Wednesday night ski group

We are going to try something new this season, a Wednesday night fitness skiing group. This group will meet at a different location around the valley every Wednesday night during ski season at 6:00 pm, weather permitting, for a ski that will last around 2 hours. The is a fitness oriented group, and is not intended for beginner skiers, but it is a great opportunity for people who have not skied at night, or at less developed areas to learn those skills. Most weeks will be skate skiing, but we will classic when conditions are not ideal for skating. Notifications about where each weeks event will happen will go out on Tuesday. Signup for the email list is available at https://groups.google.com/g/bitterroot-wednesday-night-ski

Como 1/21/22

Despite the Valley weather, the trails received 1″ down low to almost 4″ on the Top Road last night!

Everything was groomed, with multiple passes with the compaction drag on 550 up to Shannon Gulch and down Shannon. The snow got much deeper above that and is just rolled and is not as compacted. Weds. grooming made it all nice and flat with the new snow packed on top of it now.

Down on Lower road, it is still firm underneath with a thin corduroy over it, should be great skating. Lower Road (550A) is connected to Middle Road (13200) via chute, great loop to skate or tour. 12 miles roundtrip, skis best in a clockwise direction.

Road to upper parking is drive at your own risk, much better to park in the Boat Ramp lot and do the quick hike up.

Tony

Ski Education days

We will be hosting 2 ski education days this winter, on Saturday January 22, and Saturday February 5. We will meet in the parking lot at Chief Joseph Pass at 10 AM.

Club ski coaches will be present for skate or classic clinics for kids and adults. Bring your family up for lessons or to just join a group for some company while you’re out gliding!

Please respect each other’s space and maintain social distance as we do our best to safely enjoy the outdoors.

Get in touch with Valley Bike & Ski or Lost Trail Powder Mountain for rentals!

Como 1/11/22

Volunteer team of Jesse and Tony used our trucks and trailers and were able to get up to Como today and pack down all of last week’s snow.

We were able to get 550 well packed and wide enough to skate all the way up to the top.

Upper road is well packed, just narrower, still skateable.

Middle road is packed 1 pass wide (66″) out to Chute, I was able to get down it (Chute) with the snowmobile and roller, so it is well packed now and connected to the upper end of 550A.

Lower road is also packed full length 1 pass wide (roller width) to Chute.

We were not able to get down Shannon gulch today, we’ll get to it later in the week.

A fine loop is to ski 550A all the way to the end, hike up Chute, ski Middle rd. out to 550 and bomb back down. It’s 12 mile loop total!

The road is a mess, someone took the berm down but you will get stuck and make an even huger mess if you try to drive up to the upper parking.

We did pack down one edge of the road for folks who insist on skiing up and down from the boat ramp.

Best and easiest way to access the ski trails is to do the quick “HIKE” up from the Boat ramp to the 550/550A intersection.

Look for the blue diamonds across the parking lot to the south at the bathroom. Hike up from there and turn left at the big blue diamond, follow it up to the trailhead. Take 10 minutes at the most and is a scenic warm up!

Much easier than dealing with the road which could be fine when you skied up but ripped up with unskiable tire ruts when you came back down!

Como 12/17/21

Como has been rough packed on all of the roads as of Thursday!

I was able to get all of the main roads = 550, 550A (lower road)., 13200 (middle road) and 13201 (upper road) packed down. Still soft but good touring conditions.

Sadly the ineffective barrier on 550 just gave the scofflaws an easy way on to the 550rd and multiple trucks and 4 wheelers tore it up all the way to the top yesterday morning bringing up many rocks into the snowpack so be careful on the 550, best to stay on the southside of it going up and down. A 4 wheeler went around the locked gate on 13201 and tore up the upper road all the way out to Tin Cup ridge, made it hell for me to groom.

If you are skiing up there and see a vehicle past the barrier on 550rd. they are breaking the law! 550rd. is legally closed at the 550/550A intersection from Dec. 1st. to March 31st. as shown on the latest FS maps. It is a fineable offense and an even bigger one for going behind locked gates. Please take pictures and Lic. # and turn them into the FS law officers.

As we get more snow we will continue to get it packed down better for skating and when we get the base firm enough bikes!

I’ll be firing up the Ridgerunners Snowcat next week and getting Skalkaho and Lost Horse groomed next!

Tony

Chief Joe 12/15/21

Over volunteer grooming crew was out in force today and packed down the 2+ feet of snow that has fallen in the last 4 days. All the ski trails were groomed, except banshee, middle fork, and Joseph creek. The multi use trails have not been groomed yet. The snow is still fairly soft and many trails are only 5 feet wide so it is not ideal skate skiing conditions, but should be great for classic skiing or snowshoeing.