The Great White North: Expedition Whitefish, Montana

The powder swells were extremely low in February here at the Park City HQ. We decided to grab all our gear and make a dash for the north! We sought refuge in northern Montana a ten-hour drive away. A great little place called Whitefish took us in. There were three of us Dani, Jam, and myself.

When we arrived it was snowing and temps were frigid. The next morning the storm continued we were so stoked for the pow! We loaded up all the gear, put on toe, hand, and body warmers and made the short drive up the canyon to the resort.

We couldn’t see anything when we got to the top, the rime layer was so thick it was freezing all my exposed hair. Usually when riding with zero visibility trees appear as dark images and you navigate through white space. Well in Whitefish the trees are completely covered in snow “snow ghosts” making the riding interesting, deadly, and absolutely 100% awesome. With seven inches of fresh snow on top of 125-inch base you could get away with sending everything.

The storm cleared out later in the day and the temp dropped thirty degrees in thirty minutes! The Montana chill started to set in my clothes and everything that was wet froze. Well the rime layer made sure to cover us with the layer and I gradually felt myself becoming a snow ghost. My gloves froze so hard that I could not get them off or use my hands to strap on my board.

Day Two

Fresh crisp morning, blue skies, powder, trees, snow ghosts. We arrived to what felt like a completely different resort excuse me I meant planet! We really got to appreciate the magnificent of what we were blindly crushing the day before. Snow ghosts are so much fun to ride and yet so dangerous. The trees and you absorb sound you could be yelling for your friend on the other side of it and they would hear a thing.

We explored what felt like the entire resort we found a spot to hike out to some slack country. Our favorite spots were “Evens Heaven” a short hike had great powder lines complete with chutes, cliffs, and snow ghosts. Other spots we liked were The Chute, North Bowl Chute, Hell's roaring Basin, and anything off of chair five. Whitefish also has a great uphill policy, a trail called Benny up will take you all the way to the top. There is a really great story of how the resort was founded which I will be including in a separate blog called “Tales from the Rockies”

Check out the video.