18 INCHES OF POWDER AT LOST TRAIL

Well our weather has finally turned back to winter and we have had snow.  The mountains got quite a bit and the valley got a rain and snow mix.  We sure needed it after nearly 2 weeks of almost spring like weather it was a welcome sight to see the snow.  For "Powder Thursday" (that is what Thursdays are called at our little resort because it is only open Thursday thru Sunday) there was 18 inches of new snow that had stacked up since the lifts closed on the Sunday before.  Skied with Dale (old Vietnam flying buddy) and a guy from Salmon who skis about like we do.  The out of bound area was really good but it took the ski patrol a little while to get the area clear of avalanches so had to make some runs on the other part of the mountain.  They were good though.  Lots of people showed up because our little resort had the best snow for miles around.

Mike from Salmon making some turns in Moose Creek drainage.

Mike and Dale.

The lines at chair 2 were pretty long until they opened up chair 4.

MEGA LOAD COMES THRU THE BITTERROOT.

Many of you will not have heard of all the large equipment loads that have been moving around the northwest part of the US in the past few years.  We just had a large piece of oil production equipment move through our valley on US highway 93.  It was 380 feet long, which is bigger than a football field and weighed over 450 tons.  It is headed to Canada where it will process oil from the oil fields in Alberta.  We were headed to Missoula when we saw the load sitting at the side of the road in Lolo.  Had to stop and take a couple of pictures.

It looked to me that this truck had 3 driving axles and the 4th one in the front was like a tag-a-lon with no driving capability, just a load bearing axle.   

These pictures kind of puts it in perspective as this logging truck is parked right next to the big rig.

There is a puller and a pusher truck.

The sun hitting the tops of the west side peaks this morning.