Replying to My paper about Montana summer skiing

Its long but I thought some people might take interest



Summer Shralping
Many people think that the long lazy months of summer are meant to golf, swim, go to the beach, and work around the house. These are great uses for these summer months but why limit your summer to “warm weather activities?” Why not go play in the snow or go skiing? Around our great state of Montana there are many places to ski year round. Some of my greatest memories are not only what I skied in the summer but the other things that happened during the journey.
There are many places around the state for the winter junkie to go when searching for a fix. Montana is full of places to ski in the summer but I am going to focus on places I have been to which are Jewel Basin, Logan Pass, and Beartooth Pass. I skied Jewel Basin for the first time this June.
Jewel Basin is located east of Bigfork and south of Hungry Horse Reservoir. From the top of the hike you can see Flathead Lake, Hungry Horse Reservoir, and into the Bob Marshall Wilderness. With all your ski gear strapped to your backpack it takes about two hours from the parking lot to the skiable area. The journey is even more grueling when you are only wearing tennis shoes. The hardest part of the hike ends when you reach the radio tower. This is also where you can see where your about to to ski. We stopped at the tower and ate some food, started a medium avalanche by breaking a cornice and had some close encounters with some goats before we continued our hike. From the tower it is a short twenty minute hike up to where we skied. David was the first to drop in lying down some beautiful switch (backwards skiing) turns. After that Drew, Pat, and I skied I skied it respectively. The warm weather had extremely softened the snow. Carving the corn snow on the way down felt great especially when you hadn’t skied in two months. After we were at the bottom we decided to build a jump and jib some avalanche debris. The chunk of ice that we were bonking (skiing on and off or tapping your skis on an object by means of a jump) got the best of me and I bashed my head pretty hard into the ground. Luckily I always wear my helmet. After that we hiked our jump for a little while before a thunderstorm blackened the sky. It was getting late in the day and we decided it would be prudent to get as far away from that area before the storm set in. It was time to hike up the same slope that we had just skied down. Trust me nothing gets your adrenaline going more than hiking a 600 vertical foot steep snowy slope with 40 pounds of gear on your back in a thunderstorm. It gets hairier when your buddy says that they heard the cornice crack. We made it out unscathed and were back at the parking lot by 9 PM. We ate at I Hop that night then crashed on David’s floor until the crack of 6 AM when we departed for Great Falls. We made it home by 10 AM, just in time to get to work. My skis stayed dry until the latter part of July.
Going to Glacier this July was another set of firsts for me. I have skied Logan Pass many times and never had any trouble. This year I got kicked out for the first time. Apparently once the snow melts enough the park closes the pass to skiing. It was also the first weekend that I went swimming and skiing in the same weekend and the first time I slept in my car. I was at a party on the River that Saturday with some of my skiing friends. We were talking about how we wanted to ski. I was trying to convince them to go to Glacier with me but it just wasn’t happening until Andy showed up. He jumped in the water swam around a bit got out and we left the party to go skiing. We got out of Great Falls around 8 PM that night which put us in Browning sometime around 10 PM. To say the least, Browning on a Saturday night is an interesting and a little scary experience. We got to Logan Pass about an hour later. We woke up at 4:45 and filmed a sunrise. After that we got our gear together and started walking. Even that early in the morning there are still tourists all over the place. Most of them in disbelief that we are going to ski. Lucky for us there weren’t any rangers to stop us. We got to our first destination and hiked a chute for a couple of hours. We skied and walked back down to the trail so we could walk to our next location. Almost immediately we were stopped by a ranger. He was very polite and told us everything was closed to skiing. He also pointed out where we were skiing and said that there were people skiing up there earlier and that he was going to hike up there and kick them out. We failed to tell them it was us. Both Jewel basin and Glacier Park are in Northern Montana but Southern Montana has summer skiing as well.
Beartooth Pass is located on the Beartooth Highway on the Montana Wyoming border in between Red Lodge and Cooke City. There are endless places to ski up there all summer and winter. Unfortunately I have only been fortunate to ski Rock Creek headwall and Twin Lakes headwall. Rock Creek headwall is one of the most visible and first to melt out. It is visible from the road as you are climbing from the Red Lodge side. To get to it you park on the Beartooth Plateau (the flatland after you are done climbing) at a small turnout. You then hike across the tundra towards a visible knob pointing towards Red Lodge. It is about a 15 minute hike and you ski right down to the road so it is easy to hitch hike back to the top. If you’re not into hiking you can ride a lift at the Twin Lakes Headwall.
The Beartooth Pass Ski Area located on the Twin Lakes headwall boasts two poma lifts and is open from Memorial Day until the beginning of July. It was opened to the public in the last couple years so anyone who is good enough to ride down the steep headwall can buy a ticket. Two years ago some friends and I spent a week down there skiing, getting sunburnt and having fun in the town of Red Lodge. At the ski area there is great lift served “extreme” skiing which includes cornices and hour glass chutes. Towards the bottom of the hill they build a small terrain park which had a 40 foot and 20 foot table and some various rails when we were there. Overall It was a good time and my favorite place in the state to ski in the summer. The only downfall is inclement weather. It is usually very warm but we had one day of snow and one day when we only skied for 45 minutes because of thunderstorms.
Skiing and exploring new country are two passions of mine. There is no better way to combine these two things than to ski in the summer. It is great to ride a lift but no line is more rewarding than the one that you hike for. I have skied Glacier Park, Jewel Basin, and Beartooth Pass in the summer. I have also left many areas in the state untapped such as the Crazy Mountains and greater Beartooth Absoroka region that I would like to ski eventually. Skiing in the summer is fun but the greatest memories come from the time spent with friends and the crazy mishaps that accompany any ski trip. Why limit your summer to golfing when you can ski?