I, I'm a one-way motorway.
I'm a road that drives away and follows you back home.
Doodle-riffic.
Tom, from Two-Heeled Drive, emailed to ask how I knew those chutes were safe from avalanches.
Good question, Tom.
For starters, those chutes are technically in-bounds at Big Sky Resort, although not many skiers visit them. In fact, that ridge separates two resorts- Big Sky and Moonlight Basin. Ski patrollers, like Mark, do a great job keeping the in-bounds terrain relatively avalanche-safe for idiots like me. He has some great posts on exactly how they do this... with explosives. And it is legal. Blowin' shit up and getting paid for it. What a country.
When you venture out-of-bounds, or go backcountry skiing (which is extremely popular around here), you have to be much more avalanche-aware than you do at a resort.
Since the resort opened on Thanksgiving, we have received significant snowfall, and they have never bombed the A-Z chutes.
Additionally, those chutes are too steep to hold a significant amount of snow. It just doesn't stick there in great quantities. If it did, there probably wouldn't be all those hazardous, shark-teeth-lookin' rocks all over the place... and every swingin' dick tourist from Texas would tromp up there and ski down. (Can I say that? Tourist? I have been here for eight months. Can I get a ruling?) Let's keep those rowdy, yee-haw-screamin' motherfuckers on the groomed runs and in the bars, where they belong. It's just better for everyone that way.
I did kick loose mini-avalnches with each turn. (When I say mini-avalanche, I mean a few inches of snow.) That is kind of a cool sensation. The snow from your last turn is cascading down in front of you as you jump into the next turn.
As a follow-up, I talked to a long-time Big Sky local today. She has dropped into the Big Couloir and the Dictator Chutes. She parroted the party line that the Big Couloir isn't as bad as it looks... except for dropping in, which is hairball. She hasn't skiied (skied?) the A-Z chutes because she thinks they are more difficult and technical than the Big Couloir... which is encouraging.
That dogleg you see halfway down is now snow-covered. That photo was taken in mid-December.
It's just that every time I watch someone going down it, I think, "Crazy fucker."
Maybe people sitting on the lift yesterday were saying the same thing about that snowboarder who kept hiking up the A-Z chutes.
Tom, from Two-Heeled Drive, emailed to ask how I knew those chutes were safe from avalanches.
Good question, Tom.
For starters, those chutes are technically in-bounds at Big Sky Resort, although not many skiers visit them. In fact, that ridge separates two resorts- Big Sky and Moonlight Basin. Ski patrollers, like Mark, do a great job keeping the in-bounds terrain relatively avalanche-safe for idiots like me. He has some great posts on exactly how they do this... with explosives. And it is legal. Blowin' shit up and getting paid for it. What a country.
When you venture out-of-bounds, or go backcountry skiing (which is extremely popular around here), you have to be much more avalanche-aware than you do at a resort.
Since the resort opened on Thanksgiving, we have received significant snowfall, and they have never bombed the A-Z chutes.
Additionally, those chutes are too steep to hold a significant amount of snow. It just doesn't stick there in great quantities. If it did, there probably wouldn't be all those hazardous, shark-teeth-lookin' rocks all over the place... and every swingin' dick tourist from Texas would tromp up there and ski down. (Can I say that? Tourist? I have been here for eight months. Can I get a ruling?) Let's keep those rowdy, yee-haw-screamin' motherfuckers on the groomed runs and in the bars, where they belong. It's just better for everyone that way.
I did kick loose mini-avalnches with each turn. (When I say mini-avalanche, I mean a few inches of snow.) That is kind of a cool sensation. The snow from your last turn is cascading down in front of you as you jump into the next turn.
As a follow-up, I talked to a long-time Big Sky local today. She has dropped into the Big Couloir and the Dictator Chutes. She parroted the party line that the Big Couloir isn't as bad as it looks... except for dropping in, which is hairball. She hasn't skiied (skied?) the A-Z chutes because she thinks they are more difficult and technical than the Big Couloir... which is encouraging.
That dogleg you see halfway down is now snow-covered. That photo was taken in mid-December.
It's just that every time I watch someone going down it, I think, "Crazy fucker."
Maybe people sitting on the lift yesterday were saying the same thing about that snowboarder who kept hiking up the A-Z chutes.
posted by Joe at
9:12 PM
3 Comments:
It occurs to me that something as wacked-out, scare-your-ass-off, straight-to-the-grave steep as those chutes are is not nearly so harrowing after you've done it a couple times.
So how about a post detailing how you overcame the perfectly natural fear of premature death to shoot one of those chutes?
I dunno Tom. There are lines i've done numerous times that still give me a serious knot in my stomach every single time i hit them. Sometimes, if you're not scared, you're clueless.
Still, if those lines are inbounds they will be carefully watched by patrol. And yes, anything over about 45 degrees is too steep for significant accumulation to build up before it slides naturally. That slough though, when it catches up with you, can knock you right on yer ass. Gotta respect it.
Uh, actually I believe that is the "Little Couloir" which really isn't opened to the public unless you have an in with patrol.
The "Big Couloir" is looker's left outside the frame of this picture and significantly easier though you should have some skill and be able to self arrest if if it's packed out.
I'd say you're still a tourist if you don't know the difference yet. In Big Sky it takes at least 3 or 4 seasons to be called a local by anyone other than yourself.
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