What a Good GREAT tour!
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| Some air-ski-guitar action was deemed necessary, although apparently not impressive to Dave's dog Captain. |
On this trip I had the great pleasure of meeting up with Dave Glueckert, author of an outstanding blog
GetOutRideHard.blogspot.com Also met up with another swell individual Scott S. It's always a fantastic experience meeting others that share a semi-self-destructive addiction to backcountry shenanigans.
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| "Little Rainbow Mountain" with Storm Lake in the foreground. |
Snow had once again christened the Pintler Wilderness, thus the only just and respectful course of action is to return the Storm Lake area. Albeit, Hoodoo Pass was on the chopping block, however early information reporting no/little base to be had there. I s'pose this is a fair result since SNOTEL stats had snow level jumping from 3-4" to 16" @ ~6,000ft in a matter of about a week.
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| Dave Glueckert eyeing the prize. |
All this led us to either Haggin Mountain, or Storm Lake. Early season conditions evident upon entering Anaconda precluded us from Haggin and left it for another day. Sometimes Ms. Nature just plans the trip for you, if you listen. In this case, she guided us back to Storm Lake, and was a great decision on her part.
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| Approaching our first prospective chute. |
After making good time up the road and through the lightly forested area around Storm Lake, we came on what we thought was going to be a shoe-in for our first chute. As it turns out, we experienced some of the loudest 'whomps' we've ever heard. ('whomp' = sound area of snow makes as it settles/collapses atop a weaker layer) We dug a couple pits, mildly concerning results, then topped off with one last whomp that made our stomachs sink; sent us scurrying away for Mt. Tiny... which served us very well in the end.
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| Scoping first chute. |
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| Making our way to Mt. Tiny |
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| Ninja style the way up; btw I 'hate' the color orange. :) |
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| Dave and Captain blazin trail to the pass. |
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| New (to me) Armada JJ's waiting to slay some 'gnar' |
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| Storm Lake Pass |
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| Looking South-ish over the pass. |
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| Dave and Captain |
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| South side of Mt. Tiny, gnarly trail as well. |
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| Dave and Scott talking 'shop'. |
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| Scott on the side of Tiny. |
Making our way across and onto Mt. Tiny treated us with spectacular views, and good exercise. Light weather clouds blowing over Tiny gave way to inspirational 'this is the life' moments only available during trips like this one.
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| Captain, an unbelievable snow dog! |
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| Turns down Tiny. |
After reaching the bottom we heard yells billowing across the basin from some individuals we saw earlier making their way up a chute on Little Rainbow Mountain. Turns out it was Phillip Midbøe, a friend and gentleman from Norway finding some paradise in Montana. With about an hour to use before we needed to turn back, we thought it was only fair to use their foot holds up the chute as they used our skin tracks in. :)
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| Making our way up the chute. |
It soon became very evident my legs were absolutely shot, (chalk it up to early season?) it was all I could do just to string together a few turns to get back down.. that 'deep snow burn' that hurts so good. :)
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| Dave killing it on the way down. |
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| Wrestling some leg burning turns on the way down, lucky for me, and you... my GoPro was full by then and thus there is no video footage to document just how boring this was to watch! |
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| More clouds over Tiny on the way out. |
Thanks for looking!
-Miles Granger
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