Beautiful Skies

Here is a sunset shot from the other night. This is a great time of year. There is enough moisture in the air causing great evening photo opportunities and great lapse rate for flying.

Balsa Root(?) on Mount Sentinel

Here is another video from my flight with Jeff yesterday.

Enjoying Time on Mount Sentinel

Been flying a lot lately from Mount Sentinel and enjoying the great sunsets. It is awesome to have such a great place at the edge of town. Here is a half ass video I put together from flying Sentinel recently. My patience and speed of my computer don't match well so this is all I could handle.

Big Sky Montana

Wednesday I found myself driving to Big Sky Montana with my buddy Justin to try and climb Beehive Peak. We strategically parked the car and bivied between a bar and a breakfast joint. Yes, this comes from years of experience. We passed out from all the beer and delightfully woke up with coffee and breakfast sandwiches literally only 30 feet from us.

Beehive Peak

The drive to the trail head is simple; through neighborhoods filled with some of the most expensive property the state has to offer. After gawking at a few homes (some had chair lifts directly to them) we were at the trail head.

The approach is easy. A few miles with very little elevation gain. Once we got to the basin, weather started moving in an we decided it would be best just to ski rather than climb. Luckily we approached in our ski boots and packed the climbing boots making this option possible. As we approached the peak, we could see that the routes weren't even in condition, but found the snow to be great. Justin and I boot-packed up a coulior to the left of the peak and found skiing down it to be great. We had so much fun with the turns that we decided to lap it once again.

Coulior we skied

The ski out took us an hour and we were at the car by 3:00. Rather than spend another night in Big Sky, we headed for Missoula where we could enjoy a more lively night life.

Skiing and Skating

Weather here has been crappy for the last few days, but there is always something to do. Despite horrible looking conditions, Dave and I headed to Snowbowl yesterday to make some turns. The ski hill is closed, but they let people skin up in the off season while snow is still around. We got to the summit after 2 hours of approaching and found much better than expected conditions. The recent storms had left about 8 inches of new powder. Dave and I skied two different bowls before skiing at the resort back to the car for a total of around 5,000 feet. Not too bad for leisurely afternoon.

Dave

Today the weather has been great so far. Nick and I went to the skate park for a morning session. Skating has been fun, but we're still just easing our way back into the summer season. This afternoon's forecast isn't looking too good for flying so I'll probably head to the Bitterroots to climb in the sun. Maybe some pics from that later.

Nick

Myself in the cradle