Opening day - Whitefish Mountain

I had unpacked and laid out my gear the night before so I was ready to go first thing in the morning. I was up bright and early, had my breakfast and coffee and was out the door at 8:35am. I packed up my car and drove down the snow covered road to Haskill’s Pub, which is also the Snow Bus stop, to catch the 8:48 bus. My stop is the last stop on the way to the mountain so the bus was almost full by the time it got here, but I was lucky enough to grab one of the last two remaining seats. The bus arrived at the base lodge at 9:00 and I was on the lower lift by 9:20. Being a Saturday and opening day, the lift line was fairly crowded but no more than a five minute wait.

It was a beautiful day. Temperatures were around 20 degrees, the sun was out and there was no wind to speak of. Taking the chair lift to the top of the mountain for the first time was quite an experience. Looking up from the bottom it was impossible to see the top due to the inversion layer of fog. Once we passed about 6,000 feet the sun was shining bright with the backdrop of deep blue, cloudless skies. The peaks of Glacier National Park were visible off to the east as well as the Canadian Rockies to the north. All of the trees at the top were wrapped in snow which has earned them the nickname “snow ghosts”. The views at the top and of the adjacent mountain ranges were amazing but looking down the mountain was, in my opinion, even more spectacular. Standing completely above the cloud line, it was like looking out the window of an airplane over an endless sea of soft, puffy cotton.

I spent most of the day just getting used to making turns again after ten months of downtime. I was feeling pretty good towards the end of the day and began skiing a little too aggressively than I should have for the first day out. I twisted up my knee when I got sucked in to a tree well trying to avoid a collision with said tree. Fortunately it was my good knee so now both of them felt pretty well balanced out at this point. I took one more run after that and decided it was best to call it a day.

I caught the 3:57pm bus from the base lodge back down to my stop, loaded up the car and was home by 4:30pm. All in all, it was a great day. It was more crowded than I thought but for opening day that was to be expected. Hoping to get my new equipment in soon and looking forward to many more days on the slope. My door is always open!