Jay Silveira
New member
Today I headed back up to Lost Trail to hit a couple of powder stashes that I'd been eyeing yesterday. As I'd been making runs on Chair 3 (Huckleberry Lift), I kept looking up from the Candy Stick trail at loads of barely tracked snow. Off the eastern end of the Bear Claw Ridge, some of the new trails drop right down to Candy Stick, and this was the terrain I had seen. Because of their position, I thought it might be possible to ski them without even dropping down to Chair 3, thus saving a lot of time in the circuit. <BR> <BR>I rode chair 1 and took the usual route out to the (current) ski area boundary at Oreo. I was surprised to see numerous "Closed" signs all over the place at the boundary. This was strange, since Lost Trail has always been fine with people hiking up to the Bear Claw Ridge. I convinced myself that patrol had put up the signs for some other reason, (which I later found out they had) and headed up. I could tell from the position of the trails that I would probably be able to take the low traverse across Lower Oreo into the woods (the special traverse thankfully discovered by Chris Keeler) which would mean the hike was cut down by more than half. As I made the traverse, I could see that even at this latitude, the south-facing snow was getting a bit baked. The usual snowfields off the south side of the ridge had a sun crust, and conditions looked generally thin and uninviting. I had just waxed my fat skis, so I was traveling a bit faster than the speed for which the traverse was designed. Still, scrubbing speed is generally easier than having to pole along. After making some choices at various traverse forks, I came out atop the ridge still shy of my destination. I continued along, taking a look at some of the available cornice drops off the north side of the ridge, but trying to stay focused on getting to the end. There were some tracks off the cornices and down into the woods, but there were still a lot of untracked entrances. <BR> <BR>Finally, I came to the trails I had been seeking. At the time, I didn't know the names (there aren't any signs yet anyway) but these were the trails I had seen. The two trails began as one field of powder, and then diverged after about 50 yards. I jumped in and found that the snow was light and bottomless; certainly some of the best powder turns I've had all season. Although it had a few more tracks, I took the trail to the right (Lynx) to make sure that I could get back to the Boomer Lift. As the pitch increased, the turns got even better, and the fat skis were doing their thing. This snow was well angled out of the sun, so there was no fear of crust or poor coverage. After cranking turns down Lynx, I shot across Candy Stick, through the trees, and right over to the bottom of the Boomer Lift for a quick ride. Chock up another powder seeking navigational success! <BR> <BR>In a little while, I found myself approaching the boundary for another round, and stopped as I saw a patroller standing at the usual boundary exit area. I usually like to tuck down the edge of Speedway to gain maximum speed and get a jump on the hike, but I wasn't about to warp past the patrol in an area with all those closed signs, even if they pertained to something else. I decided to stop and talk to the patroller and see what was up with the signs. He said that hiking to the ridge was fine; they just had the signs up since there was still avalanche risk and people should know that they are on their own when outside the boundary. I told him that I was just hitting some of the trails off the ridge, well out of any avalanche zones, and he seemed to feel that was a good idea. As it turns out, the patrol were grouping up for a trip up to Saddle Mountain to check on avalanche conditions, coverage, and all that sort of stuff that patrollers do before they open an area. They were going to catch a tow by snowmobile (yesterday I saw a group of 5 getting a lift up) with no hiking required. There's almost 2000 vertical feet of untracked powder just sitting up there, oh the perks of being on patrol. I assume they had plenty of obligations in addition to simply testing the terrain before the public, but I'm sure they got some great turns as well. The patroller really loved the CMH fat skis, and we talked about them for a few minutes before I headed up for my hike. Instead of stopping for the low traverse, I continued all the way to the top of the ridge, contemplating a run down the north side. Once at the top, I could see that they had groomed much of Elk Basin, but I could easily get fresh tracks all the way down. <BR> <BR>I jumped in to skiers left and gradually gained speed until I was slicing big arcs through the powder. The fats were the perfect tools for the job. As I dropped lower, I cut to the left to ski a steeper offshoot, but found it had more tracks, so I cut back onto the main part of Elk Basin. It had been so long since I'd skied the whole trail without stopping for some reason (filming, exploring etc.), that I'd forgotten how long it was. This was one of those rare occasions where the run didn't end way to soon, sometimes a warped memory works to my advantage. I checked my altimeter and found that I'd just dropped about 800 vertical in that last pop. <BR> <BR>As with most of the terrain on this side of the ridge, it is protected from the sun and wind, and the snow had settled beautifully. The top surface of the snow had a thin coating of these really big crystals, somewhere in the 1/4 to 1/2 inch diameter range, which made it sparkle like crazy. I'm not sure if this layer fell on top of the bulk of snow from the Wednesday storm, or formed over time as atmospheric conditions changed, but it was really interesting. It only existed in wind-sheltered areas, since any trace of wind seemed to grab it and send it elsewhere. Below this layer was standard light Montana powder, a bit settled since Wednesday of course, but still in great shape. Somewhere down below, the layers gradually got heavier, making for an overall bottomless feeling. <BR> <BR>After finishing Elk Basin, I shuffled up a short incline to get to Main Street and see if any powder was left from yesterday. The chowder that had been there was all skier packed and wind blasted, and the areas that were untracked on the sides had also been hit by the wind. I cut through the woods over to Side Street in the hopes that it was in better shape, but found a similar setup. Even the trees along the edges were getting tracked up by this point. I ran into a couple of patrollers who were working on getting all the names of the trails correct in this area. I guess there are a few areas of discrepancy that need to be worked out. I hit chair 3 and was on my way for another lap. <BR> <BR>I didn't see any need to head back down and hit Side Street or Main Street in their current condition, so I took the short hike and hit the early traverse. This time, my goal was to check out the next trail off the Bear Claw Ridge to the left of Lynx (Bobcat). I followed the main traverse this time when I came to forks, and found that it also dumped me out right at the top of the trails. Obviously someone knows the best route to this part of the ridge. Although Bobcat begins to angle around more to the north side of the ridge, I was still hoping to be able to get back to the Boomer Tow on the south side. This would be the next test in how far around I could go and still get back without going down to Chair 3. Right at the beginning of the field where the trails converged, I found a nice air and got my only face shot of the day. Dropping into Bobcat, I could feel that it was somewhat steeper than Lynx to the right, and the snow felt a little deeper. As I approached the bottom of the right side near the trees, the snow had blown in and it got significantly deeper, at least enough to throw my rhythm and make me readjust my turns. These were definitely the deepest turns of the day, easily 1-2 feet of light snow, and I don't know where the bottom was. I once again rocketed out onto Candy Stick and set a path for the bottom of the Boomer Lift. It took a little shuffling, but it was still well within range. I decided to call it a day, and skied right past Boomer and into the parking lot where my car was waiting. Exploration has yielded some more good options for powder. It will be interesting to see what happens when chair 4 opens and the Bear Claw Ridge can be accessed without a hike; it's still a tough traverse that will keep many people away, but any unearned terrain has a way of getting eaten up quickly. <BR> <BR>J.Spin