Looks wiggly! I'll keep you posted.
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Northern Rockies/Alberta 2023 Inland NW/Idaho/Wyoming/Montana Ski Resorts/Conditions/Meetups
- Thread starter Sibhusky
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We’re headed to Big Sky on Sunday, and Monday looks er, um, brisk! Thankfully we’re having below zero temps in Utah right now so I’m acclimating!
I will have 3 excellent 60+ skier dudes along, my level 3 husband, one of the original pioneers of freestyle moguls, and a guide at Powder Mountain. If anyone (@BS Slarver wink wink) wants to take these guys out for awhile, message me. My husband knows the mountain ok. I’ll hang out with the gals and play on the lower angle stuff. Sounds like the storms are going to start firing up just in time!
I will have 3 excellent 60+ skier dudes along, my level 3 husband, one of the original pioneers of freestyle moguls, and a guide at Powder Mountain. If anyone (@BS Slarver wink wink) wants to take these guys out for awhile, message me. My husband knows the mountain ok. I’ll hang out with the gals and play on the lower angle stuff. Sounds like the storms are going to start firing up just in time!
Amy Big Sky may surprise you, assuming you haven't skied it before. It isn't all, or most all Big Cooler skiing. For me the problem was visibility not terrain. You and the "gals" should find lots of pleasurable and even challenging terrain. When Gwen and I were there winters a sometimes problem was avalanche debris, which could make things interesting.
This will be my third time there, and we did previously stay on the lower aspects almost entirely (mostly due to visibility.) I have a decent grasp of the layout, I just know the crazy guys might want to hit some more challenging terrain. It's always fun to have locals who know the ins and outs of different weather patterns, wind, snow conditions, etc. who might know the best places to go.
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- Mar 14, 2016
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I was passing through Whitefish during the artic blast last week. Despite the negative temps the hill is skiing well. Good coverage in their wonderful trees. Appears they are charging for lot camping now, a new high speed detachable that recently had a evacuation and the Bierstube is still then same. A yurt trip in the Swans are now on my radar.
Jewel Basin? I haven't done it, but several people I know do a yearly trip there.
What is the drive to Banff Sunshine/Lake Louise like from Calgary (leaving earlish, say 7am) on a weekday? Tons of traffic/slow or is it pretty chill?
Ended up skiing
1. Silver
2. Lookout
3. Mt Spokane
All were really fun but you are definitely right about Mt Spokane! Well worth a day. I love how you can pretty much just ski anywhere. Well spaced trees provide powder stashes several days after storms. Really fun terrain. Thanks!
Ive only driven it once last April. I got on a shuttle bus at the airport about noon on a weekday and there was literally 0 traffic. Same thing coming back on a weekday morning at 7 am . There was also 0 traffic from Banff to Sunshine and lake Louise each morning to ski.
I've got a trip booked to Red and Whitewater in two weeks. Looks like a storm is brewing and they're currently forecasting ~10 inches over the next 10 days. What do you think, pre-book my lift tickets now and save 25%, or keep things flexible? A day with Big Red Cats is also on my radar, but I'm equally excited about sticking to the resorts if conditions are good.
Thread Starter
TS
I'd keep things flexible. They're always forecasting snow that doesn't show up.
If you do Big Red let me know how it goes. Last week I dd a day with Selkirk Powder @ Schweitzer. Conditions were "powder" and much better than expected considering recent snowfall. But too much of it was "in the trees"! Then next day I skied Schweitzer, but had dense fog on top of the mtn the second half of the day, which really limited my skiing/exploring. I'm back again Inland last weekend of Feb for first time 2 days at Whitefish. Hoping for good vis. Next yr thinking Red & Big Red Cats or Fernie.
Thread Starter
TS
The reason we ski the trees is because of the fog. It's all about the trees or groomer zoomers. It ain't Colorado.
My day on the powder cat was memorable. Most importantly, I did have Powder! When I say in the trees i really mean in the trees. Here is pic of our guide standing in front of our next "run". I survived in fairly good fashion. If anyone wants to hear more about my day...
Thread Starter
TS
Views from Chair 5 at Whitefish
Wow. That looks beautiful !!! Hope I get to see it.
I’d be very interested in a TR! It sounds like we’re on opposite schedules - I am considering Selkirk Powder next year.
This TR started drew me to Inland PNW. https://snowbrains.com/northern-idahos-unmarked-powder-highway/
My first ever cat day was 2 yrs in the making. Last years reservation (made April 2021) was cancelled because everything off-piste was completly unskiable ice due to hot weather then hard freeze and no new snow in preceeding weeks.
On 2/4 @9am we took the lift to top of Schweitzer and divided into 2 groups of 10 with partners. Short safety and transceiver lecture. Then skied down a bit to the resort backside, to the backcountry. We skied 8 runs of about 1000 ft vertical each and took last cat ride ending at top of mtn about 3:30pm.
Prior to day there was no recent heavy snowfall, just light refreshes. But the conditions were surprisingly Powder! Most of the runs had been skied prior but you could fairly easily pick a line of untracked.
I consider myself a competent powder skier with many days of good snow in my travels, esp storm days in Utah. I kinda expected there to be one or two guys always "falling", not getting it and group waiting up, just like in my group resort pow days elsewhere. But in our 10x cat, everyone was an expert pow skiers. in fact, Ha!, I was the weakest link. Although I only had a handfall of falls and didn't hold the group gathering up.
It was way more tree skiing than I expected, interspersed with 100-200ft open meadow pitches. No wide open bowls. And some of the tree skiing was quite dense. There was talk of watch out for tree wells, but at times it was impossible not to ski close to the trunks, and one of our group got caught in a small one and needed help getting out.
The group was fast!, it was kinda crazy because I had no idea what was up beyond the next group of trees. My partner and I had a good laugh on the cat rides up, because we were supposed to stay in touch together, but that was completely impossible, because we all were skiing fast and got instantly separated in the trees. All runs were fall line and we met up 2-3x down each pitch with the leader guide yelling "here". No way could the sweep guide really know that she was actually behind the last skier because of the trees. One the next to last run, i was blasting down, hit a lip with short unexpected drop, tumbled over, and somehow ended up on my back with skis vertically planted upward into a couple feet of pow. I could only see the top of my boots I yelled help, cause i couldn't get out of my skis, but of course no one heard me. Luckily with my pole I was able to dig down to my binding release and pop both skis off and get back in.
At about 1pm I texted my wife, "hope I survive the next 2 hours". Ha Ha. I took it all with a grin and was thankful to the many years of getting into and out of "difficult situations" so far unscathed!
I'm not writing this as a criticism of Selkirk Powder, because it was a memorable day and I had better skiing than expected considering recent snowfall. The guides and logistics were flawless. I got my moneys worth. But I strongly suggest this cat isn't for the weak and unexperienced powder skier. Don't learn your powder turns here!! Thankfully we didn't have anyone "out of their league" in our cat or we would have had interminable waits to ruin our day. The powder novice would have had to give it up after 1 or 2 runs.
I've skied lots of trees and will again, but I try to limit my time in dangerous situations, and trees is a dangerous situation. I won't ski SP again. I hope to do more cat or maybe even heli skiing, but will try to make sure it's more wide open skiing that I can enjoy w/o playing constant obstacle course bingo.
My first ever cat day was 2 yrs in the making. Last years reservation (made April 2021) was cancelled because everything off-piste was completly unskiable ice due to hot weather then hard freeze and no new snow in preceeding weeks.
On 2/4 @9am we took the lift to top of Schweitzer and divided into 2 groups of 10 with partners. Short safety and transceiver lecture. Then skied down a bit to the resort backside, to the backcountry. We skied 8 runs of about 1000 ft vertical each and took last cat ride ending at top of mtn about 3:30pm.
Prior to day there was no recent heavy snowfall, just light refreshes. But the conditions were surprisingly Powder! Most of the runs had been skied prior but you could fairly easily pick a line of untracked.
I consider myself a competent powder skier with many days of good snow in my travels, esp storm days in Utah. I kinda expected there to be one or two guys always "falling", not getting it and group waiting up, just like in my group resort pow days elsewhere. But in our 10x cat, everyone was an expert pow skiers. in fact, Ha!, I was the weakest link. Although I only had a handfall of falls and didn't hold the group gathering up.
It was way more tree skiing than I expected, interspersed with 100-200ft open meadow pitches. No wide open bowls. And some of the tree skiing was quite dense. There was talk of watch out for tree wells, but at times it was impossible not to ski close to the trunks, and one of our group got caught in a small one and needed help getting out.
The group was fast!, it was kinda crazy because I had no idea what was up beyond the next group of trees. My partner and I had a good laugh on the cat rides up, because we were supposed to stay in touch together, but that was completely impossible, because we all were skiing fast and got instantly separated in the trees. All runs were fall line and we met up 2-3x down each pitch with the leader guide yelling "here". No way could the sweep guide really know that she was actually behind the last skier because of the trees. One the next to last run, i was blasting down, hit a lip with short unexpected drop, tumbled over, and somehow ended up on my back with skis vertically planted upward into a couple feet of pow. I could only see the top of my boots I yelled help, cause i couldn't get out of my skis, but of course no one heard me. Luckily with my pole I was able to dig down to my binding release and pop both skis off and get back in.
At about 1pm I texted my wife, "hope I survive the next 2 hours". Ha Ha. I took it all with a grin and was thankful to the many years of getting into and out of "difficult situations" so far unscathed!
I'm not writing this as a criticism of Selkirk Powder, because it was a memorable day and I had better skiing than expected considering recent snowfall. The guides and logistics were flawless. I got my moneys worth. But I strongly suggest this cat isn't for the weak and unexperienced powder skier. Don't learn your powder turns here!! Thankfully we didn't have anyone "out of their league" in our cat or we would have had interminable waits to ruin our day. The powder novice would have had to give it up after 1 or 2 runs.
I've skied lots of trees and will again, but I try to limit my time in dangerous situations, and trees is a dangerous situation. I won't ski SP again. I hope to do more cat or maybe even heli skiing, but will try to make sure it's more wide open skiing that I can enjoy w/o playing constant obstacle course bingo.
How does Banff Sunshine deal with extreme cold? Was planning to go on Wednesday but not sure if they'll be fully open with -17 F.
Great TR! Thanks for sharing!
I’m surprised the trees were so tight. The other intel I’ve read about Selkirk is that it’s a mix of trees and more wide open terrain. I wonder if it was a function of trying to find the goods in suboptimal conditions, as well as the skill level of your group.
From what I’ve read, it does sound like Big Red Cats may be a better fit for wide open skiing. They have more acreage, and their website claims that the lower groups specifically focus on open terrain.
I still haven’t booked since I’m watching the weather, (and being generally indecisive) but I’ll definitely keep everyone here updated if I do.
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