O! – a surprised barn?
The ski runs of Whitefish Mountain in the background.
Afternoon at the beach
This afternoon: Flathead Lake Wayfarer’s Park – 40 degrees.
Back in business
A little Gorilla Glue ( Snowshoe Surgery ) … a little bracing and my Salomon snowshoes are back in business!
Snowshoe Surgery
I love snowshoeing. I love the quiet, being out with Karl, being able to go up, down and around things.
About 12 years ago, I rented a pair of snowshoes to go on a group excursion to cut Christmas Trees. The snow was deep and powdery. I fell in love with snowshoeing and found my first pair, Tubbs, slightly used, at the Army-Navy store in Whitefish. I bought a second pair of Tubbs in a short length for use on packed trails and ice – the crampons and general stability from the larger footprint is wonderful on ice.
10 years ago, I bought another pair – Salomon’s – out of a catalog…because I thought they looked cool.
I LOVE the Salomon’s (top 2 photos – Tubbs orginal in the bottom photo). I only use the others when I am trying to convert someone to snowshoeing. I give them the Salomons which are easy to adjust to different boot sizes and have the most wonderful binding system. In addition, that toe piece allows for a more natural stride as well as giving a bit more stability.
I have never seen the Salomons again in a catalog. I’ve never seen them in a shop. So far, I can’t find a U.S. store that sells them online. I spent a good part of last evening and again this morning looking…
…because yesterday, after slightly over 10 years of use, one broke. When I first got this pair, I wondered about the hard plastic bottoms as well as the plastic ratchet bindings. But, 10 years later, they have stood up. I can get in and out of these with gloved hands. In the past weeks with snow, ice and frozen snow, I have them on and off 6-7 times a day – I don’t even walk to the garage without them because of the ice.
The Tubbs, they work fine in the snow. They are a huge pain to get into and out of. The binding systems on snowshoes are one of the main complaints as you read reviews of different models and brands. I have no idea why the Salomons did not catch on in the U.S.
I will keep looking, but in the meantime – repair has been attempted:
Now, we wait…
From the mountain top
From the valley…
…to the mountain top.
The freezing fog, it usually comes with another phenomonon – an inversion. Warm air up high overruns cold air in the valleys. Under high pressure it creates an inversion – between the warm upper air and the cold valley air lies the stratus.
In the valley, under the status, we have had cold temperatures accompanied by high humidity and so the freezing fog.
Karl’s and my mission today was to see the inversion from the other side. We headed for Blacktail Mountain, home of Blacktail Mountain Ski Area – an “upside-down” mountain in that the day lodge and parking are at the top of the mountain. The ski runs go down into a hanging valley. But the important thing for my purposes was that the lodge and parking area were above the fog deck…in the sunshine! And the temperature at 8:00 a.m. was already 40 compared to 25 at my house.
The road to Blacktail Mountain takes off from MT Highway 93 in Lakeside, MT. The road is 12 miles from Hwy 93 to the top of the mountain. It is 35 mph max and much of it is 15-25 mph hairpin curves. The road has it’s excitement in the winter and that 12 miles takes at least 40 minutes.
As we ascended into the stratus…
Going up I had occasional glimpses of the stratus deck from above as we cleared that, but the driving demanded my full attention. The road is barely 2 lanes, narrowed by the plowing, and sometimes the wish for a much higher guardrail, or any guardrail at all was more prominent in my mind than the view.
But as we cleared the fog layer and came into the sun and the cloudless blue sky at the summit…
These photos do not begin to convey what it really looked and felt like. The high mountain peaks poked through the fog layer looking like islands in an ocean of soft cottony seas.
It was over 50 degrees. The sun was so bright and strong that I was too warm immediately. There were other people there – all of us smiling and laughing and enjoying the sunshine. The ski area is only open Wed-Sunday so I was able to walk out on the summit on this day.
I got Karl out of the Jeep and we walked around the parking area. His tongue was soon hanging out…too hot for a black dog with a heavy coat!
We started back down.
I have always said that this gloom that we sometimes get in winter does not bother me as I’m always out a lot. But, that sun, it was wonderful. And the indescribable beauty from the mountain top made me feel like I had been on a wonderful vacation.
The transition down was beautiful as well as a little sad – From the mountain top to the valley.