Jay Silveira
New member
My plan was to ski only one day this weekend so I could get some work done, but I wanted to pick the best day of the two with regard to powder. From the forecast, it looked like Sunday would be the day, with 12-20 inches predicted for the Clearwater and Bitterroot Mountains. It meant I'd miss the chance to ski with Derek or board with Andy on Saturday, but other factors came into play to make Sunday the way to go. The report for Saturday morning was 3 inches new, and Derek reported that it continued to dump all day. Sunday we awoke to 11 new inches at the ski area, and it was nice to see things had worked out like the forecast predicted. <BR> <BR>Since E had to miss a number of days last season due to the birth of Tyler, and will also likely miss part of this year's ski trip out to central Montana, she's got well deserved dibs on first tracks for the foreseeable future. Once we got to Lost Trail, I didn't want to wait in line to take care of my season's pass formalities, so I went inside and they took care of things without getting my picture taken. I handed the ticket off to E, and out she went. I'll try to let her give an account of the runs she took, but I do know that she was awe struck as she stood atop an untracked Moose Creek, wondering where everyone was. I do recall explicatives like "perfect" and "amazing" being somewhere in her description. I hung out with Tyler in the lodge, and we had fun walking around, hanging out by the fire, and eating some free crackers from another dad and his son (well, HE ate the gift food, I just sort of sat and watched). <BR> <BR>Sometime around 11:30 or so, it was my turn to ski. On my first lift ride up Chair 1, I got to watch some guys doing great jumps off a big rock on North Face. I saw a couple of back flips by skiers, and a nice barrel roll by a snowboarder. I guess Lost Trail has no problem with inverts, and I was very tempted to go and try a back flip on what looked like a perfect jump for it. Still, I had no helmet, and a packed out landing zone was probably not a great place for my first attempt. So, I headed down South Face, and cut underneath to watch a few more jumps. The snow was cut up powder by this point on South Face, but super soft on the steep terrain. The jumping had moved on to other locales, so I finished off my run in some of the powder in the trees under the chair, and planned my next move. <BR> <BR>For my second run, it was the standard entrance to Moose Creek, far right. This area usually avoids tracks for quite a while and it didn't disappoint. I got a taste of what E had skied, a light coating of powder (~ 6 inches or so) above more dense snow that must have fallen at slightly warmer temperatures. I then headed to Moose Creek again, this time heading through the woods under the Bitterroot National Forest sign at the summit. This entrance offers a good stretch of low angle trees that are almost always untracked, and then dumps you into the upper reaches of Moose Creek after passing over a forest road. The only people you generally see here are guys building kickers out of the way in fresh snow, and that's what I saw. Just two snowboarders building a jump, leaving me with a big field of powder. I cut the corners of the traverses on my way back to Chair 2, and got more great powder shots along the way. I suspected the right side of Bruce's Meadow would still be untracked, and I discovered it was on my next run. As usual, lots of snow had settled in there, and I got to launch one of my favorite airs into the powder. I finished the run off by hitting the right side of lightning, catching the sections of untouched powder that remained in and out of the trees. <BR> <BR>Having gotten a pretty good dose of powder, it was time for some steeps. I wasn't sure if the steep stuff would be open since it was only the first weekend of operation, but with a base of something like 55 inches, even the steeps were well covered and ready to go. I took the entrance to Slides, and got mixed up as I usually do on the first few times finding the top of the run. Eventually I traversed my way in, and found that the snow was superb. One of these days though, I want to catch one of these steep runs with fresh powder, they must be amazing. I traversed over to Femur Ridge and found a number of folks ready to go off the cliff band. A couple of crazy telemark skiers went off first. I say crazy because they went off without even checking out the landing zone (we had a spotter, but they didn't check things out with regard to what THEY were in for). They were also pretty crazy because they went right off the highest point at speed. At speed it's probably a 15 foot drop with 20 feet of distance, onto a pretty steep slope. Needless to say, they were haulin' when they landed, far beyond the speed at which they seemed to be in control. The first guy crashed after straight lining for maybe 50 yards and trying to hold on, the second guy basically crashed right on his landing. They were both pretty horrendous crashes, but the guys were OK. Still, I'm amazed at what some people will dive into. It's one thing to crash in a big landing of powder, but another to go down on a steep, somewhat packed surface. The third guy had a helmet on, and looked pretty serious. He went off, and it looked like he was going for a 720. He was rotating really quickly, but landed in a 540 position and went down pretty hard. I wasn't until then that I realized HE was on telemark skis as well. Those crazy telemarkers! Once everyone was reassembled I hit the jump, although with nowhere near the speed those guys had done. But, at least I landed it with some control. I still had to scrub off some speed, but overall I was happy with the landing. <BR> <BR>I decided to go for one more run and hit another one of the steep trails, Outlaw. Once again I navigated incorrectly to find the entrance and had to traverse around a bit. Once I found it though, it was in good shape. Last year, the whole thing slid with a couple feet of snow on it, going right down to the ground. I finished off the run with another jump off Femur Ridge and decided to call it a day. It was certainly a great first day out for the lift-serviced season. Snow remains in the forecast for the next week, although it looks like accumulations might be slowing down a bit compared the snowfall we've had for the past few weeks. <BR> <BR>J.Spin