Memorial Day Weekend in the Mountains of West Montuckistan
Been a while since I've done one of these, but I actually went on a "trip" so here ya go.
Into the spring deluge we drove, hydroplaning on the interstate, spinning our wheels thru a couple dozen miles of slimy clay ruts, and chugging up a mountain road that resembled pocket water on one of Montana's finest blue ribbon trout streams. It seemed like about the most absurd thing a skier might do, but it's Memorial Day weekend in southwest Montana, so this is about how the tradition usually goes. Got done with a big stretch of work days in a row and made a beeline for the soggiest, most dreary and desolate place my shuddering old suby could make it to for 5 days of questionable weather and skiing ambitions. At least we had copious amounts of firearms, meat, and alcohol in case things didn't pan out!
We made sure the fire was at least 10 feet high at all times in order to bring some cheer to this watery place, and proceeded to drink the rain drops into magical hexagonal crystals in our own minds. It seemed to have worked as the storm ended with a freeze down pretty low and a few inches of powder up high. We decided to do the long tour version to a mountain just north of camp that held a nice 2000' gully on it's hidden northwest aspect. Contouring around cloverleaf shaped glacial basins, past frozen lakes and over a few ridges later, we managed to stay on snow for most of the way until we scrambled up the rocky west ridge to the summit.
Looking back at the mountain that stood guard over our campsite:
http://i335.photobucket.com/albums/m...k.jpg~original
Gnar lines off the crest peaks:
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Summit!
http://i335.photobucket.com/albums/m...k.jpg~original
The line was in beautiful shape...A magical carpet of spring powder on smooth corn, you could just fly like it was a ski dream. There was a huge wind wave rollover feature halfway down. I stopped to snap a few pics of tracks and my buddy Simon:
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Funny thing about that one, we never really got to see the line in all it's glory. We had to contour hard up valley and skin back to one of two passes we had to go over to get back to camp.
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A view of the rocky south side:
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A long day of mountain travel.
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Back to our outpost, at least 30 miles from anything loosely resembling civilization.
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The next day, still half drunk on, um, our success from the previous mission, we decided to mount another day long expedition over yonder to the next mosquito infested valley.
Gnar couloir:
http://i335.photobucket.com/albums/m...z.jpg~original
looking back at yesterday's adventure:
http://i335.photobucket.com/albums/m...q.jpg~original
other rad stuff to pick off over the years:
http://i335.photobucket.com/albums/m...y.jpg~original
http://i335.photobucket.com/albums/m...1.jpg~original
On this perfect day however, we bite off a little more than we can chew unfortunately. The nagging sense of failure and hours more hot slogging is our reward. But not to disappoint. As the wiser of you degenerates know, nothing stokes the fire of senseless ambition like missing out, chronic pain, and hours of dehydrated exhaustion!
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