The Montana Experience
My alarm goes off. It is still dark out. It must be early.
All I know is that it feels too early to be doing this. The next thing that
happens is the most important. I listen for the faint beep from the kitchen
that tells me coffee is ready. I’m not leaving the comfort and warmth of my bed
until the coffee is hot. Most of our tribe prefers French-press or pour over
coffee. But between two of us and a heavy caffeine addiction, a 14-cup drip is just
right, plus its ready by the time I have dragged myself out of bed.
El Nino typically unleashes its furry in the Southwest while
we in Montana end up with dry warmer conditions for the winter months. That has
not been the case so far this winter. We have had pretty spectacular conditions
throughout the mountains of Montana. I live in Missoula, and there has been no
shortage of powder this season, as long as you willing work a little for it. 
The mountains here are not for the faint of heart. Lewis and
Clark traveled these peaks, it nearly killed them then, and it hasn’t changed
much since. The deep ravines filled with thick alder, creek crossings, and traveling
up, over or around downed logs, fallen from age or fire, make for challenging
travel to say the least. But if you are able to persevere and get past the
route finding and up onto the ridgelines, you will be rewarded with beautiful
rugged landscapes as far as the eye can see. And if you are lucky and the
mountains allow, you might even get to ski your original objective.
Josh and I ski during most of our free time in the
winter. We ski everything from resort groomers to steep remote couloir in the
mountain of Montana. On one particular morning we set out with our good friend Julie to ski off the summit
of Gash point. A prominent peak just west of a tiny town called Victor MT. The
summit sits just below 9000’, giving way to an immense open tree-less bowl.
With the valley covered in white, we couldn’t drive all the
way to the trailhead. This added a few extra miles of skinning on the roads. In
Montana you can count on spending a lot of your time on forest service roads.
After what felt like hours of contouring along the road, we reached the
entrance to our ridge. We broke trail up the ridge. We got a glimpse of our
Peak and it gives you an extra boost of energy to keep going.
We were breaking trail in knee-deep powder though low angle
tress, assessing the snow pack. With recent snowfall we hoped to ski the main
shoot off the summit, but these perfectly spaced tress with 12-16 inches of
fresh cold smoke wouldn’t be a bad contingency plan.
After 5 hours of
climbing and never feeling like we were getting anywhere we made it. The snow
was stable, the clouds cleared and we had a rare opportunity to see our line,
knowing it was safe and we were able to rip down 2000’ vertical feet of open
alpine bowl. The cold smoke blew into our faces and we giggled like schoolgirls
as made out way down.
When skiing in the backcountry it is usually lower angle
gladded areas that we are skiing due to avalanche danger. But the stars
aligned for us today and we had one of the best ski days of the season.
