Soldier Mountain provides one among three locations in Idaho for skiers and snowboarders to expertise cat snowboarding within the backcountry.
In this operation, a Snowcat will take teams above the lifts the place a clean canvas of recent powder awaits on each flip. We additionally had the chance to ski with a legend. Reggie Crist competed within the 1992 Olympics and received two gold medals within the X Games.
“There is quite a lot of wonderful snowboarding, I imply I’m blessed I get to ski everywhere in the world and the factor that strikes me about Idaho is simply how huge this yard playground is,” mentioned Crist, who runs a heli-ski operation in Alaska and Chile. “Soldier Mountain not solely has the ski resort, however this cat snowboarding operation is legit.”
Our day began with a quick avalanche refresher earlier than Jeff Hershberger guided us the place to go and methods to keep secure whereas taking us to the perfect powder stashes within the Soldier Mountain backcountry.
“It is a stability looking for good skiable snow and good pitch, but additionally preserve good security and avalanche consciousness,” mentioned Hershberger. “It’s positively our high precedence and we get on the market fairly a bit to poke round within the snow to get an excellent understanding of what the situations are like and what we must be involved about.”
When we acquired to the underside of the run, Steve Hill took us again up the mountain in his Prinoth Snowcat. Steve works as a truck driver and has three million miles on the street with out an accident, however he acquired uninterested in driving within the winter so he works at Soldier Mountain.
“This simply retains me busy by means of the winter,” mentioned Hill. “Not many individuals rise up right here.”
Steve took us as much as the highest of peak two at 9,529 toes of elevation. He creates his personal roads with the Snowcat. By comparability, the highest of carry two at Soldier Mountain sits at 7,177 toes.
On a mean day, teams get to ski between 10,000 and 15,000 vertical toes in accordance with Hershberger. He does this job as a result of he loves snowboarding, however he works in Boise as an engineer.
“It’s not glamorous money, it’s not the money you’re getting paid in powder turns,” mentioned Hershberger. “When I work on the desk and the pc I actually deal with getting that completed so I can rise up right here and luxuriate in my time up right here “working” within the hills.”
Cat snowboarding was one among my favourite days I’ve ever had on the slopes, however if you wish to take part, you need to plan forward because it’s usually bought out.
It’s only one instance of the distinctive methods Soldier Mountain caters to company. The mountain additionally provides backcountry touring, individuals can hire out the complete mountain for occasion,s and this mother and pop resort has cheaper tickets then most resorts.
Soldier Mountain will even host musher ski day on February 24. It can be a free day of snowboarding for college students and lecturers for all Camas County college students. Those college students will even obtain free season passes and directions from the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation.
