Silverton TR

Just spent my first day at Silverton this past Saturday (the 10th). All I have to say is holy shit.
Rented a pair of Big Stix 106 from them for the day and I was glad I did. Even with the base that they have, I still managed to find a significant number of rocks.
Started the day off skiing Tiger 3 (a wide open chute off the front side of the mountain) into the Bowling Alley (steep glades between Tiger and the lift chute). The snow in the trees was incredibly deep, but it was so tight that I could only link about 4-5 turns before having to traverse to find more openings.
Second run was even better. My group got first tracks down Manditory Air bowl off the back side, then traversed into Two Smokes, a 40 degree chute that's about 15 feet wide.We were the 3rd group to go through there, so it was a bit tracked out and the south facing part of the chute was full of exposed rocks leaving only about 10 feet of skiable gully. Exiting the chute, we found more fresh on what I'm suspecting is the lower half of Manditory.
Third run was the best. We hiked up to Tiger Claw (an upper-chute which emptied into Main Tiger) I was able to make atleast 40 turns without crossing anybody's tracks....absoluetly incredible snow. As we were hiking up to the chute we heard a patroller call in to our guide warning of a 50 pound charge going off in 60 seconds. We look up and see that the patroller is only about a hundred yards from us up the ridge line throwing charges off the back side. The blast was almost enough to knock you backwards and then you hear the echo from the blast all over the canyon follwed by the sound of the slide. Absolutely incredible experience.
Our fourth and final run of the day was close to 4 so they wouldn't let us hike. We skied the traverse from the lift into Tiger 3 again and skied out.
Saturday was a day that I'm sure I'll never forget and for anybody pondering on whether or not it's worth the money, the answer is yes, especially if you hit it right after a storm. Huge props to Aaron and Jen for creating such an amazing and unique mountain.

Can't wait until end of Feb! I'll be down there the 28th and 29th.

Only 4 runs ???

when I went last year I think we got 8 and I still felt a little short changed not to mention they were farming turns.

Sounds like you got into some decent terrain. Good luck on your part this weekend was so nice down here. What was the snow like, heavy or still pretty light?


Cool when they blow charges, it rattles that whole range pretty well, when we were bootpacking they set off lots of small charges and then one of the big ones, it shocked by camera enough to turn it off.:eek:

Yeah, we only got 4 runs, but it was one of the busiest days they've ever had, like 65 people plus however many were in the Chris Anthony Steep camp. So there were 12 people including the guide in my group.
The top 12 inches was nice and light on all the north facing aspects and everything underneath was more compacted but still pretty sweet.

I have my reservation for early Feb. Fingers crossed for a big dump.