1.29.2012 Big Sky
It’s been an unnaturally warm, windy, and dry winter in southwest Montana. Pre-season, the weather guys couldn’t stop talking about how this “La Nina” winter was going to bring more banner snowfall, cold temps, and winter conditions to much of the northwestern part of the country. That prediction has failed miserably. Bridger Bowl has received 88″ of [...]
1.27.2012 Bridger Bowl
Bridger was eerily similar to the East Coast today. The snow on the lower mountain was very heavy and wind-affected. Anywhere that the wind was able to scour was scraped down to hardpack and was almost unskiable. I hiked up B-Route once to Sluice Box. It was a gorgeous bluebird day and the views from the top of [...]
1.22.2012 Bridger Bowl
I drove up to Bridger Bowl this morning for my first day there this season. It snowed for a while overnight and Bridger was reporting 7″ this morning. Conditions were very soft, deep in places, and rocky in places. South Bowl was a minefield with good snow covering bare rocks. I only managed to ski one run before the power went out to all of Bridger Canyon. I was halfway up Pierre’s Knob and made it to the top on the diesel backup.
1.21.2012 Big Sky
Driving up Gallatin Canyon on my way to work this morning, I was despondent. at 6:30 AM the temperature was 42F and it was pouring rain. Very much par for the course for this winter. Last week a strong storm pounded Montana, delivering record snowfall in most of the major cities. Bozeman and the surrounding [...]
2011 Year in Review
Prompted by this thread over at the New School of Photography, I put together a set of pictures summarizing 2011 month-by-month. I tried to pick images that represent what that month was for me. It’s a mix of cell-phone shots and more serious, though-out shots. Not all of them have been processed and sharpened so [...]
Big Sky 12.11.2011
View Big Sky 12-11-2011 in a larger map I skied another couple of hours at Big Sky this afternoon. The snow is getting harder and drier as it sits in the sun without getting refreshed. We need snow badly! Despite the lack of new snow, Patrol keeps opening more terrain. Friday Thunderwolf opened with man-made snow on Elk [...]
Quick Shot of the Southern Bridger Range
I took this shot of the sun setting on the southern Bridger Range while I was out testing lens and camera combinations for the eclipse on Saturday.
Big Sky 12.4.2011
View Big Sky 2011-12-04 in a larger map Quick test of the video recording capability of the iPhone 4S…full 1080p video from a phone! 5-7″ of fresh, very low density snow fell on Big Sky overnight and when I finally made it to the mountain at around 1:30PM everyone I talked to on the lift [...]
Bangtail Hike 12.4.2011
Last Monday I took a quick hike up into the Bangtail Range to scout out locations for the recent lunar eclipse. The Bangtails are a small rolling range that sits across Bridger Canyon from the much taller Bridger Mountains. My plan was to find a place to camp out for the night where I would [...]
Big Sky 12.2.2011
View BIg Sky 2011-12-02 in a larger map Today was my first day of skiing for the 2011-2012 Ski Season. We’ve had a very dry and dangerous early season in southwest Montana. A couple early season storms left a nice layer of facets that’s present just about everywhere. This deep instability has made backcountry skiing [...]
Cyclocross Weekend Highlights
I shot over 2000 pictures this past weekend, culled those 2000 down to about 450 that I posted in my race galleries, and of those 450 I have three that are my favorites. This guy was a total badass. He had the best moustache of the entire race, no question. I’m really happy with this [...]
Mulecross & MTCX State Championships
This past weekend was full of cyclocross in Bozeman. Saturday was the third running of Team Muleterro‘s Mulecross race. As usual, the race had a killer course, great costumes, and hilarious announcers. Sunday was the first running of the MTCX State Championships, hosted by GAS/Intrinsik Cycling. Their course had challenging technical sections, a spooky barn, [...]
Cooke City
On the 14th I drove back into Yellowstone and all the way across the Lamar Valley to Cooke City. I was vaguely disappointed with the affair. I woke up really early with the hope of shooting sunrise over the Paradise Valley. The day was so grey that there was no sunrise. The sky gradually went from black [...]
Sypes Canyon Story Mill Super Loop
Today I went back out on the bike and linked up one of Bozeman’s more well-known climbs and a new one that I, at least, haven’t heard too much about. This route goes out-of-town on US 86 towards Bridger Bowl, takes a left turn onto Story Mill Rd, climbs to Rolling Hill Rd, and descends [...]
Sypes Canyon Road Ride
Phew. Yesterday I left my house around 4pm for a road ride and headed out Highway 86 to Story Mill Road. Story Mill heads north from 86 towards the Sypes Canyon area of North Bozeman and climbs steeply through some rolling hills. Last week it dead-ended at a road that was under construction. This road, [...]
Gooch Hill Sunset
Gooch Hill rises out of the farmland of the southwestern outskirts of Bozeman and provides a decent vantage point for capturing the light of sunrise or sunset hitting the Bridger Range. I drove out to Gooch Hill and took some shots this evening. I can’t wait for some snow on the Bridgers to really reflect [...]
Late Season Skiing at Bridger Bowl
I started my 2010-2011 Ski Season at Bridger Bowl way back on October 27th. Eight months of skiing later, I finished my season in the same place. View Late Season Skiing at Bridger Bowl – May 11, 2011 in a larger map Supposedly, the mountains picked up 1-2 feet of fresh snow earlier this week [...]
The Big Sky
Sometimes the scale of the mountains in Montana absolutely blows me away. This panorama was shot on the road to the Beehive Basin trailhead looking across the valley to Lone Peak and the surrounding mountains. Adobe‘s Content Aware Fill can really make panoramas a lot easier. In this case, I didn’t capture as much of [...]
Big Sky in April
My brother Dan flew out to Bozeman this past week. He’s been chomping at the bit to get out here and ski ever since I moved here. I think he was probably more excited than I was when I picked MSU. We skied at Big Sky for four days and had great weather, tons of [...]
2011 Bobcat Classic
The 2011 Bobcat Classic was this past weekend at the Lewis & Clark Caverns near Whitehall, MT. Multiple teams from all over the Pacific Northwest showed up for the race. The course followed the rolling, beautiful state highways around the caverns, looping through Cardwell, and back to the Caverns through a notch. The race finished [...]
“Spring” Skiing
Spring in Bozeman has brought us several back-to-back snow storms that have dumped several feet of snow in the mountains and in town. April 8 in Bozeman It snowed all day and all night and I woke up to easily a foot of snow in Bozeman. The drive up the canyon to Big Sky was [...]
Mad Wolf
5″ or so of cold smoke fell last night and it was a good day to work. I took this picture while ski cutting the Mad Wolf cornice under bluebird skies and had a total “I can’t believe this is my job” moment.
Skiing in Color
I reworked one of my images from the Mt. Blackmore trip and processed it in color instead of black & white. I’ve really been enjoying black & white processing lately, but I thought this was worth sharing too.
Mt. Blackmore Attempt – 2/20/2011
My friend Sam and I set out for Mt. Blackmore last Sunday, hoping to summit and ski some fresh snow. Our snowpack had finally started settling down and we were pretty sure we could and ski Blackmore. Plans change, however. The trail in to Blackmore winds it’s way up from Hyalite Reservoir just south of [...]
