Big Sky - Feb 11

We arrived at Big Sky yesterday afternoon after an interesting drive over. See the bottom of the report if interested. We rented one of the slope-side cabins in Cowboy Heaven on the Moonlight Basin side of the resort. These cabins are very deluxe and sit at 8200 feet. They're a bit pricey, but renting directly from an owner through VRBO saved us a couple hundred dollars a night over Big Sky central reservations. Plus, skiing was free with our Ikon passes, so that subsidized our lodging.

Today was a very cold 3 out of 3 day. Started out with light snow flurries and -5 degrees on top and 0 degrees at our cabin. Not bad with every layer I own on except for the bulk. The snow stopped around 10am and we even got some sun breaks throughout the day.

With the cold temps, traversed across the resort directly to the Ramcharger 8. After riding this chair, everything else feels antiquated. We skied all our favorite glade runs for a couple hours. Very nice! Made one trip up the Powder Seeker 6 (the other heated chair), but found the snow had a bit of a wind crust on it. The top never completely cleared, so didn't take the tram up Lone Peak. Plus, there was those temps. After lunch, we headed to the boundary of the resort with the Yellowstone Club to ski Shedhorn. This is a chair we never really skied in the past because it was a slow fixed grip chair. The old Ramcharger detachable quad replaced the old Shedhorn lift. Great move because we found powder stashes everywhere. Chair line was a hoot and lots of great snow in the trees. Back to central resort for some great powder bumps down Thunder Wolf. AC/DC's Thunder in my head all the way down. Finished the day on the Challenger lift for some steep. A great first day. 5 more to go!

We left Seattle during Snowmaggedon 2019 phase 1. Got to Ellensburg only to find out they closed I-90 from Ellensburg to Vantage. A quick study of google maps showed the old Vantage highway as the only alternatate route. Started out plowed and sanded, but 6 miles out of Ellensburg, all hell broke loose. An hour later we were at Vantage after driving through white-out conditions, 60 mph cross winds and snow drifts up to 18 inches across the road. Not to mention the semi driver who just shut down his rig blocking our lane. I -90 was a mess from Vantage until 30 miles east of Mosses Lake. We were the only car on the road. From there to Spokane, strong cross winds and blowing snow, but roads gradually improved. From Cour d'Lane on, great roads, but strong winds and temps that never got above 0 degrees. I gotta say, the Durango with Blizzak snow tires did great even if the driver had a tight sphincter at times.

Shorter report tomorrow with just the facts.