This was supposed to be a Big Sky trip report

But our Montana trip got cancelled due to Nemo. First our flights were cancelled. Then they put us on overbooked flights with sketchy connections the next day. Three flights to get from central NY to Montana, right after a big storm with another storm in the midwest where our connector flights were. If either of us missed a connection our trip would have been reduced another day. Since Montana hasn't gotten much snow and there wasn't much snow in the forecast, we decided to cut our losses and postpone the trip for another time. The airlines were more than happy to waive the fees since they had so many passengers to re-route and gave us full credit with no penalty.

Suddenly my western ski trip was no more and feelings of deep disappointment were taking over.

I skied the storm at Greek Peak Friday night and tracked the rest out Saturday morning with the help of Pammy, Gorgonzola, SnowMonkey and a few others. Rochester Mark spent that time doing snow removal at his place and hadn't skied in a while. He was also reeling from disappointment. He said let's go ski somewhere.

The weather was to be sunny. Most resorts had no powder left. Snow Ridge had 14" of snow BEFORE Nemo and got another 11" of snow from the storm on Friday. We figured it may be tracked out from Saturday's crowd, but it was probably going to be the best snow within a few hours drive.

We found really nice snow in-bounds


Some of the side country had tracks


Some of it didn't...at least until we were done with it




Rochester Mark wearing some burdock from a run in the sidecounty

Sorry about your trip PDQ.

Nice! Skiing looks really good.

Powderqueen wrote

Rochester Mark wearing some burdock from a run in the sidecounty

At least he doesn't have one of the maple lines around his neck

Harv, a BIG letdown for sure but I'm furiously trying to fiqure out a replacement trip for the middle of March. I'm glad PDQ went to SR with me. I haven't been there in 35 years to ski (went to Moedown last summer) so it was nice to have someone to cut to the chase. It's not very big but the vert is fairly consistent so you get to make the most of it. We had untracked or lightly tracked powder for 3+ hours, no liftlines and $15 on a Sunday! We took some comfort from missing our Montana trip by knowing that was better powder than anything we we're likely to get out west.

Rochester Mark!  (Am I allowed to "Like" this thread as your trip got killed LOL)

I haven't been paying close attention. I thought the west was doing ok?

MIssed you at Gore, but no way was the snow that deep, so I think you made the right call.

The west is doing ok. Starting to shape up. We didn't really cancel due to lack of snow but there was no fresh stuff forecast for our time frame. It was more a case of Nemo delaying things. We were down to 6 days of skiing and looking at another storm in our connecting airports. Coupled with the fallout from Nemo we fiqured we might lose another day so we opted out. We are currently working on going out to Montana the middle of March.  PS, yes you can "Like" this thread. Its all working out. A powder day at Snow Ridge and PDQ and I are headed for freshies at Jay today!

Skimore, no maple lines but I was checking out some great lines farther over from where we were skiing but I would have had to fiqure out a way around quite a few sap lines!

On Sunday, Feb 10th, Big Sky got 8" on top of a soft base. It is snowing today with a another foot forcast over the next two days. The skiing is really good right now. I'm sure it's not as good as Snow Ridge but it is pretty good by our standards. For those who have been here before, to put it into context, you can ski the tram without hitting rocks!
Sorry about your travel problems but don't rationalize it as BS having poor conditions.
Hey Scotty Jack, do you still have some friends coming out? Underground Dirtbag is Feb 27th. The jump is at a new venue and offers a good time.
In the future, if any " Harvey People" are going to be at Big Sky, get in touch as I can offer the guided tour. It's a big mountain that I enjoy showing off. Some of the azz clowns can attest to the tour.

lolkl wrote

In the future, if any "Harvey People" are going to be at Big Sky, get in touch as I can offer the guided tour. It's a big mountain that I enjoy showing off. Some of the azz clowns can attest to the tour.

Awesome.

lolkl wrote

On Sunday, Feb 10th, Big Sky got 8" on top of a soft base. It is snowing today with a another foot forcast over the next two days. The skiing is really good right now. I'm sure it's not as good as Snow Ridge but it is pretty good by our standards. For those who have been here before, to put it into context, you can ski the tram without hitting rocks!
Sorry about your travel problems but don't rationalize it as BS having poor conditions.
Hey Scotty Jack, do you still have some friends coming out? Underground Dirtbag is Feb 27th. The jump is at a new venue and offers a good time.
In the future, if any " Harvey People" are going to be at Big Sky, get in touch as I can offer the guided tour. It's a big mountain that I enjoy showing off. Some of the azz clowns can attest to the tour.

We would have missed the fresh powder due to Nemo and it looked like just 1-2" in the forecast. It wasn't our only justification to cancel...we mostly didn't want to lose another day with the fallout from Nemo, the airports were a mess and our flights were delayed. If either of us missed a flight or got bumped, we'd miss another day of skiing.. If a huge storm was in the forecast, we might have gone on a shortened trip. We decided to postpone until March when the snow here is dwindling. Hopefully the base will be deeper and we'll get some fresh powder, or if not, spring conditions. Either works and we'll get to ski a lot more.

When we got to Jay we booked flights to Montana for late March, so we are all set. This time we booked an extra day, so if we get delayed we won't lose out. llokl, we'll get in touch when we get closer to our trip. We'd love a little local point of view during our visit.

I skied 3 powder days Fri-Sun (Nemo) and now we are at Jay Peak where we are looking at 5-10" for tomorrow morning. The way it is coming down right now, it should be the higher end of that range.

heading to Snow Ridge now they got a fresh 10 inches last nite and it hasnt been skied since sunday ! Still snowing there

Snow Ridge should be great! Have fun!

Jay Peak is reporting 18" and it is still comin down...I think we are in a good place

PQ. Damn u shouda been here today, it was CHOICE  once again , peeps were doin Powder 8's this am and the slack country was REFRESHED , REFURBISHED and untouched from the weekend . u would have been in YOUR element AGAIN ,

So far SR has DELIVERED this season

warp daddy wrote

PQ. Damn u shouda been here today, it was CHOICE  once again , peeps were doin Powder 8's this am and the slack country was REFRESHED , REFURBISHED and untouched from the weekend . u would have been in YOUR element AGAIN ,

So far SR has DELIVERED this season

Warp Daddy, I would have been there except I was skiing fresh powder at Jay Peak.

Good on ya !!! way to get after it !