headed to Bozeman. A long trip made shorter by Juniors never ending well of stories and anecdotes. We arrived a little later than expected, and met Oggy and his friend the Ancient at the Bozeman Inn. The place is just fine, and cheap.

Not advertising for anyone, I have to say that there is a very nice place for treats, Bean and Leaf or Leaf and Bean downtown, where we had our breakfast before going to Bridger Bowl.

I have skied a little bit in the Bozeman area last winter and had good memories of the ski area. I wasn't disappointed. The snow was not very good, and runs full of moguls, but the terrain is really fun and we had a great time. Our legs worked hard. We finished our day by taking the new lift, Shlasman, that was added on the southern side of Bridger: it takes skiers almost all the way to the ridge! Just a few feet and you're on top! The beacon is required to go there, and I have only 2 of these, so the Ancient and Oggy stayed while Junior and I went up. I would probably not have done that on a regular day, since Junior had no idea of how to use it. He didn't even know how to turn it on... But Saturday was definitely a day with non-existent avalanche danger. That was fun! a little scary sometimes, because the cliffs are just there, unmarked, and since we didn't know the terrain, it was a little bit a random navigation.

The chair closes at 2:30 so we could take it only once. I have to go back on a good snow day.

After skiing and Costcoing we met Francis for a pizza, a very entertaining evening, and finally left Bozeman for Big Sky. The roads were dry, no traffic, and we got to the condo in less than an hour.

Canyon Lake

The sun is rising above Canyon Lake, on Sunday, Spetember 28th.

And I take this picture before disturbing the quiet waters with my filter-pump. I'm also enjoying a few minutes of solitude before the camp wakes up behind me...

As usual the trip didn't go exactly as planned. The Norwegian connection and I took along a new crew so we thought it would be wise to just plan on an easy road rather than following the Romney ridge.

It turns out Princess J had never been hiking, let alone backpacking, and besides the fact that she could not carry much, she was quite a demanding person. It made things a little harder a some members of the crew became maybe a little impatient at some point, especially Junior, who happened to be her tent-mate.

But overall the experience was a good one. 

The hike to the lake took us about 4 hours following Canyon Creek trail, a few miles west of Hamilton. It starts easily on the flank of Romney ridge, then winding through the trees along the creek. The slope progressively steepens to become a quite strenuous climb when carrying heavy backpacks.

We never saw the Canyon Falls, which were probably dry or very small at this time if the year.

We were relieved to finally see the dam that closes Canyon Lake on its east side. 

The lake was half empty. On the west side, there was Canyon Peak, our original goal, about 1500ft above us.

Since our group was not too enthusiastic about going any further, we decided to set the camp on the side of the lake and enjoy the last rays of sun.

For dinner: pasta, creamy mushroom and salmon, and bread and cheese. We had food for maybe 5 days! No wonder the bags were heavy! 

A little cherry bounce, marshmallows in the fire, and a perfect weather to look at the stars...

The next morning, same pace: a lazy breakfast as the temperatures - slowly - climb up, we pack the bags and start our hike down.

Even if we didn't reach our initial goal, it ended up being a nice little week end in the mountains. I don't think I'll ever get tired of this.

King of the Bitterroot

It's funny how this picture makes me feel discombobulated... I have to stop and look at it remembering where I took it to remember that, no, it is not upside-down.

I am actually sitting on top of Trapper Peak, 10157 ft, looking down at Cave Lake. You can see it if you look between the cloud on the right and the cloud at the bottom. Behind, a  ridge looking like a wall, separates Trapper Creek from the North Fork.

The hike up the highest peak of the Bitterroot is not a difficult hike. It climbs for about 4.2 miles, with an elevation gain of about 3800 ft from the trailhead, but, even though the start is scary, every steep fragment is followed by a little plateau, allowing us to recover before the next big effort. The end of the hike requires a little bit of scrambling on sometimes moving rocks - but again nothing terrible. Of course, one has to consider then who one hikes with: it can totally change the difficulty of the hike... 

Well my super-fit friends (I haven't found nicknames for all of them yet so I won't list the members of the happy party I went hiking with), who had just done an olympic distance triathlon the day before while I was probably watching TV laying on the couch, made my day a little harder since I had at some times a hard time keeping up with them.

The effort was worth it, despite the big cloud cover:

Here is the bowl between North Trapper Peak (to the left) and the East Trapper Peak (to the right) that I hope to ski before I leave the valley...

Here a little clearer view of the East Peak, and closer, the false peak preceding Trapper Peak, were most of the scrambling happens.

And finally, when the weather was cooperative enough, we could get a quick look at the Bitterroot Wilderness to the west of the peak.

The chilly temperatures chased us quickly from the summit. Fortunately, since the only two muscles I have happen to be my quads,  my downhill hike turned out to be much faster and smoother... And of course, by the time we reached the trailhead, the sky was (almost) blue and the sun shining. So we did what anyone else would have done in the same situation: we went to the Brewery.