
Our trip to Big Mountain was successful once again. We had tons of snow (something like 28 inches in the 2 days we were there) and a good time was had by all even though Ryan thought he was going to die on the top of the mountain. You can read more about that later but let's start from the beginning.
We did indeed get out of the house by 7am which gave my mom and I enough time to stop at Herberger's to grab a couple of after-Christmas-sale items and a new coat for Al. The zipper on his broke just as we were heading out the door (literally). On our way over we had to listen to the boys bicker some and got to hear a few 'Ryanisms.' We saw several herds of cantelope (that's antelope to the rest of us) and drove through death towns (we know them as ghost towns), but the best was when he declared he wasn't going to wear his croc (also known as a gaitor) to cover his neck. Ahh...the world according to Ryan. What would we do without him?
It started snowing as we left Browning and pretty much didn't stop for our entire trip. At times the flakes were so big and heavy it felt like it was 'raining' snow. The first day on the mountain we decided we'd start out on a few of the 'bunny' hills to get our skiing and boarding legs back. Because there was so much powder it slowed us down a bit and the boys wanted to head up a lift to something a bit more challenging. A couple of runs later and they were feeling confident so we decided to have lunch and then head up to the summit and work our way down. We had looked at the map and had chosen our route and all three of us were excited. We caught Chair 6 from the Base Lodge up to the Big Mountain Express (a high speed quad lift) and got in line. It was snowing (of course) and you couldn't see the summit but I figured that once we got up there the visibility wouldn't be that bad. Somehow the three of us got separated and Alex and Ryan ended up getting on a chair by themselves. This lift moves much faster than the other ones we had been on and it just seemed to whisk them away....quickly. I followed them up in the next chair and was praying that they weren't going to fall off as they didn't bother to put the bar down in front of them. Once we reached the summit it was time to bundle up even more than what we had been. It was blizzardish up there and our cheeks were instantly frozen and red. The visibility sucked and we couldn't even see the marked runs. By the time I realized we were on the wrong run it was too late so I decided we'd just take the other run marked "easiest run." By this time Ryan was bawling and kept saying "I'm going to die up here!" After that he took off his board and declared that he was walking down and that "Big Mountain sucks!" Not the best start at the summit. I will have to say that the run was a little steeper than I had expected but I think it was a good thing the visibility was so poor because if Ry had seen how high we were I'm afraid he would've completely freaked out. I did get him to put his board back on but he slid down on his butt for a good portion of the steep areas. An hour and a half later we arrived back at the Base Lodge. We had ended up on the opposite side of the mountain but all in one piece. I'm pretty sure we set a new time record for longest run!
After that excitement we stayed on the two runs the boys were familiar with. In fact, they went up so many times they got to know the "lifties" by their first names! It was also nice because the grandparents were able to watch them as it was right in front of the Base Lodge. We finished our trip with night skiing and boarding last night. That was fun and there weren't many people there so we felt as if we had that part of the mountain to ourselves.
Today we did a little shopping in town and then headed out. The roads were so bad that it took us 6 1/2 hours to get back to Havre. We're grateful we left when we did because now the road between East Glacier and Browning is closed due to poor visibility.
I'll post some of the pics I took but it will probably be in several entries as I'm having difficulty uploading them. I hope these pics can convey the beauty, serenity and fun that we had because it's something I know we'll always remember.
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