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- Nov 12, 2015
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Because of Covid and really crappy early season snow, we decided to take Big Sky up on their offer and rolled our season passes over until next year. This gave us the opportunity to ski some areas that we just wouldn't bother with when we could ski for free (viewing season passes as sunk cost) and not have to drive more than 30 miles. On our list were areas we could drive to and back in a day, Grand Targhee, Ski Discovery, Great Divide, Showdown, Lost Trail Powder Mountain and Maverick Mountain. We added Whitefish (spend the weekend there) and Kelly Canyon (our daughter moved to Idaho Falls and went there the weekend we helped her move). My plans for Showdown were twice thwarted by weather. I had to turn around at White Sulpher Springs the first time by heavy snow, 35MPH winda and 0 visability and the second time because we couldn't get out of our driveway in Ennis. We had skied Maverick several times and had it on the list because our daughter lived in Dillon. It got scratched when she moved to Idaho Falls. The season started and ended at Grand Targhee.
December 23 - Conditions in SW Montana were pretty bleak so we headed to GT. Great snow and great terrain. While not huge, I would rate this as one of my favorite places I have ever skied. I'm still kind of kicking myself for not looking at the Teton Valley as a place to live before we chose Ennis.
random Selfie of Renata and I.
View attachment 126998
January 10 - Ski Discovery. The mountain was less than 50% open but the conditions of the snow that was there wasn't bad. The place was pretty empty and we didn't wait in a lift line all day. Given that we really liked Discovery. We skied all of the runs that were open on the front side and a couple on the back. We had to stop and walk part of the way down the bottom part of Winning Ridge to get to the Granite lift becase of no snow.
January 16 - Next up was Lost Trail. Although we loved the ski area, at about 3 hours and 20 minutes, this wound up being a bit too far for a one day trip. If we go again it will be a multi day trip. As to the skiing, it was fabulous. We started the day skiing the Chair #2 area, hitting Southern Comfort, Thunder and Lightning. We then headed all the way over to Saddle Mountain and spent most of the rest of the day over there. Great long blue cruisers where you can pop into and out of the sparsley spaced trees.
View attachment 127004
Me on the border.
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Skiing Thunder
view from the #4 Chair.
Renata headed down Two Dot
We skied right past this gate
, but the view was amazing.
January 31 - Back to Discovery, this time with our youngest Dominique in tow. Much better conditions with most of the mountain open. I think we skied pretty much everything on the front side. Had a great day.
Domi and Renata getting ready to rip.
February 6 - A wierd day and a hard decision to make. A front was along the Rocky Mountain front, with more snow, but brutal cold as you moved from East to West. Snowdown had the most snow from the storm, but the high was going to be around -10 with stiff winds. Further west, Great Divide had a little less snow, but a high of -6 with stiff winds. We decided to go back to Discovery where it was much warmer. Go to the lot at 9 (30 minutes before the lifts turn) but instead of being empty like on our two previous visits, they were full with huge lines to get tickets. So we deciced to hike the XC trail with the dogs. The trails had been groomed the night before but it was hard to tell with over a foot of snow covering the tracks. The dogs had a blast.
February 13 - Celebrated my birthday skiing Kelly Canyon with my daughter and her boyfriend. In case you have never heard of it (I hadn't) KC is a ski area about 30 miles from Idaho Falls. I wasn't expecting much, but it was close and cheap and we were in the falls helping our daughter move into her new home. It turned out to be an OK place to ski. The snow was soft and the terrain was of the fun blue cruiser variety. I had two problems with the place one small and one big. The small bug nagging issue was the utter lack of signage. Although not that big the place is a bit confusing and without ANY trail signs, we never had any idea where we were or what we were skiing. Not really an issue since you always wind up at the same place, but anoying. The second was the utter lack of attention on the part of the lifites. Twice we saw people loose skiis loading the liftes had no idea. One guy had to slide down the mountain on his but to get his ski. The second time we had the tell the liftie the guy lost his ski and for him to go get it. We took that up plus a pole someone else dropped that he didn't see. We complained to the lift manager afterwards and his exucse we it was busy and he didn't have enough staff. Tell the lawyers that when someone gets seriously hurt. Saturday must be family day because there were tons of families with many many children per family everywhere. I noticed that, unlike anyplace I have ever skied, they have discount lift tickets on Sunday. I'll keep that in mind for next year when we visit. Anyway, not a place I would travel to ski, but if you are in Idaho Falls, you can't beat a 30 minute drive and $50 lift ticket. Sorry, no pictures from KC.
February 20-21 - First time at Whitefish and it was like a "Tale of Two Ski Areas" It was the best of times and the worst of times. Saturday was wonderful. It was foggy at the top for most of the day but you could still see where you were and where you were going. We took a guided tour with one of the Ski Ambasadors (a great idea to get a lay of the land) and then skied all over in the afternoon. The conditions on the north side were great and we really enjoyed the 7 and 11 lift. I will say, save Breckenridge at Christmas one year, I don't think I have ever skied anywhere as crowded as Whitefish was, the lift lines were huge all day. Sunday was a different story. The line on Chair 1 was huge when we got there so we did a few runs on chair two. The trails there are fun but being south facing, the snow was not nearly as nice as in the chair 7/11 area. We then headed up to the summit and by the time we got there, I could literally see nothing. The fog was so bad it was hard to see 5 feet in front of you. To make matters worse, it was like ice fog and your goggles were incrusted with ice, making it impossible to see. To make it even worse, there were more people than I have ever seen on a ski run up there, expecially little kids. We headed down (I think) Russ's Street (I think) and the next thing I know I come go an immediate halt and get ejected from my bindings over my skis and into a snowbank on the side of the run. I never saw it (or anything else for that matter) and thought I was going down, not sideways. Anyway, that thoroughly rattled me. I took off the goggles so I could at least see something and proceeded down feeling sick from vertigo. What really scared the hell out of me is you could hear these snowboarders coming from behing you at mach 1 and catch a glimps of them as they straight lined right past you. How in the hell they saw anything well enough to be doing that on crowded slopes in near zero visibility is beyond me. That convinced me to get off that part of the mountain. We went back to chair two for the rest of the morning but my day was done. I went back to the Hidden Moose (I can't say enough good things about that place. If you go to Whitefish,do yourself a favor and stay there) to lay down for a bit. Renata, who wasn't effected by the lack of visability like I was skied the 7/11 area and the Bigfoot T area for the rest of the day and had a blast.
While I like the terrain at Whitefish, I much prefer to ski at Big Sky, I just like the high altitude drier, more open feel of it. As to non skiing, Whitefish has Big Sky beaten hands down. I have never been anything but dissapointed by any meal I have had in the BS area. Every meal we had at Whitefish was great. Jalisco Cantina was wonderful with great food, great cocktails and an amazing wine list. Cafe Kandahar was very good, but also very overpriced. I liked it but wouldn't go back. Abruzzo had wonderful italian food (pizza was amazing) and a great atmosphere.
Renata (upper left) contemplating her next turn on Langley.
It's not always foggy at the top.
March 8 - The Wild West area was open so we decided to hit Great Divide. The snow was really thin in that section and the lift lines pretty long. The main reason I wanted to ski that area was becasue it looked like the tree skiing would be fun for someone of our abilities. The problem was the snow was so thin it just didn't look safe to ski them with stumps and snags visable and barely visible. The groomed runs were pretty bare and rocky so we spend most of the day on the front side. Again like Kelly Canyon, trail signage was almost non existant and the trail system was a bit confusing. We had to ask ski patrol to get to a couple of runs we wanted to do. If this place got more snow, I think it could be really fun, but unfortunately, I think was we experienced is are pretty typical conditions.
Renata dropping into Mine Dump
March 7 - Ended our season where we started. The conditions at Grand Targhee weren't nearly as nice this time. The groomers were a blast, very firm and fast, but the off piste stuff that looks so good from the lifts were frozen and covered with frozen chunks of ice. It did soften up a bit by the end of the day but my legs were too jello by then to take advantage. Still had a great day skiing with the family.
Cheers to a great season. Now on the fly fishing, mountain biking and golf. See you next year at Big Sky.
December 23 - Conditions in SW Montana were pretty bleak so we headed to GT. Great snow and great terrain. While not huge, I would rate this as one of my favorite places I have ever skied. I'm still kind of kicking myself for not looking at the Teton Valley as a place to live before we chose Ennis.
random Selfie of Renata and I.
View attachment 126998
January 10 - Ski Discovery. The mountain was less than 50% open but the conditions of the snow that was there wasn't bad. The place was pretty empty and we didn't wait in a lift line all day. Given that we really liked Discovery. We skied all of the runs that were open on the front side and a couple on the back. We had to stop and walk part of the way down the bottom part of Winning Ridge to get to the Granite lift becase of no snow.
January 16 - Next up was Lost Trail. Although we loved the ski area, at about 3 hours and 20 minutes, this wound up being a bit too far for a one day trip. If we go again it will be a multi day trip. As to the skiing, it was fabulous. We started the day skiing the Chair #2 area, hitting Southern Comfort, Thunder and Lightning. We then headed all the way over to Saddle Mountain and spent most of the rest of the day over there. Great long blue cruisers where you can pop into and out of the sparsley spaced trees.
View attachment 127004
Me on the border.
View attachment 127005
View attachment 127006
Skiing Thunder
view from the #4 Chair.
Renata headed down Two Dot
We skied right past this gate
, but the view was amazing.January 31 - Back to Discovery, this time with our youngest Dominique in tow. Much better conditions with most of the mountain open. I think we skied pretty much everything on the front side. Had a great day.
Domi and Renata getting ready to rip.
February 6 - A wierd day and a hard decision to make. A front was along the Rocky Mountain front, with more snow, but brutal cold as you moved from East to West. Snowdown had the most snow from the storm, but the high was going to be around -10 with stiff winds. Further west, Great Divide had a little less snow, but a high of -6 with stiff winds. We decided to go back to Discovery where it was much warmer. Go to the lot at 9 (30 minutes before the lifts turn) but instead of being empty like on our two previous visits, they were full with huge lines to get tickets. So we deciced to hike the XC trail with the dogs. The trails had been groomed the night before but it was hard to tell with over a foot of snow covering the tracks. The dogs had a blast.
February 13 - Celebrated my birthday skiing Kelly Canyon with my daughter and her boyfriend. In case you have never heard of it (I hadn't) KC is a ski area about 30 miles from Idaho Falls. I wasn't expecting much, but it was close and cheap and we were in the falls helping our daughter move into her new home. It turned out to be an OK place to ski. The snow was soft and the terrain was of the fun blue cruiser variety. I had two problems with the place one small and one big. The small bug nagging issue was the utter lack of signage. Although not that big the place is a bit confusing and without ANY trail signs, we never had any idea where we were or what we were skiing. Not really an issue since you always wind up at the same place, but anoying. The second was the utter lack of attention on the part of the lifites. Twice we saw people loose skiis loading the liftes had no idea. One guy had to slide down the mountain on his but to get his ski. The second time we had the tell the liftie the guy lost his ski and for him to go get it. We took that up plus a pole someone else dropped that he didn't see. We complained to the lift manager afterwards and his exucse we it was busy and he didn't have enough staff. Tell the lawyers that when someone gets seriously hurt. Saturday must be family day because there were tons of families with many many children per family everywhere. I noticed that, unlike anyplace I have ever skied, they have discount lift tickets on Sunday. I'll keep that in mind for next year when we visit. Anyway, not a place I would travel to ski, but if you are in Idaho Falls, you can't beat a 30 minute drive and $50 lift ticket. Sorry, no pictures from KC.
February 20-21 - First time at Whitefish and it was like a "Tale of Two Ski Areas" It was the best of times and the worst of times. Saturday was wonderful. It was foggy at the top for most of the day but you could still see where you were and where you were going. We took a guided tour with one of the Ski Ambasadors (a great idea to get a lay of the land) and then skied all over in the afternoon. The conditions on the north side were great and we really enjoyed the 7 and 11 lift. I will say, save Breckenridge at Christmas one year, I don't think I have ever skied anywhere as crowded as Whitefish was, the lift lines were huge all day. Sunday was a different story. The line on Chair 1 was huge when we got there so we did a few runs on chair two. The trails there are fun but being south facing, the snow was not nearly as nice as in the chair 7/11 area. We then headed up to the summit and by the time we got there, I could literally see nothing. The fog was so bad it was hard to see 5 feet in front of you. To make matters worse, it was like ice fog and your goggles were incrusted with ice, making it impossible to see. To make it even worse, there were more people than I have ever seen on a ski run up there, expecially little kids. We headed down (I think) Russ's Street (I think) and the next thing I know I come go an immediate halt and get ejected from my bindings over my skis and into a snowbank on the side of the run. I never saw it (or anything else for that matter) and thought I was going down, not sideways. Anyway, that thoroughly rattled me. I took off the goggles so I could at least see something and proceeded down feeling sick from vertigo. What really scared the hell out of me is you could hear these snowboarders coming from behing you at mach 1 and catch a glimps of them as they straight lined right past you. How in the hell they saw anything well enough to be doing that on crowded slopes in near zero visibility is beyond me. That convinced me to get off that part of the mountain. We went back to chair two for the rest of the morning but my day was done. I went back to the Hidden Moose (I can't say enough good things about that place. If you go to Whitefish,do yourself a favor and stay there) to lay down for a bit. Renata, who wasn't effected by the lack of visability like I was skied the 7/11 area and the Bigfoot T area for the rest of the day and had a blast.
While I like the terrain at Whitefish, I much prefer to ski at Big Sky, I just like the high altitude drier, more open feel of it. As to non skiing, Whitefish has Big Sky beaten hands down. I have never been anything but dissapointed by any meal I have had in the BS area. Every meal we had at Whitefish was great. Jalisco Cantina was wonderful with great food, great cocktails and an amazing wine list. Cafe Kandahar was very good, but also very overpriced. I liked it but wouldn't go back. Abruzzo had wonderful italian food (pizza was amazing) and a great atmosphere.
Renata (upper left) contemplating her next turn on Langley.
It's not always foggy at the top.
March 8 - The Wild West area was open so we decided to hit Great Divide. The snow was really thin in that section and the lift lines pretty long. The main reason I wanted to ski that area was becasue it looked like the tree skiing would be fun for someone of our abilities. The problem was the snow was so thin it just didn't look safe to ski them with stumps and snags visable and barely visible. The groomed runs were pretty bare and rocky so we spend most of the day on the front side. Again like Kelly Canyon, trail signage was almost non existant and the trail system was a bit confusing. We had to ask ski patrol to get to a couple of runs we wanted to do. If this place got more snow, I think it could be really fun, but unfortunately, I think was we experienced is are pretty typical conditions.
Renata dropping into Mine Dump
March 7 - Ended our season where we started. The conditions at Grand Targhee weren't nearly as nice this time. The groomers were a blast, very firm and fast, but the off piste stuff that looks so good from the lifts were frozen and covered with frozen chunks of ice. It did soften up a bit by the end of the day but my legs were too jello by then to take advantage. Still had a great day skiing with the family.
Cheers to a great season. Now on the fly fishing, mountain biking and golf. See you next year at Big Sky.
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