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.
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 12.2.2011
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 [...]
Grand Teton Black & Whites
I just got back from another trip to Grand Teton National Park. I spent Friday night camping out on the Gros Ventre Road in the Bridger Teton National Forest and woke up real early for sunrise on Saturday morning. The alpenglow on the Tetons took a while to arrive, but it was spectacular. I’m still [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
SLC
Taken today at Gate D3 at Salt Lake City. I slept through my 6AM flight from Bozeman to Minneapolis this morning and thus ended up flying to Salt Lake instead. I’m on a plane now heading towards Boston. Thursday I head for Hawaii!
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 [...]
First Turns of the Season
Yesterday I cut class and headed up to the mountains. Bridger was crowded, with cars parked all the way down into the second lot. Not bad for the 27th of October. The four of us started hiking up, really wishing we had touring gear. First purchase of the year? I think so. We hiked up [...]
Winter Stoke
Snow has been flying here in Bozeman and the Bridgers have been coated more than once this September. I thought it was time for some winter stoke to get psyched for the coming ski season. This picture is of Sam skiing the meadows above the fingers last October 29th. Here’s hoping that this early season [...]
Yellowstone Last November
I took the photos that I shot last November in northern Yellowstone and reworked them in Lightroom. I have some refreshes of previous photos, and some new ones that I somehow missed when I originally took the pictures. This picture is a rework of a very similar image I took in November. The trees and [...]
Late April
I got a little delayed from my “post-per-day” strategy this last couple days due to the finals in my EMT class. Both the class final and the NREMT practical final were this week, so I was up to my neck in my wonderful EMT textbook. I still got out to shoot some yesterday afternoon during [...]
Mammoth Hot Springs
Another shot from last November in Yellowstone, this time of the actual springs themselves. I personally think Mammoth Hot Springs is almost better in winter, as the contrast between the snowy landscape and the incredibly hot spring water is really striking.
Ridge Skiing – D Route and Z Fan
Tucker and I skied off the ridge at Bridger again this past Wednesday. We took the Slashman’s Chair up, hiked to the top of the ridge, and then traversed north to the south boundary of D Route. There, we dropped down Boundary Chute and crossed over into Z-Chute. The Z-Fan runout was excellent soft snow [...]
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 [...]
Surprise Chowder Day
Yesterday I woke up and checked the snow report, saw the 11″ of fresh and the little blinking blue light on the Bridger homepage that means powder, didn’t believe it, and went back to bed. When I woke up two hours later it was still showing the same thing. Forrest, Tim, Tucker, Megan, and I [...]
Some Photos from Last Week’s Ridge Hike
Last week I managed to secure a beacon for a couple of days of skiing off of Bridger’s vaunted Ridge. Tuesday, Clare, Taylor, and I hiked up from the top of the Slushman’s lift to ski some day old powder down to The Fingers. The view from the top of the Ridge was stunning. The [...]
