Table of Contents Missoula’s backyard wilderness ...............................4 Safety first ................................................................9 XC skiing 101 .........................................................10 Perfect imperfections .............................................14 Cover photo by Robin Carleton
photo by Chad Harder
Missoula Independent P.O. Box 8275 Missoula, MT 59807 Phone number: 406-543-6609 E-mail address: independent@missoulanews.com
photo by Chad Harder
photo by Chad Harder
issoula is a wilderness town. Travel south down Highway 93 and the sprawling Bitterroot-Selway Wilderness stretches to the west. Head north and the Scapegoat, Bob Marshall, Great Bear, Cabinet Mountains and Mission Mountains wilderness areas offer a lifetime of solitude and escape. The Anaconda-Pintler and Welcome Creek wilderness areas can be found southeast of town. You can literally take a bus from the Hip Strip to within a few miles of the Rattlesnake Wilderness. If you like exploring big open spaces on foot or horseback, Missoula is your town. Congress passed the Wilderness Act in 1964, which made 2014 the golden anniversary of the landmark conservation law. I wanted to find a way to celebrate and an excuse to explore, so on a blustery late November day in 2013, while exploring the Bear Trap Canyon Wilderness Area north of Ennis, I set a goal to get into a wilderness area once a month for the entirety of 2014. I experienced some incredible places: six days hiking and packrafting through the Bob Marshall, Labor Day weekend in Idaho’s stunning Sawtooth Mountains, an April visit to a barrier island off the southern coast of Georgia. I walked through miles of beargrass and meadows of rainbow wildflowers, climbed past alpine lakes shimmering beneath craggy mountain peaks and watched wild horses and armadillos wander beneath canopies of ancient live oak trees dripping with Spanish moss. But of all these, the quiet moments beneath the chalky winter sky in Missoula’s backyard
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wildernesses proved the most memorable. In the thrum of a busy life, I couldn’t simply blast off for a full weekend of exploration or take a life-list vacation each month. So I took full advantage of Missoula’s geography. These winter adventures started an hour or so from town. Backcountry skis and skins were the only technical pieces of gear I used. Basic winter travel skills, a smidge of creativity and a commitment to try are all the other tools you’d need to explore Missoula’s nearby wilderness areas for yourself this winter.
January: A day at the lake Gray clouds covered the sky in a thick smear of moisture. A three-week-long high-pressure system had finally moved on. Low clouds lazily spit snowflakes as I stopped to catch my breath in the silent expanse. Nothing moved except my dog trotting ahead on the frozen surface of Lindbergh Lake. The snow-covered ice stretched 5 miles into the distance, flat and static. Hoar-laden cottonwoods, ponderosas and larch rose from the banks, ghostly against the dark flanks of the Mission Mountains rising into the sky. I pulled at the zipper on my jacket and resumed gliding across the lake. Cross-country skiing across a frozen lake is remarkably easy. There are no flatter places to schuss in the entire state; heck, there’re no flatter places to ski in the entire world. But when you leave that frozen ease and head into the woods, skinny skis become liabilities. The Mission Mountains Wilderness begins at the southern edge of Lindbergh Lake. My goal
was Crystal Lake, another couple of miles up through the trees. Icy, hard-packed snow and dense forest made “skiing” impossible, but I herringboned, poled and clawed my way a mile and a half through the thick forest toward Crystal Lake. After an hour or so of regretting that I didn’t pack snowshoes, I paused for some lunch and decided to turn back around. For the return, I slipped out of the woods and gingerly shuffled, jumped and scooted along and on top of the Swan River. The Swan is most famous for its whitewater, but here it was a shallow, meandering stream. All the same, I had no desire to get wet, so I moved cautiously, scooching from pillow to pillow, hoping that none would collapse under my weight and send me into the frigid water. It was exhilarating and a touch frightening. A wet foot wasn’t the end of the world, but I still had miles to ski before hitting the car. The small knot of anxiety disappeared as I glided back onto the lake. Pausing one last time, I absorbed the stillness. Most of Montana’s lakes are crazy busy in the summer as wake boarders and jet skiers zip past fishermen and families on pontoon boats. Country music and classic rock blast from shore to shore. Six months from that late January Sunday, Lindbergh would be no different. But for the moment, it was precisely the opposite—silent, empty and mine alone to enjoy.
February: A thousand vertical feet of powder We rolled into the familiar parking lot at the base of the Rattlesnake National Recreation Area at 7 a.m. The early dawn light provided
enough visibility for Ted, Adam and me to pack our gear and click into our skis. We skinned up the main corridor as the shadows lifted. Four miles later, we turned off the trail up the Pilcher Creek drainage, headed for the southeastern ridge of the Stuart Peak massif and the burnt forest that beckoned with a thousand vertical feet of powder. In 20 minutes, we found ourselves in a narrow drainage, stuck in place. Skis off, we clamored up the small cliff to our right, anxious to gain the slope above and continue climbing. Forty minutes later, we kicked back into our skis and started climbing in earnest. It was going to be a long day. As we climbed, the weather deteriorated. Patchy sun gave way to blustery clouds and the thick gray sky that dominates western Montana’s winter days. Minutes turned to hours. We kept climbing as the snow flurries began. Finally, seven hours after we started, we reached the ridge. The wilderness boundary lay just a half-mile farther up the winding ridge; Stuart Peak loomed farther still. We paused behind a rock to grab a bite in the whipping wind. Despite our proximity to the boundary separating the “wilderness” from the “forest,” I knew my plan was foiled. We were tired and
photo by Robin Carleton
running out of time. Paper boundaries mean nothing to the physical realities of the land. My personal challenge of actually reaching the wilderness meant little to Ted and Adam, so we pulled the skins off our skis and dropped into the burnt forest that fell from the ridge. Disappointment turned immediately to the simple joys of powder turns. It was raining when we hit the main trail
two hours later. We still had a 4-mile slog back to the car. More importantly, even after eight hours of movement, I’d come up a half-mile short. Failure. I’d either have to find another opportunity to check February off my list or my little project would be over in the second month. But I smiled and whooped with Ted and Adam anyway. I felt content and proud. As we
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shuffled our heavy backcountry gear down the trail, drawing curious looks from the few cross country-skiers braving the wet, soggy weather, the old aphorism about the journey being more important than the destination echoed through my mind. Never had I found it more true.
March: Casting through graupel Melting snow cleaved the brown gravel road. The ruts looked too tall for my Subaru Impreza, so I parked and started jogging with my dog up Rock Creek Road toward the suspension bridge crossing Rock Creek and leading into the Welcome Creek Wilderness. Two miles later, we scurried across the bridge and photo by Chad Harder into wilderness. The trail wound through the dense forest, past Douglas fir trees and snowberry bushes, their and into my boots. The hushed forest seemed plump white berries still clinging. Bright eerie, too quiet. I started looking up the scree bursts of orange lichen popped on the cold fields for the dusky brown outline of a moungray rocks that flanked the trail. The jangle of tain lion, aware that my fears were completely the dog’s collar and my footsteps broke the unfounded, but seduced by them regardless. I post-holed another half hour through the stillness. Soon, the patchy snow lining the trail coa- deepening late-spring snowpack. I had bought my fishing license and some lesced into progress-preventing depths. Cold streamers prior to heading out of town, so havchunks of rotten snow slipped past my cuffs ing successfully ticked off my March goal, I
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headed back to the car and the cold clear waters of Rock Creek. I spent a couple of hours working Rock Creek in a futile effort to catch trout. The sky spat graupel and the wind frustrated my already limited casting ability. I’d never fished in March before, and despite the wind, the precipitation and the lack of fish, I found myself grinning as I peeled out of my waders and slid into the car. In truth, my winter wilderness attempts weren’t that impressive. The cadre of hardcore adventurers who live in Missoula could have easily accomplished much cooler objectives. I barely even made it into two of the wilderness areas I had set out to explore and failed to reach the third. But that wasn’t really the point. My objectives were more fluid and open than simply crossing boundaries or summiting peaks. I’ve backcountry skied in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness plenty of times before, but I’d never been to Lindbergh Lake, never backcountry-skied in the Rattlesnake, never fished for trout in March snowstorm. My wilderness project gave me a reason to explore somewhere new, to try something different. But more importantly, it gave me an excuse to get out every month, and sometimes an excuse is all we really need.
Are you prepared? Forget those grisly predicaments you’ve seen in the movies– the core lesson in backcountry first aid is one we can all heed by Alex Sakariassen Most classmates probably thought I was insane to trade quality hang-out time for first responder training. But for one brief semester back in high school, the fluorescent-lit confines of the Metro-Area Ambulance Service basement became my weeknight haunt. I juggled English, French and algebra homework with reading assignments and exercises on splinting broken bones, identifying the early signs of shock, managing mass-casualty scenarios and everything else that might come with being a member of the National Ski Patrol. I’d long dreamt of joining the patrol at my local ski hill, and while at age 16 I hadn’t yet planned to spend my adult life living and recreating in western Montana, that short-term goal has since turned into a lasting awareness of the kinds of frightening situations that can develop in the backcountry. If there’s one lesson that stands out from that initial 100-hour course, and from the countless hours of patrolling, skill refreshing and supplemental training I’ve had since, it’s that preparedness is key. An ounce of prevention, expect the unexpected—adages like these have staying power for a reason. Whether you’re just going out for an afternoon bike ride or plotting a multi-day jaunt into the Bob Marshall Wilderness, anticipating the potential setbacks can actually dramatically reduce the odds of something going wrong. As Aerie Backcountry Medicine Director Dave McEvoy puts it, planning ahead is a first aid skill. “People who get into trouble, a lot of times it’s a small incident that gets out of control,” McEvoy says, “because people start panicking and making really bad decisions that they would never make in a normal situation.” For most folks who regularly recreate in
the backcountry, there are a few no-brainer questions about preparedness that always require answering. The first and most basic is
The same level of consideration goes for first aid kits. Most outdoor shops offer preassembled kits containing everything from combine dressings and gauze to scissors and alcohol swabs. But a little customization can go a long way. McEvoy prefers to roll with a syringe for cleaning out abrasions and lacerations; we both carry malleable SAM splints that can be used to stabilize a whole host of fractures. According to organizations like the Wilderness Medicine Institute, serious trauma is rare. You’re far more likely to be treating a rolled ankle than performing an emergency tracheotomy. Still, even the most innocuous injury can lead to bigger problems if left untreated. “It’s not like you’re photo courtesy of Aerie Backcountry Medicine going to die from a blister, what’s the plan. Thinking real hard about the but what ends up happening is … little things end nature of the activity can tell you a lot about up causing them to change the way they’re moving what equipment you’ll need. Does a short hike and walking around or skiing,” McEvoy says. “You on a sunny winter day call for a sleeping bag or start adjusting for an injury that’s minor in ways avalanche beacon? Hardly. But the sun sets that sometimes can get you in big trouble.” There’s seemingly no end to the tips and early this time of year and that hike could stretch a bit longer than intended, so an extra tricks for backcountry safety: packing extra food and water, carrying some sort of signaling layer of clothes is probably wise. The next obvious question is how well you device in case rescue is needed, letting others know your gear. Sure, that GPS from last know where exactly you’re going. All of these Christmas might come in handy, but not if and more are covered in the types of courses— you’re stuck reading the manual while disori- long and short—offered by groups like Aerie ented and shivering. Unpack everything, make a and Wilderness Medical Associates. But outside checklist, familiarize yourself with the ins and the lessons on anatomy and life-saving skills, outs of every gadget in your arsenal. And, as the central message of preparedness remains McEvoy points out from experience, don’t for- constant. “It’s very basic stuff,” McEvoy says. “You’re get to check batteries. “I just got embarrassingly lost up Lolo not going to get mauled by a grizzly. You might, here not too long ago,” McEvoy says. “It’s get- but you’re probably just going to get cold and ting to be dark, I pull out my headlamp and of wet and a little dehydrated and a little malnourcourse I hadn’t changed the batteries ... Makes a ished and you’re going to make some bad decibig difference. That little light starts going off sions. And those decisions are going to get you telling you you’re running out of batteries, and into big trouble. You should think about the what happens to me, at least, is my mind starts grizzly, but you should really prepare more for the other stuff that’s far more likely.” making bad decisions.” Montana Headwall Winter 2016
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I
can’t relate to people who exult over fresh powder. The words take me back to Big Sky Ski Resort, with my face dented into the stuff and blood running from my nose after blacking out during the first run of my second season trying to alpine ski. I kept on skiing in a daze, because college-me thought that was a smart idea. The next day, when a doctor asked me to say the president’s name, I got it wrong. I quit downhill skiing after that, though I never had much going for me to begin with. My first season was also cut short when I snapped my collarbone on an icy black diamond. Come to think of it, I think I skied the rest of that afternoon too. But since then winters have been a real drag. Most of my free time gets spent inside for a long, low-energy hibernation that leaves me out of shape when warm air finally returns. I needed another way to get outside when the weather’s cold. That’s what brings me to a little square gym at 8 a.m. on a recent fall morning, explain-
ing my comedy of athletic errors to one of the fittest guys I’ve ever met. Kiefer Hahn, who co-owns Momentum Athletic Training downtown, agreed to meet after I told him I’m curious about nordic skiing, a sport about which I know basically nothing. Hahn has been racing since he was a kid, and decades later he still looks almost boyish in a zip-up. His gym has a reputation for attracting elite athletes as clients, but he listens patiently as I express my interest in nordic as a more mellow alternative to bombing down a mountain. Imagine my surprise when Hahn starts to describe the sport’s own type of intensity. “That’s what makes nordic skiing so hard,” he says. “You’re using everything.” “Everything,” Hahn means, as in every part of the body. Not only does the sport require strong cardiovascular health and leg strength to kick the skis forward, but also upper body
strength to push off with nordic skiing’s tall poles and enough balance to stay upright with one ski in the air. Until then, the physical demands of cross-country skiing never really occurred to me. It just looks graceful from afar, like the skiing equivalent of a jog. The better comparison might be swimming. Realizing this makes me glad I’m meeting with Hahn before trying to hit a trail. A friend had coached me in the basics of downhill, but I never felt in control. My legs burned after a few runs, my form suffered and I soon got hurt. Hahn’s gym specializes in ski conditioning, offering a rigorous, twice-weekly program that starts in the fall. Each session rotates through 18 stations con-
structed in the spirit of functional training, an approach to exercise that Hahn says “speaks to the real world of movement” by engaging multiple muscle groups at once. He ticks off the components: balance exercises, heavy squats, tread-
mill running, agility training and plyometrics. “It’s going to kick your ass,” he says. Hahn says all this with a big smile, in a way that feels supportive. He has me step onto a balance board, squat on a balance ball and do leg
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Montana Headwall Winter 2016
lifts on a balance pad set atop a wooden box. I stumble through the motions. “You’ll get good,” he says. “You’re young.” When Hahn’s next appointment arrives, I’m feeling excited but still have plenty of questions. I want to do more. Perhaps not surprisingly, Missoula has an active nordic scene. It’s anchored by the Missoula Nordic Ski Club, a nonprofit run by volunteers who do a ton of work to groom local trails, organize races and help introduce young people/newbies to the sport. They’re a diverse crew, as I find out when I stop by their annual meeting at Big Sky Brewing’s tasting room. The club’s longtime president, Craig Krueger, walks right over and introduces himself to me. We talk about trails, fundraising and Krueger’s love for the sport. “I’m still excited to go out every time,” he says, “after all these years.” Krueger says the Missoula area offers some great skiing opportunities. The club maintains trails in the Rattlesnake, Lubrecht Experimental Forest and Pattee Canyon. “It can be brown in Missoula and you go up there and it’s amazing snow,” he says. Volunteers groom the trails almost daily during the season. The whole operation can cost around $20,000 each year, money that members raise in part by selling booze at Big
Sky Brewing summer concerts. It’s a great deal for nordic skiers, as the trails are free to use. And joining the club costs just $25 a year. Joining the club also lends access to free group clinics aimed at kids, beginners and intermediate skiers, explains Kelly Carin, who coordinates them. Classes are typically held in January and February, and Carin encourages me to try one out, explaining how the club helped her feel at home in Missoula after moving here in 2008. “I wasn’t a part of the community before I joined the nordic ski club,” she says. “The club has been that grounding force.” Carin reminds me to be patient as I learn the sport, but I’m still anxious to gather more information. My next challenge: gear. I head to Open Road on Orange Street, one of a few stores in town that sells and rents nordic skis, where co-owner John Wood spends 45 minutes walking me through the various equipment choices. Skate skis are different from touring skis, it turns out, but otherwise the equipment is fairly straightforward. Nordic skis are sized according to weight, because “the critical thing is you don’t get a ski that’s too stiff for you,” Wood says. That’s because the mechanics of the sport require skis that can both grip the snow and glide over it. Modern equipment solves this paradox by using a scale pattern toward the center of the ski and a cambered design that
keeps it above the snow until the skier presses to kick off. A full setup—boots, skis and poles— will run $300-$400, but used gear isn’t hard to find, and renting is also an affordable option. I hold off on dropping any cash, figuring I ought to wait for a clinic to decide what kind of
skiing, skate or touring, to try. But in the meantime I think about how Hahn summed up his conditioning philosophy to me: “This is about specific training for the shit you love to do outside.” I’m sold on the approach. Now I just need to get out there again during winter.
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few years back, I got on the Grizzly chair at Snowbowl for one more run. It was toward the end of the day, the weather seemed to be escalating and the mountain was shrouded in fog. It was hard to tell if it was snowing or if the frozen particulate churning in the air was the makings of a cloud. About two-thirds of the way into the ride, where the chair leaves the protected corridor of trees and begins its final ascent over the bald face of the Grizzly run, the lift suddenly stopped and left me bobbing and swinging 40 feet above the snowscape. If you’ve spent any time on chairlifts, a halt in progress is no big deal. This is true especially at Snowbowl, where the lifts are infamously quirky and the attitude among staff and regulars seems to be if you don’t like it, go somewhere else. But on this day, with deteriorating conditions, the impending end of the day and no signs of life in the dissipating light, I got to thinking. And when I get to thinking, worrying is usually quick to follow. How many decades older is this lift than the people operating it? What’s the protocol for getting me down from here? How often do they practice such extractions? Should I take my skis off before I jump? In the light of day, these are unreasonable thoughts, but Snowbowl has a way of making you feel like a crazy person. The mountain has its own rules and the people who recreate and work there have stringent (but poorly disseminated) expectations of their fellow skiers and riders. I once witnessed a mob of people waiting to get on the LaVelle chair heckle an elderly woman who had unwittingly cut the line. And in 2012, a longtime pass holder claimed he had been banned from buying a new season ticket after complaining about unsafe conditions near the base of the mountain. But despite the anxiety-inducing chairlifts and the pressures of adhering to a strict but unknowable sense of decorum, there’s nothing I would change about Missoula’s local ski area. In its own way, Snowbowl is perfect.
A
I’m not sure if Missoula is a big town or a small city, but it’s hard to imagine a place inhabited by so many people so unanimously committed to recreation and leisure. I couldn’t find any hard numbers, but I wager Missoula sits at the top of per capita sales for inner tubes, fly rods and beer. You’d think a town so enamored with fun and the outdoors would also ubiquitously love their local ski hill, but Snowbowl seems to illicit strong and polarized feelings from western Montana residents. I have friends who, like me, love it and would gladly spend the whole season driving the (often perilous) road to the Bowl. I have other friends who happily drive two hours to ski or ride elsewhere and vow never to return to the mountain out their backdoor. But whether you love it or hate it, there’s no denying that Snowbowl is tough to break. It starts with the mountain itself. From the top of the LaVelle chair to the base of the Grizzly chair, the mountain offers a thighburning 2,800 vertical feet of open bowls, glades and groomers. Some days the moguls on Spartan Headwall line up so perfectly they make me think I really know how to ski bumps, and when the wind blows just right across West Ridge, pillows of soft snow fill in old tracks and make for the sort of snow-in-your-mouth tree skiing only seen in movies. But for the uninitiated, an inaugural descent might leave one scratching their head.
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Montana Headwall Winter 2016
The problem stems from Snowbowl’s varied and inconsistent fall lines. The fall line of a ski hill is the slope created by the gradient (up and down) and the contours (side to side) of the hill. In other words, if you were to pour a giant bucket of water on the mountain’s head, the water would follow the fall line to the bottom. At Snowbowl, this exercise would show water collecting rapidly in a dozen gulches and ravines before coming together again in a tidal wave just before the base area. The result is that skiers, like the water, are funneled into the same lines to get down the hill, and when there hasn’t been much new snow or if it’s a busy day, those lines become packed and icy—a bit like a bobsled course. The lines can be a little butt-puckering, so it’s best to resist following the fall line, which is a little like arguing with gravity about which way is down; you want your skis to go in one direction, but your body is pushed in another. For experienced skiers, Snowbowl’s funky fall lines can be a surprising blessing. All those opposing and intersecting slopes demand some creative and satisfying decision-making. But throw in dense stands of evergreens, a few exposed boulders and the fact that Snowbowl is in Missoula, where it doesn’t snow all that much, and just getting down the mountain can seem like a test of will. And although there are ways for the timid to get to the bottom, there aren’t many. According to Snowbowl’s Master Development Plan, more than 40 percent of the terrain is for experts only, while only 2 percent is rated for novices and beginners. In other words, the Bowl is great for the whole family, but it’s best if the whole family knows how to ski. Of the people I know who refuse to buy a lift ticket at Snowbowl, though, the tricky terrain is usually not their chief complaint. Closer to the heart of the matter is that Snowbowl has a microculture that can sometimes feel unwelcoming. I experienced this when I first started skiing there 10 years ago. Growing up, skiing was something I got to do one or maybe two weekends a year in Vermont. When I moved to Montana, my gear was outdated, and not in a cool way. My skis were short, my helmet was too small and I didn’t know that snow could fall “upside down” or that on a crowded day you should never, ever get on a chairlift by yourself. On one of my first visits I rode the chairlift with a woman who began asking me about my skis. “How wide are they underfoot? How much camber? Are those only 165s?” I had no answers. My mom had bought them for me and
I’d only used them a handful of times, which didn’t seem like an acceptable response. “They’re my old skis,” I said, pathetically. That interaction made me feel surprisingly insecure. I’d never thought about equipment in a meaningful way, but suddenly I felt like I should know this stuff. A couple years later I started dating a girl who was, without a doubt, a badass skier. She’d grown up skiing Snowbowl. She shouted at friends as they skied under the lift. She high-fived the lifties. She called everyone “Buddy.” We skied together once, and as dates go it was about as awkward as it gets. My tiny helmet, my plaything skis, my utter anonymity—you could hear her attraction to me hissing through a pinprick in her head. We broke up soon after. That is an extreme example coming from a person who is insecure about everything, but it’s indicative of what, I think, can turn some people off from Snowbowl. It’s the sort of place that makes you feel “other” very quickly, and then makes you wish you were the same.
I understand why some people don’t like Snowbowl and I’m glad for it. Not because I now have new skis and I know my way around. Not because I yell “single” in the lift line or because I know where to park so I can ski all the way to my car. And I’m not glad out of some sense of keeping it a secret or guarding it from outsiders. I’m happy some people don’t appreciate Snowbowl because I do. Because if I leave my house at 9 a.m., I’m skiing by 10. Because when the sun shines on East Bowl, the snow gets soft and forgiving. Because all those funky fall lines are resolved at the base, where there’s a bar with a fireplace and a pizza oven. You could show me a perfect day with perfect snow on a perfect mountain, and it still wouldn’t feel as perfect as a day at Snowbowl, no matter the conditions—especially if that day ends with me unbuckling my boots and ordering a pitcher and a pie at that bar. And most importantly, I’m glad not everyone appreciates
Snowbowl because nothing should work for everyone. Things are made better when they appeal to the group, not the crowd. I don’t remember why the Grizzly chair stopped that day, but I was stranded long enough that it must have been something gone wrong. If I hadn’t been by myself, the moment probably wouldn’t stand out in my memory, but I was alone and ripe for worrying. It was the sort of whiteout where air and earth blend together and your sense of space vanishes. As my anxiety piqued, I heard the steady cadence of skis turning through snow, and somehow, it made me stop worrying. The chair rumbled back to life.
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Calendar Dec. 17 Answer the call of the wild at the Rodeo Run Sled Dog Races in West Yellowstone. Free to the public. Visit wysleddograces.com. Dec. 18 Early sundown bumming you out? The sixth annual Light The Way 5K is just the race for you. Luminaries mark the course at Missoula’s Linda Vista Golf Course. $25 if you register by Dec. 13. Visit runnersedgemt.com. Dec. 24 Santa Claus has a busy night ahead of him, but first he’s intent on carving the pow-pow at Whitefish Mountain Resort as part of the Christmas Eve Torchlight Parade. Find out more info at skiwhitefish.com. Dec. 31 Ring in the New Year like a local with the New Year’s Eve Rail Jam at Whitefish Mountain Resort. Visit skiwhitefish.com. Jan. 1 Start the year on the right foot with the Rattlesnake Resolution Run, a 5K through Missoula’s Rattlesnake Valley sponsored by Run Wild Missoula and Runner’s Edge. $5. Visit runwildmissoula.org.
Jan. 8 Put it where Mama hides the Thin Mints during the annual Seeley Lake Pond Hockey Tournament. The three-day event is held outside Lindley’s Prime Steak House and includes A, B, co-ed and women’s only brackets. Visit seeleylakepond hockey.com for registration information. Jan. 9 Don’t apologize, just sign up for Polson’s third annual Sorry ’Bout That Half Marathon. Three-person relay option available, plus a $500 purse for winners. $35. Visit polsonrunning.com to register. Jan. 16 Look closely at Whitefish Mountain Resort or you might miss the annual Whitefish Whiteout, a mountaineering race where competitors skin and bootpack up a variety of terrain, remove their skins and descend challenging terrain. Register by January 15 at skiwhitefish.com. Feb. 4 Ski the powder by day and scoot your boots to bluegrass by night at the Big Sky Big Grass Festival. The four-day event features Bela Fleck, David Grisman Bluegrass Experience, Sam Bush Band, Keller Williams, Drew Emmitt Band
The
Spinal Tune-up While you are getting your gear in for a tune-up you should also be thinking about a tune-up for your spine. People often forget about investing into his or her health to get the most out of the season. Without a healthy spine you may have your season cut short. Schedule a visit with Dr. Anthony today. Like your gear, your spine needs regular attention to keep you performing at your peak.
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Montana Headwall Winter 2016
Snow Joke Half Marathon and The Travelin’ McCourys, among others. Tickets are on sale at bigskyresort.com. Feb. 7 Escape the midwinter blues at the Winter Carnival Slopestyle event at Whitefish Mountain Resort. with competition kicking off at noon. Preregister by Feb. 6 at skiwhitefish.com. Feb. 13 Wax up those skis for the Jeremiah Johnson Memorial Race, featuring two days of slalom racing, at Montana Snowbowl. For info: montanasnowbowl.com. Feb. 20 Who you callin’ a dummy? Oh. It’s just the 13th annual Dummy Jump at Big Sky Resort. Build a dummy,
photo by Cathrine L. Walters
register online or day-of by noon, watch it fly and win prizes. Learn more at bigskyresort.com. Feb. 27 No joke: Running 13.1 miles around Seeley Lake can be the most fun you have all winter. Just ask Gov. Steve Bullock, who was one of the hundreds that took part in last year’s 36th annual Snow Joke Half Marathon. $25 if you register by Dec. 31. Visit mtsnowjoke.com. See big air under the Big Sky at the Snowbowl Cup Gelande Championship, which often includes ski jumps of up to 200 feet using alpine equipment. $8,000 cash purse. Visit montanasnowbowl.com.
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Ä Ä‡Ä€Ä€Ĺ? 0!,$!*/Ĺ? 2!Ä‹Ĺ?Ä‘Ĺ? %//+1( ÄŒĹ? Ĺ?Ä†ÄŠÄ‰Ä€Ä Ĺ? Ĺ? Ĺ? Ĺ? Ĺ? Ĺ? ĨąĀćĊĹ?ÄˆÄ‚Ä‰ÄĄÄ‚Ä†Ä Ä€Ĺ?Ä‘Ĺ? 1 .1 " %//+1( Ä‹ +) Ĺ? Ĺ? Ĺ? *Subaru will donate $250 for every new Subaru vehicle sold or leased from November 19, 2015, through January 2, 2016, to four national charities designated by the purchaser or lessee, up to $15,000,000 in total. Pre-approved Hometown Charities may be selected for donation depending on retailer part icipation. Cert ain part icipating retailers will make an additional donation to the Hometown Charities selected. Purchasers/lessees must make their charity designations by January 31, 2016. The four national charities will receive a guaranteed minimum donation of $250,000 each. See your local Subaru retailer for details, or visit subaru.com/share. All donations made by Subaru of America, Inc. Expires 1/2/16