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 [...]
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 [...]
Sunrise at Mammoth Hot Springs
On the epic date of 11/11/11 I woke up wicked early and drove down to Yellowstone to attempt to shoot the sunrise at Mammoth Hot Springs. I was a little late because of a slow rancher, but still caught some cool light. This whole area has tons of potential for sunrises as the dead calm [...]
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 [...]
Grand Prismatic Spring & New Camera
I finally got the shot of the Grand Prismatic Spring that I’ve been looking to get for a couple of months. Walking along the bike path from the Fairy Falls trailhead, I followed a worn path up a steep hillside into a ridge overlooking the Midway Geyser Basin. The view was tremendous and I took [...]
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, [...]
Western Yellowstone
I’m going to try and make a trip down to Yellowstone National Park a weekly event. This past Friday I drove back to Gardiner and headed west from Mammoth towards Old Faithful. This section of park road that runs from Mammoth towards Old Faithful is, so far, my favorite stretch in the park. It starts with the [...]
The Lamar Valley
Last Saturday I drove down into Yellowstone National Park and out into the Lamar Valley looking for some wildlife. Along the way I stopped at Tower Fall and the Petrified Tree. I saw a ton of buffalo and some elk on the lawn in Mammoth. Hopefully as fall progresses and it gets colder more of [...]
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 [...]
Driving from Montana to Massachusetts
I study at Montana State University in Bozeman, MT and summer on Cape Cod. This means that I’m lucky enough to get to drive across the country twice per year. Last spring, starting in mid-May I left Bozeman and drove for seven days back to the Cape. I always try and stop and see National [...]
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 [...]
“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 [...]
