Lost Trail - Friday, January 16th

Pat Vermillion came out for a visit and I was happy to oblige him with a day of skiing at Lost Trail. His presentation on their Mongolia fly fishing operation to the Bitterroot Trout Unlimited chapter the night before was a success as far as I was concerned. For Pat the jury is still out because it all depends on bookings. He did get one guy who seemed more interested in their oyal Coachman Lodge. I judge it by wheter anyone falls asleep and I didn't notice although Olin did walk out about 5 minutes in to the presentation. Strange thing is he went right into the bar portion of the elks lodge. Should I be worried?

So back to skiing. The day was blue bird with a few lingering high clouds. The dreaded January thaw was in it's infancy as the high pressure was just moving in from the west. This thaw may not be so dreaded as the snowpack needs some warming to stabilize the deep faceted layer at the bottom. We proceeded up the pass and greeted with fog just at the top of the pass which was pouring in from the Salmon river valley which was encased in a strong inversion. By the time we got to our parking spaces we were above the fog although the surrounding trees were slightly rime ice covered. It was a beatiful blue-bird day of skiing although there was a very strong southerly wind which was swirling at the top of Chair 4. We skied Chair 4 most of the day enjoying the Sacajewea trees out the north gate. The temps stayed cool and except for the direct south facing areas the snow did not get at all warm.

On our way back over to Chair 1 we poached the steep meadow above hideout accessed via the switchback on Oreo. I had never skied this before and was impressed by the steepness and the number of kickers the local kids have built. I was also impressed by the size of the crown from a huge avalanche which I noticed back on Jan. 2nd and noted in my 'Happy New Year!' post. The crown ran the whole length of the meadow as far as we could tell and propagated from the edge of the trees at the steep part of the convex roll. A couple feet of snow seemed to have fallen since with a thick layer of large beautiful surface hoar crystals gracing the surface. We skied own the edge of the trees and the hoar crystals jingled as we floated down. Our last run of the day was the chute I first skied last year off the North Face. The upper part was too skinny to drop the knee on but once through the skiing was great with perfect soft chute jump turn snow all the way down. Pat was more tired than I was by the end of the day so I think he had a good time.