Lots and lots of powder.
With the hill closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, those lucky enough to have nothing better to do on a Thursday morning can expect deep and - with this season’s addition of the new Northstar lift - steep terrain.
Lookout Pass’ three lifts meet at the mountain’s 5,650-foot summit; each serves a different face of the mountain. The new face, mostly on the Idaho side, blows the rest of the hill out of the water in terms of steepness.
From the top, I eased down Huckleberry Ridge, an easy run, toward the much-touted new terrain. As the gentle run curved around the face of the mountain, I came to a fence with several openings. The world fell away from me as I looked down over the edge of my snowboard through one of the gaps.
A few ski tracks snaked through the 30-degree-plus slopes of Big Dipper and Hercules, two of the three black-diamond runs added by the lift, but other than that, they were nearly untouched. I leaned back on my snowboard’s tail and flew, kicking up arcs of light snow each time I turned against the steep slope. I never had to fight against the forgiving fall line and the 1,000 vertical feet rushed by in a white blur. The angle of the run and Lookout’s modest size made me wish it had lasted a little longer, but at Lookout, it’s snow quality, not big-resort grandeur, that sells.
High in the Bitterroot Range and straddling the Montana-Idaho border off Interstate 90, Lookout Pass gets more than its fair share of storms.
After several months of steady snow, Lookout is reporting 115 inches of the white stuff at the base and 164 inches of snow at the summit as of Wednesday, more than any other ski area in Montana. According to its Web site, Lookout averages 400 inches of annual snowfall.
Even though it was a Thursday, I wasn’t the only one there and everyone was trying to get first tracks on the remaining powder pockets. For the rest of the day, I raced up and down the north side of the mountain, taking in all of the new runs as many times as possible and getting a good sense of what they have to offer.
For skiers and snowboarders who like being in the air and upside down, Lookout’s new terrain won’t offer much. However, for those who ski for speed and powder, the new runs are a mini-paradise and a big change for the predominantly intermediate-level hill.
Jim Schreiber, Lookout’s marketing director, said the mountain was much tamer before the addition.
“A lot of people have wanted to get some steeps for a long time,” he said. “Lookout Pass had some steeps before, but not much.”
Schreiber estimated that ticket sales have increased 20 percent in response to the new terrain, and skiers and snowboarders have nothing but good things to say about it.
“On a good day, when you get to the bottom, you look like a snowman,” he said.
Murphy Woodhouse is a journalism student at the University of Montana and a reporting intern at the Missoulian.
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