Out West Trip - Feb. 23 through March 3rd
Time to revisit my trip "out west". I put this in quotes because every time I talk to someone, it's always "out west" but I don't get too specific. Which I guess is a running theme in this blog. I don't get too specific, especially when it comes to other people that are involved in the events. I usually use code names for my friends that I ski/board with. One reason for this is to protect the innocent. The other is because I really don't want you to get to know who I am. I'm anonymous on the internet, much like everyone else. So are you. I don't know who is reading this blog on a regular basis (and I'm using the term 'regular' loosely here since I updated it quarterly). It could be 5 people, it could be...well, 10 people. I'd be amazed if more than 10 have ever viewed this thing. But, you know what? Whatever. I do this for me, not you - the anonymous voyeurs. I don't want to forget these special times that I have on a weekly basis. I want to look back at these entries years from now and remember why I spend 8+ hours on the road every weekend from December to April just for the simple sensation of floating on frozen water. As the NBA slogan goes, "I live for this!" And I really do.So, on to living.
The trip out west consisted of four of us. Actually, let's start with the history of the "out west" trip. I'm not involved in the history of it. That's really all you need to know. This was my first year going out west with this crew, which consisted of Erick and Dan, who are both members of the SS Jay house, and Telemark skiers, and Dirt (aka Greg) who attended, and I think, graduated from college with Dan. But attended with Erick as well, but Erick went to jail before graduating, so he had to leave. That's how they all know each other and how the trip came about. Reliving past days and spending time with good friends. This was their trip before I crashed the party. A bunch of tele- skiers looking to RAISE HELL, which, is not very popular with the mormons. I didn't really crash it, but I definitely lobbied my way in to it. We also tried to get a larger group to join, but all others balked. Some with valid reasons ("my wife would kill me if I went away while she's pregnant."), some outright lame reasons ("My house is a mess and need to fix the front door and I can't afford it right now. Oh wait, I here the WHAMBULANCE coming down the street for me. Gotta go."), and....well, that pretty much covers the excuses for not attending.
The theme of this trip is "where the snow goes, we're goin'". In other words, not too much is planned out before we all land in some location "out west". In past years, the crew (Erick, Dan, Dirt) had visited locations as vast as Taos, New Mexico to southern British Columbia (not in the same year). Of course, once you head in a direction you have some idea where the next possible ski resort may be. Also, there are definitely favorites that they have visited in the past that have a better chance of revisiting (Taos, Grand Targhee) and others that are not as popular (Vail, anywhere in Utah {don't ask}).
This year we all landed in Salt Lake City, except for Dirt who lives in Idaho and was gracious enough to drive the rental (a 'Sclade, bitches!) down to Utah. Quick story about our rental. Initially, we were jonesing to rent an RV so that we could spread out and do the trip in style. We also figured that we could save some money by staying in the RV instead of spending money on hotel rooms every night. But as our crew number dwindled down to 4, we decided that an RV would not financially make sense and that we would end up in hotels half the time anyway. And I think we made the right decision. So we ended up renting a regular, bland, bulging SUV. But luckily, when Dirt went to pick up our ride, the rental agency only had the Escalade available. So we were pimpin' for the week. And I must admit, having a hulking SUV did come in handy when driving through windblown back roads in the Idaho plains as well as driving through western Yellowstone. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
After meeting up in SLC, there was not much argument that we wanted to head out of Utah, and the most logical place was Grand Targhee, WY. As mentioned above, this was a favorite location of the crew. Dirt has spent much time in Driggs (the closest town to Grand Targhee resort, which is actually in Idaho) and Dan loves this area so much that he named his first dog Driggs. I'm thinking Erick will trump Dan and name his first born Targhee.
We made it to Driggs reasonably early the first night which was Friday, Feb. 23, after a 4 hr ride that included a "hello" from Idaho's boys in blue. Luckily we came out unscathed (Note to the wise, when traveling through Idaho, make sure the driver is wearing a 911 First Responders sweatshirt. This could help in these types of situations). We ended up at a Best Western in Driggs. This was not the first time the crew had lodged here and it had the benefit of being only a block away from the local dive bar AND the best breakfast place in town.
The first day of riding was really good. The mountain got about 6 inches the night before and also had gotten bunch of snow in prior days (18 inches). Basically the conditions powdery, but kinda cut up underneath the fresh stuff so we couldn't really go too fast on the slopes. But still it was powder. And we really didn't waste to much time trying to find some small drops and some steep glades. If you look at the map, we headed to the Patrol Chutes. We only did one trail run in this section and then headed over to the Blackfoot area, as this, I was told, was where the pow-pow lasted the longest. Over the 3 days we ended up riding Targhee, this became a popular section since it did seem to hold powder longer than any other location. I personally enjoyed the Patrol chutes a bit more because they were more steep and challenging.
Mary's definitely had the goods and I may state that I had my favorite runs of the entire trip on Mary's, especially our last run that we traversed over to Peaked Mountain. Very steep stuff.
The other great part of Targhee was the atmosphere. It seemed much more of a laidback mountain without a "scene". It seemed like most folks were local or really took to the mountain lifestyle, as opposed to some bigger resorts (ahem..Vail...Big Sky) that run their mountains like corporations. The mountainside resort at Targhee had all the amenities required and no pretension. Everything was in beautiful shape without being 'showy'. As a matter of fact, the people there were so friendly, that they remembered Dirt, Dan and Erick from years past. I was actually taken aback by that a bit. But appreciated it very much. I should also mention that for two nights we stayed trailside in one of the on mountain lodges which was very sweet.
The initial trip to Grand Targhee lasted from Friday Feb. 23 through Monday, Feb. 26. On Tuesday, we left headed north to Big Sky. The route we took was up routes 31/32 west (unfortunately a closed road in the middle of nowhere) and then up route 20 north then over 191 that borders the western edge of the Yellowstone National Park. Route 32 was probably a bad idea. We saw a sign that said the road was closed. But being foolish east coast city slickers in an Escalade, we decided to ignore it and figured if we ran into any problems we could barrel right through it. Which we eventually did, but there were definitely some scary moments when I thought that we were going to get stuck. I have to give props to Dirt and Eric for getting us through those roads. The issue was that the area was so flat and desolate with people that the roads just weren't plowed often and the wind drifts would be several feet deep.
We eventually made it through the scary section and headed up route 191 which was by far my favorite road for scenery on the trip. There wasn't much to see on the southern side of Yellowstone except for snow. And I mean a lot of snow. The snow was deeper here than in some of the areas that we skied. And when it was snowing, it snowed hard. It was puking snow, as we like to say. Then after coming out of the Yellowstone Area, you gradually get lower in elevation and the snow melts away and you end up in the beautiful Gallatin River valley. It's a beautiful byway and, well, it just is. If you want to know more about it, look it up on the web. Anyway, I one reason I think I enjoyed it was because we had just come from miserably flat, snow covered plains and ended up in this scenic river valley. And while driving through there it was warm and sunny.
So the purpose of the trip was to end up at Big Sky which we did sometime on Tuesday afternoon. As I said above, Big Sky definitely has a more corporate feel to it, similar to the feeling you would get at Vail or any major resort in Colorado. This was quite a contrast to the homey feel of Targhee. Anyway, we were a bit weary after the 4-hour drive and we didn't waste any time trying to find a hotel. We went directly to the hotels slopeside and checked in. We stayed at the slopeside Huntley lodge. And I must say that even though our room at Targhee was nice, it really didn't compare to this place. Much bigger rooms and more comfortable. Also we were only steps away from the hot tub and pool.
Once again, we had lucked out with the snow at Big Sky as it had just snowed several inches the night before and they had not opened the mountain peak in two days. So there would be plenty of fresh tracks at the top of the mountain. And at 9am on Wednesday morning, it was blue bird. Obviously our plan was to head straight to the top of the peak and take the tram up (which is the only way to get to the top. Unfortunately, this seemed to be everyone's plan because we waited on the tram line for 45 minutes. Brutal. And I must admit that I felt a bit intimidated by the Big Sky locals. They all had avy gear with them. As if nothing in bounds was worth riding (which is not true), or that an avalanche could happen at any moment (eh...sorta true, especially since we awoke to the avy cannons exploding). But we finally made it to the top and having already picked out our route, we headed towards the Turkey shoots. Even though the name suggests that this is a cop out, I can guarantee you that it's a thrilling and steep run. Here is a photo on flickr that shows the route that we took down the chutes of Lone Peak. This was one of the most memorable runs of the week, not only because of the steepness and deepness of the snow, but also this is where we first learned about the jagged rocks that a rider must be conscious of when at Big Sky. I unfortunately took a 4 inch gouge out of my base right to the core AND ripped out part of my edge on this run. It was a gruesome. There is video of it floating around and one the audio the scraping of my board against the jagged rocks can be clearly heard.
We only did the Lone Peak run once and then spent the rest of the day primarily on the Challenger chair on runs such as midnight and ray's ridge. This area had less traffic but still had enough steeps to keep us busy. We called it a day and spent the night trolling around the on mountain village. Our favorite apres ski destination was Yukon Jacks (or something like that). Not as comfortable (or active) as the Trap Bar at Targhee but still did the job.
The next day at Big Sky the conditions were as fresh as the day before. A matter of fact, they were pretty beat up and it was much tougher to find fresh powder to ride. For this reason it was great that we met up with Joe. He's a former roommate of Keith (from the SS Jay ski house) and has been working at Big Sky for several years and is now the manager of the snowboard park. Needless to say him and his buddies had a good inkling of the secret stashes. And, damn, were they fast riders. I really tried my hardest to keep up and I think I did well for a few moments but they were just too fast (though, it definitely reminded me of my days back in Vail with Alex, et al. I did used to ride like that). They also took us to the secret, secret stashes. We were climbing over tree trunks and rocks just to find these spots. I think it was worth it, though, because we got to see more of the mountain rather than just the open chutes as these sections were lower on the mountain (below tree line). I think our favorite runs we did this day were probably the area off the Swifty highspeed, a run call Buffalo Jump. This consisted of some trees the came out into a gully that cruised below the Gondala that wasn't running. We found lots of fresh powder in the tree here as well as some pretty fun kickers and jumps.
Another great reason for hooking up with Joe and friends at Big Sky is that they solidified our next destination, which we had been debating all day long. We had mentioned a small local mountain call Lost Trail about 1.5 hours south of Butte, Montana. They said they were very familiar with it and said we'd MUST make it our next destination. They also clued us in on a hot springs lodge in Jackson Hot Springs, Montana. Which was in the middle of nowhere (as many places out there seem to be) but had lodges for rent for cheap with multiple beds AND a natural springs pool, as well as a restaurant and bar. Sounded good to us! Four hours later we were lying in a olympic size pool filled with natural hot water. Nothing feels better after about a week of riding than lying in a natural hot spring. The cabin they hooked us up with had 4 separate beds, a fireplace, and, well, that was enough. We also got a scrumptious dinner and breakfast - not included, and, well, the service for breakfast was kinda slow.
I would have liked to have gotten moving a bit faster that morning but it was still a good breakfast.
Lost Trail was very different than the other two mountains we had been to. This was a local mountain. It was a family mountain that i would compare to Bellyeare in the Catskills or Watchusetts in Massachusetts. Except that there was some awesome terrain. Lots of the mountain was rather flat and the as a whole was not high or steep, no sections over tree line, but it did have some bowls that were just spectacular. And being that this was a small local hill, there weren't a lot of great riders/skiers here.
So we ended up sessioning this one bowl section (the Hollywood Bowl, see trail map) that had a bunch of drops and small chutes. And each time we went to them the only tracks we saw were our own. Here is a pic of E from Lost Trail. As you can see, the weather on this day was absolute blue bird. This picture of Dan may be the best photo taken all year. The section of the Hollywood Bowl that we kept hitting would get barely any other traffic all day. So each time we went down it, we would just hit our own tracks. And the powder was super deep, while the trees were spread out. This mountain was really like a playground. Lots of drops and tight chutes of various sizes, which we pretty much avoided, except a handful that we felt comfortable doing. Below is a video of a section that we kept sessioning.
Lost Trail - Hollywood Bowl
Lost Trail ended up being one of our last stops, then we headed back to Targhee for one more day of riding, which was quite a memorable day as well because we committed ourselves to session Mary's ridge all day long. This occurred because of a late night bet between Dirt and E, who stated (on video I believe) that he would hike Mary's ridge 4 times the next day.
Unfortunately, because of the previous late night, he did not meet the criteria of the bet and only made it up there once. Dirt, Dan and I ended up doing Mary's three times that day. Which was a very good way to end the vacation.
Had a great time with the guys and hope we get the opportunity to do it again this upcoming season. Thanks for the memories.
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