Mt. Blaze, redux

Sunrise in the Spanish Peaks

 
Any grand adventure is bound to go wrong at some point along the way. The adventure doesn’t really start until then. Mountain trips are particularly finicky in this way, dependent on weather and snow conditions and the temperament of the mountain itself — sometimes it’s determined not to let you on. August’s ski trip was one akin to that.

I went to bed the night of Aug. 19 happy about the elevated platform I'd built to house my ski gear and stoked about a trip planned for the upcoming weekend to ski the Whitetail Couloir. Then I had something of a prophetic dream... I found myself at a bar in western Pennsylvania not unlike one I visited once in high school after skiing Seven Springs Resort, my home mountain then.

Outside there were two lifts servicing a poor excuse for a mountain. But it had a decent enough angle to get turns in and the snow looked deep, despite it obviously being mid-summer. I was on the lift looking down at my skis when all the sudden I came tumbling down many feet into the snow below. The fall left me unhurt but I was stuck in the deep pow with my skis on unable to truly maneuver. My mind went blank as I unclipped and worked my way until the skis were on my pack and I was ready to trek uphill and earn my summer turns.

When I looked at the path ahead, though, the snow had melted. A rocky, depressing incline rose before me after all that falling terror and work to get myself unstuck and ready to rock.

The next morning I called the good people at Sylvan Mountain Sports in Red Lodge to see if anyone knew of the snow conditions on Whitetail. No one really knew, but I was given camping tips and felt solid about the recon. That dream kept nagging me in the back of my mind, so I posted on the shop’s Facebook wall to see if anyone frequenting the page had recently made the trip.

It was passed along that a climber up there had seen 'very grim' snow conditions -- a narrow strip of ice at the top and an icy gravelly mix stretching halfway down the scenic couloir.

You say "grim," I say east coast conditions. Although it isn't the Whitetail Couloir

Things started falling apart from there. Skiing buddies were blowing out their knees, moving to new houses around town, leaving for weddings. Meanwhile, wildfires started popping up around the area and temperatures were consistently hitting the 90s. The Whitetail Couloir trip was scrapped and it certainly looked like the world was conspiring against anyone skiing in Montana in August.

I hit up my buddy who made the drive from Phillipsburg to Bozeman the prior weekend to see if there was snow on the Blaze, just trying to scrounge a backup plan for August. He didn't really look and couldn't say. Another buddy who trekked up to Butte that day didn't make it back until dark and couldn't say either.

I made up my mind to make a lightning-quick solo mission up the Blaze to claim whatever turns were to be had, if any. It was disappointing that the Whitetail trip fell apart because, in addition to being an aesthetic line, it would’ve required a little bit of mountaineering along the way.

Sometimes you take weird pictures when you wake up three hours after heavy drinking to hike 14 miles.

So in the spirit of using the summer to practice techniques to be used during winter, I went out and partied downtown until the bars closed as a little warm up for the classic endurance challenge of “last call, first chair.”

Waking up at 5 a.m. after a night that started off with pint of Jack & Coke was a little rough, but I got on the Spanish Creek trailhead in an hour and a half and was feeling pretty good, if not a little cold, tromping around in Chacos. The first hour or so of the hike flew by, probably because I wasn’t fully awake or sober at that point. Then I climbed the first couple switchbacks wrapping around the Blaze and looked back across the drainage at a black bear apparently munching some berries not 30 yards off the creek I had just crossed.

Summer backcountry skiing holds somewhat different dangers

Much more concerning was that there wasn’t any visible snow at that point. I was starting to get more than a little concerned that this was just a speed hike, until I got off trail and started bushwhacking toward the peak. The view from the scrub pine revealed a short, thin strip of snow — what turned out to be 250 vertical feet.

A group of three mountain goats showed me a path up the rocky slope. The Chacos didn’t afford much protection from falling rocks and protruding ledges, but my bruised feet carried me to the top of the snowline by 10:30 a.m. or so. The sun had just peeked over the top of the mountain and hadn’t softened up the wavy, icy snow.

Ready to get weird atop some classic east coast packed powder

The strip of snow was wide and long enough to slide around and string together around 15 turns or so. I thought about heading back up for another quick run after reaching the bottom. I’ve adopted the Montanan habit of packing everything humanly possible to do in one day into each summer weekend, however, and had to run back into town for a friend’s afternoon party.

I headed out hopeful for September’s adventure and pretty stoked that the August gamble paid off.

Here's hoping we get some new snow in September

Gettin' Blazed

Amanda, Jen, Tyler, Brett and dogs Marley and Tero ready to get rad after hiking about 13 miles in two days with loaded packs. They're definitely not thinking about the seven more required to get out.

Bridger Bowl’s opening day is close enough to put a little twinge of excitement in the bowels of any degenerate skier. But right now we’re in the thick of the summer, and a getting turns in requires enough determination to hoof through a 20-mile round trip into the mountains.

Which is what we did in July, hiking out to ski the 10,400-foot Mt. Blaze. It’s the fifth highest mountain in the Spanish Peaks, a small range within the Madison Range just about 40 minutes or so out of Bozeman depending on how comfortable you are bombing down the well-maintained dirt road that traverses one of Ted Turner’s vast properties.

The Blaze is a popular backcountry spot, and one that was suggested by John Graves — a hardcore skier I ran into on Sacajawea in June who had a 5-year stretch where he skied every month of the year. The only questions were just how much snow was back there and how the hell to actually get there. It seems like a large portion of Bozeman’s backcountry aficionados have skied it, but none could provide any more detailed directions than, “hike about four miles, take a right across a creek, take a left across the same creek a while later and then you should see it,” which is roughly how John described the trek. In his defense, the directions were tossed out while he was gearing up for some conference or another in Puerto Rico.

The first question was answered while driving back from the Missoula Marathon on July 14 on I-90. A long tongue of snow ran slightly left of the peak almost to the tree line.

I figured that we’d play the second one by ear after getting a group of four others — Amanda, Brett, Jen and Tyler (and two dogs, of course) — together. We set out at the crack of 10 a.m. or so and reached the Spanish Creek trailhead an hour later.

If you squint just right, you can see the silhouette of Marley (a black lab) on top of the packs

 

Four-and-a-half pretty flat miles later we found ourselves where the trail diverged. We chose to head up to Mirror Lake, half because we weren’t really sure where to go and also it just seemed like a good place to figure out what to do. The last couple miles up to the lake were switchbacked and steep and took their toll on the group. When we got up there and realized how tough it’d be to scale the Blaze from the backside, the decision was made to set up camp and think it over.

They did not taste like boots

Amanda and I hiked up a rise on the way up to Summit Lake and scouted out two potential routes for a backside approach. One was up a scree field capped with a small snowfield and then along a ridge to the top. The other followed an avalanche path up to a northern ridge, which looked like the most do-able from our vantage point -- except for one section that looked awful cliffy for our climbing gear-less party. On the positive side, we found some morels hiking back to camp, thanks to my expert analytical yell of, “Hey, aren’t these sorrels or something?"

After some discussion, we decided to wake up at dawn and hike down, around and up the mountain for our turns.

A fine campin' spot

It was a chilly morning, but we were quickly warmed by the hike back to where the trail split. We ditched gear to lighten the now excessively heavy packs and headed toward the Spanish Lakes, after a brief panic when Tyler’s dog, Marley, disappeared. He popped up on the trail maybe a quarter mile and several minutes of quiet freaking out later.

Miles into the trail we ran into a wild-eyed teleskier I met coming down Sacajawea (popular spot!) who gave us somewhat more specific directions on where to start bushwhacking. Basically, it was dead ahead and marked by a cairn. Of course.

Just over the next rise!

We bushwhacked our way slowly uphill because the miles were starting to add up on everyone’s legs, except for the dogs and Brett. When we were most of the way up a skier and snowboarder made their way down the surprisingly wide and long track. The snow looked like prime spring corn, even if they didn’t return our radness yell. He had a GoPro on, so he was probably concentrating really hard on not screwing up on camera.

But we finally reached the peak around 2 p.m. and geared up for the descent. The snow was a little slushy on top, streaked with dirt and pocked infrequently with the tips of rocks. After all the requisite pictures were taken, we pointed out skis and went for it. I noodled down last and the odd pain that had developed in the side of my left knee disappeared with a few wide, easy turns done in an attempt to savor each slide as much as could be done.

It was tempting to just rip down, but knowing we had at least a seven mile hike out helped keep the inner hardcore ski bro safely hidden away deep inside.

Not so bad for July!

The hike out was a pleasant suffer-fest as the knee pain returned and migrated into the hip. Even the dogs were worn out by the time we reached the car. It took Marley a minute of coaxing to jump into the truck bed for the ride home.

But hey, it was turns in July. Can’t wait to make some more in August down in the Beartooths. We’re planning on hitting up the Whitetail Couloir.

-- Jason Bacaj