Camas Road ski

Sunday afternoon, March 8, Patti showed up at my door to ask if I wanted to go skiing with her. Even though it was snowing and blowing outside and somewhat storming, how could I say no?

I grabbed my skis and a few items and off we went in her four-wheel drive Suburu. The roads were snow covered and the traffic was light. East of Columbia Falls we encountered a brief whiteout condition as the strong winds blew lots of snow across the road.  Once we got through Badrock Canyon the wind subsided and we could see better.

We first stopped at a place, near the KOA campground, along Hwy 2 where Patti likes to ski. I am not sure if it was state or federal land but it had a trail looping though the trees. Two vehicles were parked at the entrance and we found fresh ski tracks and next to those, fresh snowshoe tracks. The vehicles were gone when we got back to Patti's car and in their place was a woman preparing to go skiing.

The loop took us less than 45 minutes and I estimate it was about 2 miles long.

We then headed to Glacier Park to ski on the Camas Road.

At the gate to Camas Road we found one set of ski tracks in the new snow. Patti and I skied to McGee Meadow and the tracks went beyond that so we assume the skier skied the entire distance from the North Fork Road to the gate, a distance of about 12 miles.



It was a long slog up to the top of Camas Road. This was all the further Patti had skied in the past but I encouraged her to ski to McGee Meadow. It is only six miles... one way.

I hadn't skied there from this direction so several times I thought it was "just around the bend" when it wasn't.



Along the way we had live trees and we had dead trees. These dead trees were from the Robert fire back in 2003.



We made it all the way to McGee Meadow. After talking a few photos of us with the meadow and mountains in the background we headed back to the car. I had snow over a good part of me as I had fallen over when getting ready to take Patti's photo.



Patti was ahead of me as I stopped to take photos along the way. During the long downhill she stopped and waited for me. In the twilight she had seen a large animal up ahead on the road. We had seen plenty of moose tracks earlier but Patti wanted to make sure it was not a bear who had woken up from a hibernation. I skied ahead to get a closer look. The animal saw us and heard Patti calling out warnings to me. It turned and went back into the trees from whence it came. When we got to where it had been the tracks appeared to be moose tracks. No bear. Patti was pleased as she hadn't brought her bear spray.

As we skied on we kept an eye out in case the moose came back out and charge us. It didn't.

Not to say it was quiet in the deep snow and under the moonlight. With the setting of the sun the temperature dropped. As we skied we could hear crack!... Crack!... CRACK! to our right in the trees. We looked and looked searching for the moose or a bear or whatever moving through the trees. Then nothing. Then more cracking sounds. What is it?! A bit later I heard the cracking sounds on our left. Eventually I decided the cracking sounds were the trees as the temperature quickly dropped. What else could it have been?

The moon rose NE over the mountains and Lake McDonald. So beautiful.

Okay, maybe my photo doesn't quite capture it. You had to be there.

Onward we skied. To keep warm and to get back to the car before it got too dark.


We did stay warm as we skied. But the dark caught up to us before we reached Patti's car.

Order of business (to be completed as quickly as possible!):

1. take off our skis
   
2. start the car
3. turn the car's heater on
4. toss the skis and stuff into the car
5. take this photo
   
6. jump into the car