@StioMountain
 |
 |
 |
I thought my skiing days were over. My last run down Devil’s Head was in the rear view mirror. I suppose it would have been easy to just hang up my boards and never come back. But these ancient bluffs carved by the retreating glaciers of the last ice age kept drawing me back. I [...]
Montana Snowbowl, presiding over the Missoula valley, is a time warp, a curiosity, a double fall line, a humility, an acceptance, and an education. Snowbowl is the lost and the discarded; bamboo, stumps and brush, second-hand double chairlifts and groomers and government surplus earthmovers, known better for its wood-fired pizza oven and house bloody mary [...]
Each town has a spirit, shaped by its people and kept alive by their will. This spirit is tied to a nearby place of significance, where the physical and ephemeral worlds meet—where the town finds its soul. In Bozeman, Montana, this place is Hyalite Canyon. I first drove the slow, sinuous two-lane road to Hyalite’s [...]
It started with kneepads; then gloves bedazzled with sections of plastic cutting boards; next came the helmet—a dorky, orange thing that looked like it belonged in an eighties roller derby. I knew my husband had crossed over when I found a new pair of hockey shorts. But the thing was, the accoutrements weren’t for hockey. [...]
If there ever was a place that had an impact on my mountain-mama and powder-hound training, it was June Mountain in the Sierra Nevada Range of California. June Mountain is situated on the June Lake Loop off of Highway 395, 20 miles north of Mammoth Mountain. Close to Yosemite National Park, Mono Lake and Devil’s [...]
Tess Wood Recounts Growing Up on the Hill at Cooper Spur in Mt Hood, OR Cooper Spur Ski Area, nestled on the northeastern side of Mt. Hood in Oregon, installed its first chair lift in 2002. Don’t be fooled, this 10-trail hill had been operating in one capacity or another since 1927; initially just [...]
The mountains are full of rites of passage; in some ways, living in the mountains is a rite of passage in and of itself. It’s a challenging place that will rear ugly difficulties in moments like a dead defroster on a frozen morning, your neck craning out of the window as you point your car [...]
I was fifteen the first time I ski raced at Howelsen Hill in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. The saddle that crosses the top of the course is infamous for throwing young athletes off their line. It has a habit of funneling teenage confidence into a burst of glory or an epic flame out. We arrived in [...]
Growing up in Maine, there was a formula for the seasons: we’d spend winters skiing bone-chilling mountains and summers finding local lakes to cool off in. It was a lucky few who had both in their backyard and for the people of Greenville, ME, Big Squaw Mountain provided 1,600 vertical feet to ski in winter [...]
This is the story of Mt. Tom. Like many Town Hills, it has an evolution not unlike the community of the people who use it. We grow up, we mature, we endure, and we play. So for me, my family, and my community we evolved with Mt. Tom from its years as a formidable (albeit [...]
