Storm Turns on the North Side

Today was a good day to be at Moonlight Basin. Wait, let me rephrase that... Today was a great day to be at Moonlight Basin. After skiing a couple laps off Big Sky Resort's tram, I thought I'd found the deepest powder of the day on the South Face of Lone Peak. Riding solo, I spun back around to the tram line, where I heard the teensiest murmuring of face shots on the north side. Quietly I waited to load my car, with a recently hatched plan to assault the North Summit with fellow local Wild Bill. Our wait at the summit was brief, as it tends to be on low-viz days. After signing out, we sideslipped down the snow fences, bypassing the entrance to Big Sky's Big Couloir, and regrouped at the top of the Snowfield. The visibility was vertigo-inducing. I cautiously made my way off the ramp into the skier's right side, where I was greeted by a blast of snow to my face. Then another, and another, and another, until my face and goggles were packed with snow. Oh well, I thought...Nothing to see today anyways, except kaBLAM! Snow in my face, and POOF, more snow in my face. We met up again at the bottom of the snowfield, and the stoke was mutual. Upper Tears somehow had no tracks in it, so I dropped in and was instantly rewarded with my deepest turns of the day. Lower Direct came and went all too quickly, and before I knew it I was at the meeting trees where Wild Bill was waiting. "Go for another?" Bill asked. "Hell yeah!" I replied, digging snow out of my collar and temples. We rallied around to the Six Shooter, up the Headwaters chair, down the LRT to Big Sky's triple chair, and raced for the tram line, knowing we'd catch the last sign-out slot if we were lucky.  The clouds still hung heavy in the air as we ascended to the summit of Lone Peak, signing out at exactly 2:30 PM.   Round 2 proved even better as the clouds lifted, showing off all the untracked pow still left. We beelined down Rips and over to the same area. Hero turns all the way to the meeting trees once again. As we made our way out the drainage, I couldn't help but think to myself, this is what I live for.

Closing the Books on 2012

As 2012 draws to a close, I think about all the things that have happened in my life, and in the lives of my family, friends and loved ones. It's been quite a roller coaster, to say the least, with amazing highlights interlaced with devastating tragedies. While I am extremely happy and excited with the upward turn in my ski career, and the life-saving heart transplant my father received on March 9th, I am saddened yet inspired to write about three very close, influential friends, all of which were taken far too soon. I dedicate 2012 to Jim Jack, Tamara Guttman, and Bob Marlin.

In February an avalanche at Stevens Pass took the lives of 3 amazing people, one of them my friend Jim Norm Jack. I had met JimJack in Red Mountain in 2007 at my first ever big mountain competition. His easy smile, tranquil demeanor, and endless encouragement made it easy to believe I had the ability to do things I'd never before thought I could do on skis. He made everyone feel like they belonged to something special, a close-knit community of rippers who continue to push the limits of freeskiing. I'll never forget taking Jim on his first run down the Headwaters at Moonlight Basin in 2010. He was there scouting the venue as a potential Freeskiing World Tour event. The conditions were less than ideal, but that didn't stop Jimmy from smiling ear to ear as we descended Jack Creek. He would not make it to see the FWT come to Moonlight Basin this past March. The impression he made in the skiing world will never be forgotten...

 

"I Jump for Jim Jack." Wish you were still here, buddy.

 

Also at the 2007 Red Mountain event I met an energetic, hysterically funny, slighly loony gal named Tamara Guttman. Seconds after crossing the finish line of my first run, she ran up to me with a radiant smile on her face and a freshly cracked PBR for me, threw her arms around me and said, "Yeah Montana! You killed it!" I thought to myself, who IS this chick? Having grown up ski racing, I rarely saw this kind of comeraderie out of my competitiors, but for Tamara this was the norm. On our final day of competing she was the first one to ski, and the last one to leave the finish line of the venue. She waited in the looming, frigid shade of Mount Roberts for each and every woman to come down, and rewarded them all with a huge smile and an encouraging holler. She would go on to become my favorite travel companion to competitions; always smiling, always charging hard, a beam of sunshine on the cloudiest of days. In 2008 she was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer, which she fought with the same tenacity she had always applied to her skiing. Tamara put up one hell of a fight until the very end, when the cancer finally claimed her life on July 8.

"I Ski for T"... Miss you so much my tiny warrior friend.

In 2011 I made plans for some summer turns over 4th of July weekend in the Beartooth Mountain Range with my friend Ken, who had come up from Colorado with Bob Marlin and his beautiful, awesome family. We spent the weekend hiking Rock Creek and Gardiner Headwalls with Bob's 6-year old son, Hank, who is by far the youngest person I have ever been in the backcountry with. Bob and his wife Keely made me feel like I was part of the family from day one, and took me in every time I passed through Denver. People who give like this do not deserve to leave this planet the way Bob did.  On July 19th he died in a motorcycle accident in Colorado, forever leaving a gaping hole in the hearts of all who were blessed to know him.

 

"Until we ride again..." I miss you like hell, Bob. I am so sorry for your family's loss.
 

The new year will surely bring new goals, new aspirations, new friends, and new memories, but I will never forget the people who have helped me become the person I am today...Thank you, Jim Norm Jack. Thank you, Tamara Guttman. Thank you, Bob Marlin. I hope you're all partying together upstairs. I charge fearlessly into the new year with your spirits in my heart, and will never forget you.

Moonlight Basin 2012-2013: Best. Opening Day. EVER.

It was the kind of ski day you dream about; the kind of day you wish you could have every day you ski. The snow had fallen straight down overnight, letting Montana's famous "one-percent cold smoke" flakes stack up on top of each other like intricate building blocks. A complete lack of wind on lower mountain helped the fragile piles of snow grow thigh to waist deep in spots. When the rope dropped at 9 AM, powder panic quickly transformed into powder bliss, as skiers and riders loaded up the Iron Horse chair and spread themselves around the mountain. I beelined for Lone Tree chair, where a gentle northwest breeze had borrowed snow from higher elevations and deposited it on Lone Tree Face. As I rode up, I watched giddy skiers and riders submerge themselves in blower powder; emerge, their face white with snow; and re-submerge again. Hoots and hollers could be heard from all directions as I neared the top, re-igniting my powder panic. I scrambled through the deep snow to a gladed section, where the panic subsided into frosty delirium. Turn after turn blew big fat flakes into my face, blinding me for just a split second. I shook it off, spit out a big mouthful of snow, and dove in again. Over and over this cycle repeated until I hit the cat track at the bottom. Lap after lap accrued until I thought I could take no more, until I looked at the clock. Huh. It was only10:15 am, and I already had 6 Lone Tree laps under my belt. Time to check out the rest of the mountain, I figured. The long laps from Lone Tree down to the 6 Shooter chair had just opened one after the next; Whiskey Trees, Broken Heart, Shaftway... spent on my 24th day of skiing this season, I staggered into the Moonlight Lodge to warm up in front of the majestic stone fireplace. The murmurings from folks riding at neighboring Big Sky Resort indicated that it was epic there as well.

Never had I experienced such amazing snow conditions anywhere on opening day; nor had I even dreamed that it could be this good. We're just getting started with this ski season, folks... it's going to be a great season in Southwest Montana. Thank you Moonlight Basin! Bring it on, Winter! http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151286900559281&set=a.130840134280.94738.53242774280&type=1&theater

Winter Has Arrived!

It's snowing. Big, fat flakes swirl around outside my window as the wind figures out where to set them for the first time. Wherever they land the first time will likely not be their final resting place. That's the really neat thing about the snow in Southwest Montana. It'll accumulate, rest, get fluffed back up by the wind, redistributed, blown out, blown back in, sometimes blown away, but always somewhere. The snow that loaded the A to Zs that one Sunday probably blew over the ridge into the Headwaters to be reclaimed by another on Monday. Montana's 3% Cold Smoke is notorious for behaving this way. It's moisture content is so low, and creates flakes so light, that it's no match for the sometimes hurricane-force winds the peaks receive. Those 9" of blower you skied today? The wind will turn that into 4" of cream cheese tomorrow. Maybe not right where you found it on the first day, but it'll be out there. It's always somewhere, just waiting to be found. Powder days last 3-4 days in these parts.


 

Warning: this is the only place I've ever skier chest-deep pow and still blasted rocks underfoot. Powder hunting, while occasionally euphoria-inducing, may take its toll on your sticks. Take it in stride; it's all part of the game.

90 Days and Counting...

The end of August is upon us. The winds in Big Sky's Mountain Village grow ever stronger with the smell of winter, mixed in with the smoke from the fires in nearby Idaho. It is clear once I step outside that summer is definitely over at higher elevations. While people in other parts of the country scramble to enjoy their last-minute summer vacations and get their back-to-school shopping done, I watch the seasons already evolving, obsessed with the cooling fall weather. With each degree lost in the daily forecast, my excitement and anticipation grows. The nighttime temps will soon drop below freezing, and I will look out my window to see the landscape delicately adorned with frost. Gym sessions become more compulsory, and "it's too nice out to go to the gym" no longer applies as a valid excuse. Soon it will be time. My skis stand in the corner of my tiny studio apartment, patiently waiting to be slung over my shoulder for the short walk to Big Sky Resort's base area. The ski dreams come regularly nowadays. People I haven't seen since the end of last ski season start to come out of the woodwork, sparking vivid memories of powder days past... Cold Smoke, White Room, Blower Pow. Soon the mountains will echo once again with the sound of the stoked; high fives being slapped after a 2000 foot descent of Lone Peak; the inevitable "YYYEEEEAAAAHHH" of friends relishing in face shots, core shots, and whiskey shots. Soon my alarm clock will be the Shoveler outside my door; the scrapes of plastic on wood hinting at me in the wee hours of the morning that it snowed last night, and it's time to get moving. It won't be long now.