My Impressions

Photos by Peter Dorfinger and Martin

An uncomfortable truth started becoming salient as we crossed Lost Trail pass from Montana to Idaho while an inconsequential layer of fresh snow started covering the road. Our VW Tiguan, albeit an all-wheel drive, was equipped with all-season tires. All Californian seasons, that is. The local Les Schwab branch in Salmon, ID had no winter tires of our size in stock. The sales guy did reassures us, however, that their ‘special’ machine would make cuts across the surface of our tires every inch for a bargain 60$ within a few minutes and that these cuts would give us a lot of extra traction. We paid up and confidently crossed into Montana on 16 February.

Missoula would be our first destination in the 48th-most densely populated of the 50 united states in America. (Note: not to be confused with the 50 classic descents in North America, that would be the 3rd-least densely populated state, with only Wyoming and Alaska having more space for each resident.) To be blatantly honest, it was chosen for purely pragmatic reasons. Our crossing of the Canadian border would require Martin to produce a negative PCR test for Covid-19, which seemed to be an achievable objective in a major city. No less important, the town boasted two Dynafit dealers – the odds of getting a broken pair of bindings fixed seemed good.

It is fair to say that Missoula exceeded all expectations. After a first failed attempt at getting a Covid-19 test, we walked into Trail Head outdoor gear store and everything became OK. Within 45 minutes or so, we were having beers at The Dram, a bar conveniently connected to Trail Head through a backdoor. In the meantime, not only had Martin gotten a new pair of ski boot liners, various new fashion accessories and his bindings fixed. Also, we had added to our travel library a hot spring guide of the Pacific Northwest (the guide to California and Nevada having outlived its usefulness further north). Don, the guru in the ski workshop who had performed live at Vienna’s Musikverein in a previous life and skied Kaunertal glacier in the midst of July, had shared with us 50 years’ worth of experience about where to find decent snow the next day. Finally, Mark, a journalism student and rock climbing enthusiast from Louisiana who worked at Trail Head part-time, had invited us to his for dinner and offered us his living room for the night. We spent the evening eating and drinking with Mark and his fellow students from France, Finland, Germany and Spain. Of all places, Clément, an avid mountaineer and skier who studied geoscience, hailed from Le Bourget-du-Lac. What a small world these great outdoors could prove to be.

Some of the useful items and words of wisdom found at Trail Head

The next day, Mark drove Clément and us to a place fondly referred to as The G-Spot, some 50 miles towards Lolo Pass west of Missoula. We skinned up as snow was falling and skied some 20-30cm of fresh powder. No need for inappropriate jokes about this place’s name, it felt great to ski fresh snow after some 1,200 miles of driving. We went back for a second lap before returning to the car. Back at the parking lot, we met two snowboarders named Chris and Brian and exchanged numbers. The evening offered a college basketball game, where Mark shot photos for one of his classes. We had ridden in the back of a pickup truck, leaned into college life and felt distinctly American.

Skiing powder at the G-Spot, 1,200 miles after leaving San Francisco

American lifestyle: riding in Mark’s pickup truck, Lady Griz college basketball and the country’s finest brew

The next day, we met Brian a few miles further up Lolo Pass to ski a place referred to as the Crystal Theatre. Brian, a rock climber, skier and snowboarder from South Dakota, whose job as an arborist left him many days off in winter, was clearly in better shape than us and we struggled to keep up on the skin track. But after the first descent over 5-star pillows covered in deep powder, all these troubles were forgotten. We we did three more laps, talked about life, the universe and everything, and could not have been happier. We enquired about when grizzlies would wake up from hibernation in the area. According to Brian, it wasn’t clear whether they would still hibernate at all given the rise in temperatures. But he also reassured us that only hunters and mountain bikers would be attacked, and killed, by bears. We felt a lot safer. Martin’s greediness with pillows went unpunished, as a faceplant down one of the higher ones ended with a near-miss of a tree in the impact zone and without injury. Luck was now clearly on our side. The Covid test came in negative, which would give us another 48 hours to enter Canada. We asked Brian whether he wanted to join our trip but, between a 4-day bachelor’s party and a sailing trip to the Caribbean coming up, he was too busy.

Skiing the Crystal Theatre pillows

It felt too early to leave Missoula. But with the clock now ticking, we left Mark’s house mates, who were training to become officers in the US Army, a case of beer to thank them for accommodation, and headed further north. The Mission Mountains along the way would have been worth a trip in its own right and the evening light along Flathead Lake was stunning. The next day brought warmer weather and rain, so we abandoned ideas of skiing around Whitefish and Glacier National Park and crossed the Canadian border on the morning of 18 February.