Backcountry Skiing at Brundage Mountain

Last week's weather had been kind to the Idaho mountains by dumping a foot of new snow.  Knowing that it was going to get warm this weekend I figured skiing farther north up by McCall might be our best bet.  With this in mind I sent John Platt an email for beta on a place he had skied a few weeks prior - Sargeants http://www.splattski.com/2012/brundage/index.html

Turns out in addition to providing a map to the area John agreed to join us with an old friend of his. 

Tamara, Dylan and I met up a John's place in McCall and after meeting his old friend John Beckman (Bird) we made the short drive to Brundage Ski resort - our take off point.

The weather forecast I had remembered from a few days back had mentioned sun, but we were graced with lightly falling snow with little wind.  Not great for photos, but excellent for skiing!

The initial skinning took us out Goose Creek Road, which is essentially a snowmobile race track.  While skinning up the road we all got to meet Bird.  Luckily we were only on the snow covered road for a little over a mile before we peeled off and headed up the mountain.

Dylan was feeling it this morning so we allowed him to break trail through the new snow.

Dylan leading the troops

As we progressed further up the mountain I was getting pretty excited.  We were moving from one open glade to another. 

In a couple of hours we reached the summit of Brundage Mountain at 7803 feet and the snow still hadn't let up.  We quickly (well relatively quickly) removed our skins, had a quick snack, and headed down.

The snow was silky smooth powder and it was hard for me to keep the Woo-Hoos! from my lips.  We skipped from open glade to open glade down for a run of approximately 1000 feet!

John Platt showing his tele form

Bird showing his tele form

And Dylan showing his tele form

After some great conversation and lunch we figured we needed one more lap.  So we packed back up and started up again.  It had gotten a little warmer as the day progressed and we were enveloped in more of a cloud of mist rather than snow.  Once again, Dylan took the lead as we progressed upward. 

Into the mist we go

We again march up to the summit and headed back down.  Since it had warmed up a bit the silky powder was a little thicker but excellent none the less.

John (me) getting some turns in

By the time we had reached our lunch spot again everyone was smiling.

We debated heading up for another lap, but it was a little after 2PM, and Dylan had plans that night. So we decided to call it a day.  John lead us through some powder stashes as we made our way back to the snowmobile race track.  From there it was a short 15 minutes or so cruise back to the car.

Another excellent day in the snow!

Here is a short video of the trip: