Spent a couple of nights at a great backcountry lodge in the Bitterroot Mountains south of Missoula recently. Snow wasn't great, but given the miserably anemic winter we had in Montana this year, we were just happy there was any snow at all. Didn't shoot it seriously, but did whip out the camera to take a few snaps...
Mike England, right, publisher and editor of the fine magazine Outside Bozeman organized the trip. Thanks Mike!
The lodge itself is undeniably awesome. It's got a couple bedrooms, a commercial kitchen, massive fireplace, and, most importantly, a foosball table.
Our group of six had the place all to ourselves for a few days. Tragically, it rained hard my last day there, which was a bit depressing for the other guys, who weren't eager to ski in a downpour and lounged around the lodge instead. With a writing deadline looming, I had planned to hang back anyway and bang out some words. Up-and-coming photographer Ryan Krueger took a couple pictures of me toiling over the laptop, Bitterroot Valley far below...
The rain turned to snow overnight and the rest of the group headed out to 18 inches of powder the next morning. We'd been eyeing some aesthetic lines on nearby Downing Mountain, but when the group got there they set off an eye-popping avalanche (visible below in this picture by Darren Schwehr). It's impossible to convey in a picture how much power these slides have. Could have been ugly, but fortunately no one was caught.
I was miles away at that point, up at Big Mountain in Whitefish for weeklong ski vacation with my father and our family. The pictures below, from that trip, show the two biggest reasons why I always play it safe in the backcountry...
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Nice photos and post about the lodge hope you can visit again this winter...
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