Jay Silveira
New member
Lost Trail only reported 4-5 inches of new snow over the past two days, but it seemed the couple of new inches overnight would make for some nice New Year’s turns. I expected the slopes to be pretty empty for the first couple of hours as well. I brought out the Betacarves again, this time with the intention of letting them run on the groomed. Temperatures had remained cool (20 F at opening) and the new snow had fallen light and dry. The groomed surface was nice packed powder, and in places where the groomers had left it alone on their most recent pass, it was 2 inches over a nice groomed base. The Betacarves ate it up (much better than they did the heavy chowder on Sunday afternoon). <BR> <BR>After a few groomed runs, I decided to take my first hike of the season to the Bear Claw Ridge for some powder. Since chair 3 isn’t open yet, the only easy option was to come down the front side of the ridge back to the rope tow. As I stood atop the ridge and looked down the far side, all I could see were acres of untracked powder, nicely protected from the wind. The thought of diving in quickly crossed my mind, but another thought of post-holing or climbing out with skis on soon had me turning back around. My main option was to follow the trail below me back down to the main area, even though this side of the ridge generally got scoured by wind and the powder had been beaten up a bit. Actually, for the first time in my many trips to the ridge, I knew the name of the trail below me: Lower Oreo. With the appearance of the newly-updated Lost Trail Map (<A HREF="http://www.losttrail.com/trailmap.pdf" TARGET="_top">http://www.losttrail.com/trailmap.pdf</A>) many of the mysterious trails in the expansion area suddenly have identity. They call Lower Oreo a green, but it seems to me more like a mild blue. I think the designation may be to ease the fears of beginners returning from the expansion area to the main base. Lower Oreo had some stumps and sticks exposed due to the wind scouring near the ridge, and an area in the middle tracked up from an old backcountry jump setup, but I knew I’d be able to find some good snow. My other main option was to head into the trees and powderfields to the left of the trail, and judging from previous experience, the 30ish inch base might not be quite enough to cover the forest debris. <BR> <BR>I found my course down the right side of the trail, in an area protected from the wind. The powder was a bit heavy, but it felt great to hit some untracked. Soon, as the trail changed direction, I cut across to the left to find the best protected snow, here on one of the steeper grades. From there it was back to the main trail network and a groomed surface. It ended all too quickly as usual, but it was certainly worth a few minutes of hiking. <BR> <BR>Back on lift 1, I noticed that the patrol was getting set to open the steep North Face trail. They had lots of pads to put up, and rope to change around, so it would probably be another few hours. Based on the amount of snow needed to get North Face in good shape, my skis could wait another few days anyway. Today at work I heard that they finally opened the Powder Bowl / Femur Ridge area as well. They took their time due to avalanche conditions, since a renegade snowboarder set off a slide there over the weekend and scared himself pretty silly. It looks like the bulk of the current moisture is hitting northwest Montana and the Idaho panhandle this week, but it’s raining in the Bitterroot Valley tonight so maybe we’ll get in on some of the action to set us up for the weekend. <BR> <BR>J.Spin