Jay Silveira
New member
Our dry spell is becoming a distant memory, with between 3 and 4 feet of new accumulation since it broke a couple weeks ago. With Lost Trail picking up 25 inches of new snow since chair 4 closed the previous Sunday, everyone knew that it was going to be simply outstanding when it reopened. E was up at Lost Trail on Friday with her 5th grade class, and reported that a lot of snow fell during the day. She said that the snow was a bit heavy, but this was just what the chair 4 (Saddle Mountain) terrain needed to cover up the wind scoured areas. As a bonus, a cold front came through on Friday night to change the rain over to snow in the valley, and lighten up the snow in the mountains. This would hopefully put the icing on the cake for a great ski day. <BR> <BR>I arrived 30 minutes before opening, although it turned out this was hardly necessary. Once chair 1 started loading, I high-tailed it over to chair 4 with a few other eager powderhounds, and we had to wait anyway. Usually I take a few runs on the main mountain while Lost Trail gets things going on the chair 4 terrain, but somehow the word got out that chair 4 would actually open on time. As it turned out, things went as slowly as usual, so the whole whopping four of us in the lineup (if you can call four people a lift lineup) had to wait. The initial estimate was 15 minutes, but it ended up being more like 45. During that time I made the acquaintance of my lift partner, Todd? (I think), who works for the forest service, and the telemarker behind us, John, the sports editor for our local paper, the Ravalli Republic. After the 45 minutes of waiting, the lineup had finally ballooned to a dozen or so people, but that’s still a relatively small crew to cover hundreds of acres of terrain. At around 10:30, they started loading, and it sounded like the wait was well worth it. The woman in front of us in line was one of the lift ops, and she had her radio on listening to the patrol during our wait. The word was that Hollywood Bowl was in good shape (coverage was good, and snow stability was good) so they were going to open it. It looked like Saddle Mountain was going to be open wall to wall for the first time this season… it was going to be a great day. <BR> <BR>We unloaded at the summit, and the four of us got the first tracks down “The Slot”. The snow was excellent, the top six inches being around 5% H2O with no bottom that I could detect. My plan was to hit the new trail, Super G, since they were still finishing the preparation for the Hollywood Bowl area. I stopped to take a couple of photos, and Todd headed off with the others in the direction of Super G. We had planned to meet back up on the trail, but I skied the whole thing and never saw Todd. I figured he must have jumped off into the woods. Super G was in great shape though. They had groomed a bit in the middle, but much of the trail was untracked. I caught some great high-speed powder turns down the steep pitch at the end. For my next run, I headed in the general direction of Super G again, but jumped into some of the trees. I took it a little easy off trail since I wasn’t sure about the base, but the coverage was excellent and I didn’t hit a thing. <BR> <BR>On the next run, I met up with John in the lift line, and we were just in time to catch the opening of Hollywood Bowl. From watching the bowl in previous weeks, I figured the best coverage would be on the skier’s right side, where I’d seen good snow accumulating, and backcountry skiers laying tracks. I caught a great line through bottomless powder, and pulled to a stop above the three patrollers at the bottom. They seemed to be enjoying themselves, especially one patroller who’d never even been in the bowl before. John and I continued on down below the bowl, picking any line we wanted since it was just the patrollers in front of us. Things were generally on par with the opening of Hollywood Bowl last year, although I think coverage is not quite where it was last year at opening (February 2nd, 2003). People who came down the left side of the bowl did seem to catch a few rocks. A couple more storms are needed to fill in those areas, but now that snow is down over the ground, hopefully new snow will stick well. <BR> <BR>John had to head to work, so I decided something off the Bear Claw Ridge would be a good way for him to head back on his next run. We jumped into the trees off the south side of the ridge, and he was able to get a final dose of powder on his way to the main base. I on the other hand, had more exploring to do off chair 4, so back I went. This time, I met back up with Todd, and we decided to head to the left of the bowl to find some totally untouched lines. In the next few runs, we scored some amazing shots through these trees, each time choosing a slightly different route, and finding vast stretches that hadn’t even seen a track (all year). These runs were by far my favorites of the day as I got to lay out nice arcs in the widely spaced trees on steep terrain. We even discovered a totally new (to us) chute in the middle of the Elk Basin flats. We were poking around in an area that doesn’t have much pitch, when suddenly the ground dropped away and we were in a secret hidden chute. I’ve certainly got to find that one again when my friends come out in a couple of weeks. <BR> <BR>I’ll have to chalk Saturday up as my best day of the year. Over two feet of fresh snow and the opening of the steepest terrain off chair 4 are hard to beat. On Sunday, the snow phone reported just a trace of new snow, although people who went out said that was an error, because there were 6-8 inches of new powder! That will certainly help to cover some of the rocks remaining in the Hollywood Bowl area. This week has been pretty dry, but hopefully we can return to a moist pattern soon. At least we haven’t had any more inversions yet. <BR> <BR>A few pictures from the day can be found at: <BR> <BR><A HREF="http://www.JandEproductions.com/2004/31JAN04.html" TARGET="_top">http://www.JandEproductions.com/2004/31JAN04.html</A> <BR> <BR>J.Spin