time often allows snow to accumulate, and local ski junkies arrange their schedules to make the most of the trackless deep. On this March day we’re not so lucky: Our visit coincides with the back end of a high-pressure system that’s kept Western Montana dry for weeks. And so it’s a groomer day, an ass-hauling combo of corduroy cruising interspersed with occasional puffs of crystalline hoar breaking across our boots. Fortunately for the early
As I
Maverick’s one chair, an older double, covers more than 2,000 vertical feet, but we still make short shrift of every blue, black and double-black run on the mountain. The runs are uncomplicated, mostly wide-open cruisers cut through lodgepole and punctuated with small tree islands. The grooming is clean but unremarkable; aside from the must-avoid zones of grassy scree, the runs become deliciously carve-able as the morning warms. By noon we’re getting antsy for a stiffer
dance from snow patch
to snow patch I wonder if the valley’s
namesake grasshopper refers to a technique required to get down dodgy parts of the mountain. birds, the mountain’s eastern exposure soaks up morning sunshine, softening the hardpack for our ski edges. After a few runs I ask a middleaged lifty to name his favorite run. He grins and tells me to check out a tree stash right off a double-diamond on the lower mountain called The Belly. “But make sure to bring the grass skis!” Turns out it’s good advice—The Belly is fun and interesting, although plenty of grassy stobs poke through the shallow, frosty snowpack. As I dance from snow patch to snow patch I wonder if the valley’s namesake grasshopper refers to a technique required to get down dodgy parts of the mountain. Montana Headwall
challenge, so we head off to explore a slack-country area of the mountain I heard about from a friend in Missoula. “There’s killer tree lines just out of bounds to north and northeast of the top,” he’d said, pointing at a map. Just follow Thin Air a ways, he’d said, and then duck into the woods. “You can’t miss the lines,” he’d insisted. Well, we miss them. No meadows, no openings, no tree shots. Just a shallow snowpack and dog hair lodgepole, closing in on us like a Death Star trash compactor. We traverse left, then right, searching for anything ski-able and yelling encouragingly when we find openings that don’t require Page 45 Winter 2010 / 2011