Spring Skiing on St. Mary's Peak

So today I accomplished a goal of getting another day in on the skis before the end of the "season." When I explained that, yes, I was going skiing on Tuesday, people were like "There's still snow?".  And yes, believe it or not, that white stuff you see covering the mountains all around Missoula is indeed snow. And yes, you can still ski it.

So, who better to go skiing with than this guy I just met at the local brewery, Ryan.  He has the familiarity with skiing the Bitteroot and the desire to go to ridiculous lengths to get a few turns in, so I convinced him to take the day off everything and go skiing with me.  We were originally going to do Lolo Peak, but opted for a more accessible mountain, St. Mary's Peak.  I didn't really care where we skied, I just wanted to be up among mountains in the alpine; something that has been lacking in my life lately.  The weather looked hopeful, and as I said, it wouldn't rain. The road to St. Mary's this time of year takes you within about 3 miles of the summit, which is still a decent skin in, especially in wet, sloggy snow.

We headed up until the most reasonable stopping point near the summit, drank a beer, and surveyed our options of decent.  By far the best skiing would require an extra skin out.  We did it anyways.

We skinned back up, skied down the ridge we climbed and totally overshot the trail on the way back.  Oh well, more skinning.  Springtime skinning generally involves a lot of non-snow ski interface circumstances, as in skinning over logs, rocks, patches of dirt, moss, beargrass, deer poop... you name it.  We skinned over all

of it.  Gear in good shape is gear that probably hasn't been used much, right?

  

Even before we got back to the truck, we decided we'd hit up the Blacksmith brewery in Stevensville.  I'm pretty sure I burned about 4 days worth of food in that hike.  Finally back in Stevensville, sitting on the patio of the Blacksmith drinking a much deserved beer,  the rain began. Perfect timing.