Marc's Public Blog - Skiing / Snowboarding / Snow

United had the sole direct flight from SFO that left at some stupid ass time in the morning, ruining a night of sleep and a whole day for nothing (likely the only takeoff/landing timeslot they could get for a small pond jumper). We did however elect to take that since connecting flights take an extra 4H if you want to make a safe connection where your snowboard is likely to arrive too.

After loading up on groceries, the drive to big sky was a scenic 1H to the very nice cabin. After resting for the rest of the day, we went to Big Sky the next morning.
When we got there, they were all proud of the 8 inches they had just gotten of the last 2 days and their 105" base. I obviously didn't complain about snow, but I couldn't help but smile at how this doesn't qualify as a dump or a powder day in Tahoe :) At the time I write this, kirkwood in Tahoe got over 120" of snow in the last 10 days with 2 storms that delivered over 50" in just 2 days each.

Case in point, the kirkwood page had 145-160 inches of snow for the current storm :)

Kirkwood Snow Stats for 2011/03/27:

Anyway, back to big sky, outside of the stupid early time we had to get up at, we had a good flight. The airport view after landing ain't bad :) and the drive to Big Sky from Boseman was scenic:

nice condos

it was nice and spacious

The next morning, we went to Big Sky, it was nice and sunny with a few inches of freshies left over:

line to the tram was ridiculous (1h)

did I mention that snow coverage was poor? :)

to make extra money, they also had ziplining

The next day, we went to check out the neighboring resort: Moonlight Basin (both resorts share a common area and you cna purchase a bundled ticket to ski from one side to the other). They were a bit more basic and cheaper, but they still had some interesting terrain, although the amounts of it were more limited :)

I found this hut by chance in a middle of a tree run

their best lift was actually uphill from the closest lift, so you had to hike there

the terrain from headwall was much more fun

their trees tended to be more dense than the Tahoe ones.

The 3rd day, we actually got some fresh snow. It was unfortunately too warm, so the bottom of Big Sky was very wet and the snow felt like ice, but when the top opened and we got there, it was better (not great, but much better) and made for some good riding until the end of the day:

And after a good 3rd day, it was time to go home after another nice scenic drive back to the airport:

lower octane gas at altitude for non turbo cars

All it all, it was good fun to check out the 'biggest skiing domain in America', too bad that the coverage was so low (my brand new board got scratched up).
A big thanks to Eva and Gordon for letting us use their nice cabin.