100 - 2010-05-08 Bell Lake Yurt

If at first you don't succeed.

After being knocked back on Thursday, we took a rest day on Friday and re-grouped. Though now lacking Ryan, we got a more timely start on Saturday, the drive through to Potosi went smoothly. Past the campground things were a bit more precarious, nobody had driven it yet, but there were some ATV tracks and the snow was not quite as deep as it had been a couple days earlier, so I went for it. This was perhaps the drive of my life, the wheel was constantly in motion and the strength of the FJ and the the Cooper tires got us to the trailhead.

Now the trip could truely begin and under blue skies we organized our gear, tons lighter, but not light by any means, than a couple days before. Setting out, things went a lot smoother as the snow was a lot more consolidated, but as we gained elavation, it soon became another breaking trail in heavy new snow ordeal. However we had time and determination on our side.

And time is what it took, progress was slow, but it was a decent sunny day. The slog up the final hill is never easy, however it went much better than before. Got to the yurt, started a fire and relaxed with some snax and cold beverages. Finally gathered ourselves together and went for a short tour up to the lake to scope things out, wondering what we would see after all the heavy snow. We toured across lake under mixed clouds and gazed up at the slopes. We didn't notice anything that had slid since the storm, but it was getting late so we headed down the yurt. Got back around 7:30, can't do that in the middle of winter, and cooked up a proper dinner and relaxed into the wee hours with some cold beverages. Maybe too many cold beverages . . . 

099 - 2010-05-06 Bell Lake Yurt Fail!

Based on a great trip last year, we had picked our dates for the yurt in October for this weekend. This year we would have 3 nights and 4 days up at Bell Lake. Things didn't quite play out as we had planned. Wednesday started out clear, sunny and warm with a Winter Storm Warning in the forecast, but those things often don't pan out. This one did in a big way. Snow began in town that night and, after getting a bit of a late start, myself, Gibby, Jim and Ryan set off for the Tobacco Roots. Driving that way the snow started to get deeper, the opposite of what one would expect in the sagebrush area between Bozeman and Pony. After making the turn down S. Willow Creek in Pony, Gibby had to put chains on and I got the FJ stuck. After this delay, we proceeded down the deeply snow covered road. After making the turn onto the FS road a construction crew's adhoc plowing made the drive a little more manageable. However the construction folks only plowed as far as their site. At that point we hooked up with Gene the Forest Service guy who was putting chains on his Silverado to try to make back to the campground. This setup proved to be a virtual snowplow and we followed him in to the campground.

Now we ready to get down to business and head in to the yurt, albeit later and further away than we had planned on. We set out into at least 18" of nice heavy fresh snow at the campground. I was pulling a pulk (sled), a good way to transport a lot of gear. As we went on the trip quickly became breaking trail in the heavy wet snow. This didn't work out well with the pulk, as the skin track the others were setting was much narrower than the width of the pulk. The first uphill bit quickly became quite tedious and I was forced to use hip thrusts to get the sled to move forward at all. I soon realized that this wouldn't work and stopped to ditch the pulk and throw what I could into the pack. When I stopped I could finally look back and realized that the sled was doing a slow plow thing in the track, explaining my futility at dragging it.

After ditching the pulk I soon caught up to the others, feeling buoyant at being to move so quickly. Alas, this was mostly because I able to use the track set by the others. Once I joined them and we set out together, progress was limited by the pace of person in front who was breaking trail in deep heavy snow. And that progress was slow, after a couple hours we realized that making it in to the yurt on that day was a pipe dream. We dropped our packs and figured we could at least break trail for the next attempt. And the progess was still slow despite no packs and trading off breaking trail. At 5 we called it a day, almost reaching the normal trailhead. In all, we were making about 1/2 mile an hour and this is with a strong crew. The ski back down to the cars went a good bit quicker. Once there we consumed some cold beverages and discussed plans for the next attempt

Conditions - Deep heavy new snow.

Ski - K2 Anti-Piste 181

098 - 2010-05-02 Goose Ck

Not quite Mayday, but a cause for celebration. With guarded expectations after seeing some snow in town a couple days earlier vanish and lots of mush in Bear Canyon the day before. Gibby, Niko, Yatsuko and myself headed for Goose Ck hoping for the best and the best is pretty close to what we got. This was Yatsuko's first ever time out in the backcountry (I hate whats attached to term, but it has some currency) and the first time out on the board since her March injury. Skin up went well under almost constant snow. After a short time on top of the ridge we pointed them down for what turned out to be the best, and probably last, Goose Ck run of the year. Finally hit it right! Lower down proved to be a bit heavy, but who cares.

Conditions - Fresh snow from the night before over a solid base. New ranged from 2" down low to 6" near the top and the coverage was tons better than the week before. Dug a pit at the bottom of the open upper snow fields; new stuff was not bonded well, but it was not deep enough to raise a concern.

Ski - G3 Rapid Transit 178 - Last time to try something out before the yurt trip. These are good, but not the uber-ski the Anti-Piste is.

097 - 2010-04-24 Goose Ck

Its close by, its not crowded and its kinda fun, so we hit Goose Ck again. As I got out of the car, I realized I had forgot my skins - oops. No prob I thought, there was a good freeze the night before, I'll just boot up. Went really well, until about 3/4 of the way up when I started post-holing to my crotch. This was not fun, I think I was crawling at one point. Nevertheless, I pushed on and finally made to the top. Of course we were a bit behind the curve and things were a bit heavy on the way down and I did make a couple craters in the snow.


Conditions - Freeze the night before was promising, but we hit it a tad too late and it was heavy on the way down. Parts of the way up before the open area on top were way sketch, with one take off the skis stretch and several close to that. Last time for Goose Ck this season, so we thought . . .


Ski - K2 Anti-Piste 181

096 - 2010-04-18 Goose Ck

Another round of Goose Ck with Gibby and Niko. Headed up under blue skies with a firm snowpack. It was just nice day, too nice; we spent over an hour taking things in on top. Things were starting to get heavy on the way down, but it was still good fun.

Conditions - There was a nice freeze the night before and by the time we were getting to the top it was perfect, just starting to soften up on the surface. Then with nice temps, clear skies and no wind, we sat up top too long. A bit heavy on the descent, though the coverage was decent.

Ski - K2 Anti-Piste 181 Coupled with Scarpa T1s, I think this setup is just too big and burly for moving quickly. A real shame since it skis so well on the way down.