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| Home > Mystery Ranch Blog | |
Congratulations to the winners of the 2012 Freeskiing World Tour in Revelostoke! Here are a few shots from our very own Meg Haywood Sullivan. Thanks again Meg. For full coverage, follow this link:
The next stop on the tour travels to our neck of the woods. Good luck to everyone at round 4 of the tour, at Moonlight Basin, Montana.… READ MORE >
After spending a long weekend in Cooke, I was beckoned once again by the scale and availability of its spectacular objectives.
I couldn’t get the images of some of those lines out of my head and was fortunate enough to be able to load up, once again, and drive south. This time, with a solid crew from Salt Lake City, including my good amigo Jay Beyer.
We had decided to spend a few days camped up where I had spent the previous weekend, to put us in good position for a solid assault on some big lines at a moment’s notice. I took a scouting lap on my sled into the basin and found a stellar campsite in the trees located right below the immense wall, that I am nostalgically referring to as Churchbells. After a few laps of running the boys into camp, we set out to see if anything was moving, and show the SLC crew the spectacular arena surrounding us. I think they were impressed.
We got back to camp and, after a few bouts of the Old Crow, we attempted sleep amongst the titans that surrounded us. Morning 1; quick breakfast to ease the angst … READ MORE >
If there is a heaven, I think it might be near the NE entrance to Yellowstone..
On another random Wednesday evening, Brad and I planned a quick and dirty trip south to rip big lines in classic Montana fashion. The Tacoma adorned with my old Summit 700, a case of PBR, winter bags and a tarp, we blazed through the park, losing count of the numerous close calls with various hoofed animals.
We had some big missions in mind, and thankfully, the snowpack in the region has been very conducive. With no consistent weak layers, and a minor threat of wind slabs, our confidence in some of the bigger objectives started to overbear any fear of strength, ability or prowess. We toured around day 1 ripping some beautiful east facing lines only to be blindsided by one of winter’s deadliest predators. Skirting along a knife edge ridge, making it a point to stay as close to the windward side of the ridge as possible, Brad stepped just far enough to make everything go BOOM!! Scrambling to secure himself back into terra firma, a truck sized cornice ripped itself loose and tomahawked downward. Usually the best sign of instability, proved itself … READ MORE >
Sometimes, something beautiful happens in this world…
In some cases that may mean falling in love, getting your dream job, or finding out that you didn’t actually break your back when you smoke a tree at 30 miles an hour… On that note, the term Sunday Funday has a lot more credibility when the beauty of 2,500 foot faces littered with pillows, cliffs, and 2 feet of fresh are all of the sudden staring you in the face.
SW Montana can have a tough time staying consistent as far as snowpack goes. The Bridgers can get pretty bad, pretty quickly, when 90 mph winds pillage any new snow that may have fallen in previous storms. Gallatin Range, same thing… And don’t get me started on the Crazies…. But fortunately, with a little exploring, some serious vert, and a couple hours trying to keep 4 wheels between the lines, something beautiful indeed, can happen.
A strong trio and a good sense of the terrain, Meg, Ryan and I cranked our way up switchbacks, through Cascade-esque pillows, perfectly spaced pines, and dozens of photo worthy cliffs. It’s always a pleasure skiing with new people and I was stoked to get to be … READ MORE >
So after a few injury laden weeks from an episode involving a stubborn tree and my hip, I finally made it back into the mountains. Tradeshows brought me down to Denver for SIA and Salt Lake City for OR, to ride some pow with my good friend Jay Beyer (jaybeyer.com) The Wasatch doesn’t disappoint even with an ice layer from a rain sequence the week prior, as we found good snow on the backside of Mt. Superior. Sunny skies and decent wind deposited enough new snow to cover up parts of that ice layer and make for some good photo opportunities and easy skinning.
My Fuze and I are attached at the hip throughout most of the winter and finally got a chance to ride my new DPS Lotus 138′s after staring at them for weeks. A few laps on the north side of Superior on wind affected, but silky smooth snow, and a final push back down to Little Cottonwood. If you haven’t ridden in the Wasatch…. You know what exclamation comes next…
That night, forecast called for a mild storm to roll in and we aimed our sights at the Y-Not Couloir on the North side … READ MORE >
Nothing like springtime in the mountains. You ever been sitting around early on a Saturday morning sipping black juice with your buddies trying to come up with a plan for the day? Should we head to the Gally? Maybe run the Kitchen Sink, ride Leverich, or try to find some north facing couloirs to boot up? It’s the fortunate problem we all run into living in Bozeman, and especially during the spring months. As the snow continues to melt faster and faster with the warming days, we thought it would be wise to try and get in some big lines prior to full blown summer. Gallatin Peak looks good, as does the Y Couloir on Big Black, but we thought that instead of the classic descent in the later months of July and August, we decided to have at the big NW Face of Blaze Mountain.
I was off the couch after a 3 week stint of travel and work so needless to say I was psyched to stretch the legs a bit. The sun was blazing by 9 am and we trudged through the venerable stream that was the Spanish Creek trail, past one fork, and approached another. Years … READ MORE >
