So, did this one last summer and am starting to plan a repeat (immediate impetus for posting this now, 9 months late). Long story short, we put together a small training (ski racing) camp for a few of our coaches and kids. Kicked around Whistler, Hood, and even Europe, but then I mentioned that I had heard of this kind of under the radar place in MT (turned out one coach has a brother who did a camp there decades ago), and when we looked into it the price and the vibe seemed right. So for 6/25-7/4 we'd be in Montana (the skiing is actually in WY, barely, but Red Lodge, MT, is the town).
TR teaser of the ski area:
For the repeat this summer I am hoping to take twice as long to get there as last time (we drove as I had anticipated having to haul gates from VT, and even without gates the amount of gear the two of us brought would have been difficult going by plane).
Making our escape I thought maybe Bobby Stainless and his (one of his?) Lambos was parked behind us:
Did the 2100 miles in three days, but still managed to catch up with family friends for an evening in Cleveland followed by a morning at Cedar Point (kind of between Cleveland and Detroit on Lake Erie--anyone who likes big roller coasters owes it to themselves to get there--pretty sure there is no place with as high a concentration of big rides in the world).
Unexpected camel appearance (she likes animals, as will also be evident when we hit MT).
Coaster (it was raining, which was actually great since we got to ride the really big ones multiple times--no lines):
Moving on, we accidentally drove more or less through downtown Chicago (but didn't stop):
For some reason I allowed her to purchase a bag(?) of fondant (the stuff you can decorate cakes with), which she ate, but then used what was left to create a friend (who remains on the dashboard to this day):
(I guess another example of the animal thing...)
Coming from the east to get to Red Lodge, MT, you can drive either through ND or SD with a fairly small difference in mileage and virtually no difference in time. I had originally like the idea of ND's desolation, but someone convinced me that due to the Badlands, Wall Drug, and Mt. Rushmore (which we ended up not doing) SD was the only way to go. Initially I thought we'd skip the Badlands, but when I googled the images I was pretty surprised and realized we had to stop, especially since it's about 5 minutes off the highway.
Skipping over the part where we stopped across the highway from the Badlands at the Minuteman Missile Museum (necessitated an explanation of what the Cold War was to the 15 year old) and the keys ended up locked inside the car, we made one more stop before MT.
I guess it's kind of like South of the Border in GA but western--nowhere else to stop, so you might as well, I guess.
Next day we were on snow:
So, pretty small ski area, but pretty steep at the top (the upper lift at its top is one of the steeper surface lifts I have ever been on). I saw some decent skiers kind of intimidated by the first turn. One cool thing, if you look at far looker's right in the second photo above you'll see a notch in the cornice, and people were routinely hitting that drop (I was pretty tempted, but visions of a massive yardsale in front of the kids and potential injury kept me from it). I would guess it's a 30 footer, maybe a little more.
The training was pretty good.
We're hoping this year to set on something with a little pitch to it (our lane at the lower lift was really flat), but for NA end of June/start of July skiing it was definitely good enough.
The next day I relented and allowed a mountain goat excursion just off the road (she'd been looking at them both days from a mile or two away on the snow while they did their thing up above us).
She didn't really believe me that they wouldn't be interested in being petted and let her get about 30m away before taking off across a ravine (I imagined them looking back at her and thinking to themselves, 'Yeah, right kid--as if you're going to get close to us.').
A little skiing on the upper part (yeah, she skis pretty timidly when not skiing gates):
Gate action:
Snowstorm on June 29th!
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