Blogs
Winter # 1 - done
Submited By Monasheemountaincats On 2008-04-05
Reflections on the 1st full season snowcat, deep pow and discovery.
Greeting from the snowbelt,
The calendar says April but the fresh snow in the hills feels more like mid winter.
We are just wrapping up our 1st full season of skiing and exploring in our tenure. We had a great winter, one with more than our share of snow.
Our height of snow still on April 4th is well in excess of 3 meters.
We had several groups come thru and help us explore and discover some of the secret stashes. (there are pics on "Monasheemountaincats.com" if you want to see some of the memories.)
We planned our road network so that nearly every area/zone and a cat road wrapping around the bottom so there was no way not to hit the cat road, to avoid, where ever possible, crossing our cat roads on your ski line, and to get ya to the top as quick as we could.
Our PB300 has a brand new comfy cab that can easily carry up to 15 skiiers/boarders without feeling like a sardine. The fact we use a PB300 rather than a smaller cat allows us to get to the top of the hill more quickly and smoother than many other cats, thereby allowing us to track up more pow. This in addition to the fact that almost all our runs are "fall line" with very few flats make our area perfect for snowboarders in addition to skiers. (which is good cause we both snowboard).
Our very 1st trip back on New Years eve was quite the way to start things out....we had over 1 meter of fresh snow. My ruler for measuring snow depth only goes to 1 meter and foot penetration was well in excess of that...I guess next winter I need a longer ruler. For the better part of January I was riding my Winterstick swallowtail (183cm) powder gun, and the guests were on the fattest, biggest Prior skis we had to stay on top and float, and get tons of face shots. . Some days it snowed so hard we could ski the same area and between a few runs our tracks would fill back in. We truly are in the snowbelt out here.
We had several days of exploring and discovering different areas, and opening up new terrain almost every trip out. I told everyone "if you want a run named after you do 1 of 2 things....either go really big...or screw up really big, either way will earn you fame.
Around the middle to the end of January we finally saw the sun and blue skies. So we just had to go out and track up all that fresh untracked snow under bluebird conditions ( tough job but well it has to be done). We took many friends and family out and showed them the goods.
All thru out February and into March we kept building roads and opening up more East and North terrain so when the spring sun came we could go hide out and ride fresh cool snow all day.
Some of our treed runs off "Billy Goat Bluff" turned out to have tremendous natural tree skiing. Some of the best tree runs i've ever skied. Some of these runs (up to 600M vertical) were the favorite of many of the groups. with calls of "lets do that again, and again, and again".
We also opened up terrain in "South Park" which burned off in a fire back in that hot summer of 2003. This area has several different ridge lines and "bumps and humps" in it. There is such a variety of lines that we only sampled a small portion of it this year and will have even more of it opened up for next winter. Skiing thru the burned trees was great, loads of open gladed and nice steep little pitches kept everyone busy grinning and hooting and hollering as they tracked it up.
Nearly every group ended their day off at the western area of our tenure. An area called "Skinny Ridge", with the knob at the end christened "Lose Your Lunch Knob". Our runs off this knob to the west and into the setting sun took us thru some nice tight trees then opened up to probably everyones favorite run thru a wide open cutblock where everyone could relax and "turn it lose". Big smiles were the norm a perfect way to end the day off, ( and hopefully get ya fired up to do it all again the next day).
Our summer plans include: more road building to access more terrain, some road improvements to existing roads making them straighter and faster to the top, some minor glading to open a few treed areas up, and plenty of looking around exploring and picturing yourself skiing thru next winter. Lots of day dreaming.
Well thats pretty much a wrap on the winter of 07-08, remember there are only THREE SEASONS that count....THIS winter, LAST winter, and NEXT winter.
Cheers
Kris and David - Monasheemountaincats.com
Submited By Monasheemountaincats On 2008-04-05
Reflections on the 1st full season snowcat, deep pow and discovery.
Greeting from the snowbelt,
The calendar says April but the fresh snow in the hills feels more like mid winter.
We are just wrapping up our 1st full season of skiing and exploring in our tenure. We had a great winter, one with more than our share of snow.
Our height of snow still on April 4th is well in excess of 3 meters.
We had several groups come thru and help us explore and discover some of the secret stashes. (there are pics on "Monasheemountaincats.com" if you want to see some of the memories.)
We planned our road network so that nearly every area/zone and a cat road wrapping around the bottom so there was no way not to hit the cat road, to avoid, where ever possible, crossing our cat roads on your ski line, and to get ya to the top as quick as we could.
Our PB300 has a brand new comfy cab that can easily carry up to 15 skiiers/boarders without feeling like a sardine. The fact we use a PB300 rather than a smaller cat allows us to get to the top of the hill more quickly and smoother than many other cats, thereby allowing us to track up more pow. This in addition to the fact that almost all our runs are "fall line" with very few flats make our area perfect for snowboarders in addition to skiers. (which is good cause we both snowboard).
Our very 1st trip back on New Years eve was quite the way to start things out....we had over 1 meter of fresh snow. My ruler for measuring snow depth only goes to 1 meter and foot penetration was well in excess of that...I guess next winter I need a longer ruler. For the better part of January I was riding my Winterstick swallowtail (183cm) powder gun, and the guests were on the fattest, biggest Prior skis we had to stay on top and float, and get tons of face shots. . Some days it snowed so hard we could ski the same area and between a few runs our tracks would fill back in. We truly are in the snowbelt out here.
We had several days of exploring and discovering different areas, and opening up new terrain almost every trip out. I told everyone "if you want a run named after you do 1 of 2 things....either go really big...or screw up really big, either way will earn you fame.
Around the middle to the end of January we finally saw the sun and blue skies. So we just had to go out and track up all that fresh untracked snow under bluebird conditions ( tough job but well it has to be done). We took many friends and family out and showed them the goods.
All thru out February and into March we kept building roads and opening up more East and North terrain so when the spring sun came we could go hide out and ride fresh cool snow all day.
Some of our treed runs off "Billy Goat Bluff" turned out to have tremendous natural tree skiing. Some of the best tree runs i've ever skied. Some of these runs (up to 600M vertical) were the favorite of many of the groups. with calls of "lets do that again, and again, and again".
We also opened up terrain in "South Park" which burned off in a fire back in that hot summer of 2003. This area has several different ridge lines and "bumps and humps" in it. There is such a variety of lines that we only sampled a small portion of it this year and will have even more of it opened up for next winter. Skiing thru the burned trees was great, loads of open gladed and nice steep little pitches kept everyone busy grinning and hooting and hollering as they tracked it up.
Nearly every group ended their day off at the western area of our tenure. An area called "Skinny Ridge", with the knob at the end christened "Lose Your Lunch Knob". Our runs off this knob to the west and into the setting sun took us thru some nice tight trees then opened up to probably everyones favorite run thru a wide open cutblock where everyone could relax and "turn it lose". Big smiles were the norm a perfect way to end the day off, ( and hopefully get ya fired up to do it all again the next day).
Our summer plans include: more road building to access more terrain, some road improvements to existing roads making them straighter and faster to the top, some minor glading to open a few treed areas up, and plenty of looking around exploring and picturing yourself skiing thru next winter. Lots of day dreaming.
Well thats pretty much a wrap on the winter of 07-08, remember there are only THREE SEASONS that count....THIS winter, LAST winter, and NEXT winter.
Cheers
Kris and David - Monasheemountaincats.com
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