Backside of Montana

Riding quality was:

Good

Snow conditions were:

• Crusty
• Powder
• Wind affected

We rode:

• Alpine slopes
• Dense trees
• Mellow slopes
• Open trees
• Steep slopes

The day was:

• Cloudy

We went for a nice ski down Radar Bowl (or is it Sonar Bowl?) from Montana Peak today. Travel was tough, especially going up to Montana Peak, where the slopes were scoured by the wind. I should have used my ski crampons, but didn't. Setting a skin track across steeper slopes was a real challenge because the snow would just slide away.

For our descent down the backside, we bailed on Option A because we were worried about wind loading. Instead, we chose a more manageable entrance a little further south down the ridge

The skiing was decent, with 5-15 cm of snow sitting on a firm crust. It skied nicely on mellower slopes, but the crust was very prominent whenever it got steeper. We didn't experience any notable avalanche problems other than some minor sluffing and small wind cookies. Avalanche debris from old slides was probably the biggest hazard. There were also some pretty big cornices looming.