In the middle of february I drove my new-to-me Toyota Previa (toyota's pre recall era) up to Bozeman, MT, for a Yurt trip in the Swan Mts. with my one of my closest friends. Bill patrolled for a while in UT and MT, and is currently working on a masters degree in architecture. That means he works really hard at school, and parties just as hard the few times a year he can. So, I met up with billy and his wife in Bozeman and we headed west to Mizzoula. On the way we stopped in Butte, MT, for a little tour and a beer.
Butte is home to the biggest open copper mine in the US, as well as a huge statue of the Virgin Mary on the top of their mountain. Butte is a lot like Rio. Well, not really I guess. Butte was once one of the richest cites in the US because of the mining, and according to Bill (which is always a treat) was one of the first cities to have electric street lights. Bill gave us a tour and showed us all of these huge headframes, basically vertical mineshafts that go down a mile. The headframes are everywhere, like ghosts looking over the city. Apparently, the entire city sits on top of miles and miles of underground mines.
Back to Yurt trips. We left Missoula early sunday morning, coffee in hand. We met up with two other buddies at the gas station with the huge cow at the intersection of the two roads (thats how directions go in MT), and naturally got more coffee. We all headed up to the trailhead and met the two guys who own the yurt, and they towed our gear, our keg, and all of us up to the yurt. We stopped on the way and collected water out of a natural spring, followed a white tail deer on the road for a while, and made it to the yurt. It began to snow, and didn't stop until we left 3 days later.
The yurt sits at a curve in the road, impassable in the winter except for snowmobiles. From the yurtits about a 30 minute skin, track already set, to the top of the ridge. From there you can skin north or south and drop back down always to the yurt. A really sweet ski setup as far as yurts and huts are concerned. So, we skied a lot, drank a lot of whiskey, ate a bunch of elk, and just had an absolute great time. When great people get together in a yurt in the middle of nowhere, with food, whiskey, and smiles, amazing things happen. -Evan comes out of the woods with a bottle of tequila and shot glasses for all. -michelle pulls out her mug, filled with hot chocolate and peppermint schnapps on top of a cold mountain top, passes it around, then looses the mug at the bottom of the run and doesn't even care, can't care, because everything is so beautiful. This trip was so cool because it snowed the entire time, so we were living in a black and white world, except for the colors of our outfits.
These are amazing moments. Remember to make the time to get out in the winter with good friends and ski powder, its an amazing thing.