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Skies cleared up in the morning and around 10:30, we could finally see the summit again. I had skied with Marie in the morning, and after coffee break, I headed off on my own to head up to the summit (had to get some pictures from up there!). I first skiied down in the bowl since the line for the tram looked pretty long. After that I headed over to the tram and waited in the 30+ minute line… well worth it. In line, I met Lou and his kids Brittney and Chris, and we got to talking and it sounded like our abilities were about the same, so they asked me to join them since I was on my own.

We got to the top and the skies were still clear but about 30 seconds later, a cloud started rolling in. I snapped a couple of photos before we were fully engulfed in the cloud.

The view up from the tram

View from the summit (looking North)

George on top of the world

The view from the summit (looking West)

I made it back down to lunch close to 1pm. Marie, Roger, and Denise were all done and we went our separate ways for the afternoon since I wanted to head up to the Challanger lift.

The warning at the bottom of the Challanger lift

I only did 1 run off that since my legs were pretty shot, and then made my way over to Andesite Mountain hoping to run into them. After 2 runs over there, I met up with them at the bottom of the lift and we skiied together the rest of the day.

Lone Mountain

Another 4+ inches of snow fell overnight, with flurries expected all day.

Marie and I went off on our own in the morning, over to the other side of the mountain… plenty of powder there (and groomed trails for Marie). We headed back for coffee break, and then headed off on our own again, this time going down the far side of Andesite Mountain. There was a lot more pristine powder there and we got a couple of runs in before we had to head back for lunch.

Lots and lots of powder

After lunch, we skiied with Roger on the bottom half of the mountain since visibility remained poor and our legs were pretty tired from all that powder.

We woke up to about 3-5 inches of powder (on the higher end of 5 at the summit) and the forecast called for on-and-off snow showers throughout the day. We split up since I wanted to ski some of the upper mountain and everyone else wanted to stick closer to the bottom. Denise was pretty sore after her first day out this season (see day 2) and her sport’s masage, so she only got a few runs in. Roger and Marie skied all over the lower mountain and had a blast.

I thought I would go up to the summit in the morning, even though it was still pretty cloudy. Because they don’t open it up until 10 am or so (cause of the avalance guns they use in the morning), I decided to head over to the Challanger lift which services black diamond terrain. I made it to the top and came down Moonlight, after which I headed back up the same lift. The second time, I came down Big Rock Tongue (I found out later that its a double black diamond… and that around here is pretty damn nutty).

The fresh powder made it a breeze. I finished up the Challanger slopes by coming down Little Tree (another double black) on which I hit a couple of rocks and scraped up the bottom of my skiis (the small price to pay for amazing skiing).

In the photo above, Little Tree is the run in the middle… between the trees. I then headed over to the Lone Peak Triple and skied The Bowl. I went back up the triple and headed over to the Lone Peak Tram since the line wasn’t too bad… Time was about 11:00, and I promised to meet everyone back at the condo around noon, so I figured I had about an hour to get to the top and then all the way back down. So at about 11:20, I get to the top of Lone Peak… elevation 11,166 ft. Since I was on my own, I wasn’t going to try anything crazy so I headed over to the Liberty Bowl. The visibility was not all that great.

Liberty Bowl in the clouds

It took me about half an hour to get to the bottom of the Shedhorn lift; a total elevation drop of almost 3,000 ft. I made it back up that, crossed over on the Duck Walk and then headed in for lunch.

After lunch, I headed back out with Roger and Marie. We got delayed getting out on the slopes since the main lift off the base, the Swift Current Quad was having some mechanical difficulties. We came down Lobo, and since the lift was still having issues, we headed over to the Ramcharger lift and did a couple of runs off of Andesite Mountain. We then headed back down and caught the Swift Current Quad lift for our last run of the day. On the way up, the snow started picking up and got pretty heavy by the time we got to the top.

Marie and George in the snow

We finished our last run by coming down Lower Morning Star and headed in for the day. After hot tub and showers, we headed out to dinner to Buck’s T-4 Lodge. We had an awesome dinner and headed back for our customary game of Pitch. On the way back, we hit a strong snow sqaul that brought visibility down to something like 10 feet… not fun coming up a winding, snowy, unfamiliar, mountain road. Luckily we made it back in one piece, thanks to our trusty rental Nissan Pathfinder (with 4-wheel drive).

Nothing like starting the day right with some bacon and eggs for breakfast! After that, we got our 4 day passes and hit the slopes. I am not sure how to describe it, but ski heaven is close. The snow was AMAZING (and we heard that the conditions were actually quite bad for Big Sky), the crowds were small (even though it was President’s Day), and the weather was gorgeous (sunny and a bit balmy at close to 30 degrees).

One thing that we noticed is that what we consider a blue square back home does not quite translate to skiing out west… Green circle back home is like the bunny hill here; blue square is a green circle; black diamond is a blue square; and expert only is a black diamond… not quite sure what the double black diamonds are like out here yet… thats left for another day.

Happy Denise

Roger & Marie

Happy George

Happy Roger

The four of us with Lone Peak in the background

Marie and George with Lone Peak in the background