2009 - MT - Back country

On day two, Travis wanted to take me out the north boundary, up the ramp to Bradley meadows, and over the other side to an area of the mountains i'd never seen or skied before; China bowl. China is a huge, secluded place with interesting terrain features and many opportunities for technical skiing.

Travis is a dedicated backcountry adventurer. His job allows him the ability to ski the slopes every day of the week and believe me, he takes full advantage. But most days, he likes to slide through the gate and disappear into the backcountry.


These are skins.

Ski skins stick to the bottom of the ski and allow uphill travel using simple friction. The skins have thousands of tiny stiff fibers that lay almost flat, pointing toward the back of the ski.

As you slide the ski uphill, the snow glides over the fibers. When you step down, the thousands of fibers catch and stick (incredibly well) and keep you from sliding down.

For skins to work right, you need a free heel binding, using either telemark skiis, click-in alpine trekkers or AT bindings mounted to alpine skiis. Above, Travis shows off his Marker DUKE AT binding in free heel mode. These things work very well. It's just like uphill cross country skiing.

Bridger Bowl opened it's boundaries this season. Something I had always wished and hoped for when I lived in Bozeman.

The fun begins once you're through.


Travis skins up to Bradley Meadows. Hidden chute, the Apron and Northwest Passage loom above.

We trekked for about 15 minutes until we arrived about halfway up, to the base of "the ramp," A terrain feature most easily distinguished from within the ski area boundaries. It is a ramp like mountain slope that maintains a moderate pitch, all the way to the top of the ridge.At the top of our trek, Travis dug an avalanche pit to gauge the quality of the snowpack. 2009 has been a particularily bad snowpack season because the first few snowfalls put about 12 inches of very granular, almost sand like snow as the base layer. This is the worst possible condition for snow pack and avalanches because a granular base layer is like a layer of small ball bearings, just waiting to roll the entire season's snowpack down the hill. This is very dangerous and has been the cause of many avalanche related deaths this year.

The snow at our particular location and slope angle was stable and skiable. We would stick to 40 degrees and less, and stay off exposed and wind battered slopes. Anything steeper than 40 degrees would be much more risky.

Travis dug the pit and isolated the layers of snow. The process is like taking a core sample from antactica, you could see all of the storms that have occured over the course of last 3-4 months. The snowpack measured about 210 cm to the ground.

(You can see the G3 skins on the bottom of my skiis.)

Travis, just before dropping into China bowl. This is the reward.