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 [...]
1.21.2012 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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
“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.
Big Sunset
The sunset at the end of the day today was stunning. Patrol training finished at around 5:30 and as I walked out into the parking lot, the sky lit up. I snapped a few pictures and a panorama and then tried to drive down to my pre-scouted sunset location. By the time I got to [...]
Snow in Big Sky
This weekend was the Big Sky Ski Patrol Medical Refresher. I spent all weekend, from 8am on Saturday until 4:30PM on Sunday running scenarios and listening to lectures from doctors and patrollers. It was a really interesting weekend, a great chance to get back into the swing of things EMT-wise, and a good break from [...]
Big Sky Mosaic
There are alot more pictures coming as finals wrap up and I have more and more time to update this site, but I’ll start out with this teaser. Tim and I had the run(s) of our lives at Big Sky over Easter Weekend. We hopped in line for about 15th chair on the Lone Peak [...]
Big Sky Ripping
I posted briefly a while ago with a panorama taken at Big Sky on the last week of February. The post detailing our run is here and the rest of the pictures are below. Tucker at the end of the traverse scoping out our line Skiing above The Bowl and Turkey Traverse Tucker charging down [...]
Big Sky Briefly
Tucker and I skied Big Sky on Saturday and made all of one run during the three and a half hours we were there. We took lifts to the top of Lone Peak and then skied down the Otter Traverse to the top of the Dictator Chutes. We put tracks down one of these chutes [...]
First Week In Montana
This first week has been pretty good. I could have done without the Lyme Disease/Miniscus Tear (still not sure yet) that resulted in my massively swollen knee and no hiking or biking, but whatever. I’m not gonna complain about a day spent whitewater rafting or lounging around at the Madison River, either. The weather has [...]
