June 14th-17th, Max and I skied Beartooth Pass and Beartooth Basin with our friends Lindsey and Linda. We arrived in the afternoon on the 14th and did a couple of laps on Gardner Headwall. The snow was soft and slushy, and a bit sticky near the bottom. I gave the first run a try in the bowl on my backcountry setup, which I normally only use in deep powder. But this snow was a different kind of deep. 😛
Although I love my DPS Yvette 122 skis in powder, I didn’t love them in spring slush, so I committed to wearing my resort boots and using my Blizzard Viva 8.0 skis instead, which I have always loved skiing in slushy spring snow. Then the real fun began, because we also got to ski the steep headwall proper for the first time.
It was hot on the bootpacks back up though with the sun reflecting off the snow. Max and I rolled our ski pants up into shorts!
On June 15th, Linda joined us for a day of lapping Gardner Headwall. It was so warm that I wore a t-shirt and my hiking pants this time instead of ski pants. We had a lot of fun together in the spring slush. The sky was beautiful too!
In the afternoon, Linda dropped the rest of us off by the start of the hike out to Rock Creek Headwall. There was a storm rolling in and we were hoping that we could beat it, but unfortunately it caught us before we got there.
Not wanting our first trip down Rock Creek Headwall to happen in whiteout conditions, we decided to turn around. We got pelted with stinging hail the whole way back. Oh well, next time!
On the 16th, Max, Lindsey and I skied a full day at Beartooth Basin. They had just been able to open for the season the day before, and we were all super excited. The snow was so good!
On June 17th, Max and I skied a power hour at Beartooth Basin and did a final lap on Gardner Headwall before our drive home. We had so much fun that we decided to come back again to try skiing in July.
