Land of No Use

Today's post is all about skiing! This time of year is a great time for Jeff and I to get away from the farm a bit. There are no crops to tend and the cow chores are manageable for one person, so Tom handled the feeding for the weekend while Jeff and I got out of town for a quick ski trip.

Riding up the main triple chair at Showdown.
I love ski silhouette photos!

View from our parking spot at Showdown.
You can pretty much see the entire ski area (it's small) in this photo.

 

This weekend, Jeff and I were off skiing and playing in the mountains.  We love to ski and love getting outside in the wintertime. We spent Friday skiing at Showdown, near Great Falls, then Saturday, our brother in law Josh skied with us at Bridger Bowl just north of Bozeman. Both are great, local, small Montana resorts. The snow was icy at both resorts, both days, and considered to be "hardpack," so staying on the groomed runs was pretty much the ticket to success for our skiing abilities. Anywhere else was really slippery and hard to manage.

View from our parking spot at Bridger Bowl.
Significantly larger resort 

Jeff and I both agree that in-bounds skiing at designated resorts is within our comfort level for skiing, but there are many people in Montana and beyond who love to ski backcountry. Jeff's cousin Chris is one such person. Chris was involved in creating this really awesome ski film that's also on the subject of designated Wilderness Areas in Montana. They skied and filmed in each of the Wilderness Areas in the state, and the film is really about the question of what should these lands be used for?

If you're into skiing, wilderness and/or outdoor recreation and land use, I definitely recommend the film that Chris is involved with. It's pretty awesome. It's called Land of No Use, and you can watch it on Vimeo by clicking HERE.  It's about 40 minutes long, and I recommend that you let it buffer a bit before starting if you have a slow internet connection. It's pretty impressive though, and worth the time to watch it.

Photo from the Land of No Use Vimeo site.
Can you see the person standing on top of the ridge, preparing to ski down?

We have one more planned ski weekend coming up over Valentine's Day weekend. We're meeting some of our friends from North Dakota at Red Lodge. Jeff has been tracking that resort's snowfall like a maniac since our trip was planned, and we are happy to report there has been quite a bit of recent snowfall. Hopefully the new snow will stick around over the next ten days or so before we get there! Either way, we are really excited to see our friends and visit someplace we have never been before. 

Did anyone else get any weekend recreation in?