Back to Red Lodge for more skiing

My husband and son, the skiing junkies! They went back up to Red Lodge again on April 4th. We had a snowstorm come through here on the 3rd. It was a doozy! The roads were nasty. As of that night, they weren't sure about going. But we got on Accuweather.com and looked all around us. Michael knew Red Lodge was getting some good snow and he was so excited! But the I-90 corridor was nasty. I reminded Michael about the alternate route thru Basin (which I have never been on, but he mentioned recently). And that's what they ended up taking. At 4:30am Saturday, April 4, Michael roused Jonathan, got him into the truck, went and picked up Uncle Bret, and they headed west over Hwy 16 up the pass and over to the other side. It was a blustery drive going up the pass...they were making fresh tracks most of the way, then hit a big snowdrift and poof! They were covered in snow. Michael slammed on the brakes and they thought they were done for...in the ditch. But, when the snow cleared, they saw they were in the middle of the road having blasted through a big drift. After that, things progressively got better and soon they were on dry roads for the rest of the drive. Once they turned north again to go up to Red Lodge, they hit the snow again, but only for about 50 miles. The road up to the mountain was packed, with snow and cars; and when they got to the parking lot there was about 4 feet of snow all around. They were salivating! Lift lines couldn't open until about 10am because of all the snow. This is what they saw riding the lifts...compare it to the last trip there and you'll see the change in snow.

Jonathan is ready!

This is the north side of the mountain...the Palisades. This side hasn't been open the past 3 years due to lack of snow. Well, this year it was open, I think, the last 3 weekends. It has all expert slopes except for one intermediate slope. Jonathan still talks about skiing in the Palisades!

Powder hound busily skiiing...

Did I happen to mention Red Lodge got a bit of snow?! This is the midway lodge...The snow is nearly up to the top of the doorway.

One excited boy at the end of a good weekend!