Season Opener 2025

It’s been a bit of a slow start to winter here in SW Montana. After a few good storms through the end of October, November has been high and dry. Even with this warm weather, snow has hung on up high on shady aspects setting up the perennial Montana facet farm. On the bright side, this early season snowpack gave me and a few friends the opportunity to kick the season off with a line I first spotted a couple Novembers ago.

Tucked into an obscure corner of the Southern Madisons’ the Unnamed Couloir on Peak 10823 strikes a beautiful line down the mountain’s north face and begs to be skied. Despite first noticing this couloir two years ago, I placed it on the back burner and did not get around to giving it a try until now. On the other hand, two of the friends that joined me this weekend had already attempted to ski the line two times since then, but had been turned down both times by touchy snowpack and weather. The line was playing hard to get.

After linking with Cole Pierce, Jay Alford, and Alex Shafer in Bozeman, we made our way down to the Taylor Fork for an early start. The skies were cold and clear and with a couple inches of snow up high the day before, we were hopeful for a few soft turns.

After the warm weather over the past week all but the most recent fresh snow had melted at the trailhead, and so the day began with a three mile approach via trail runners. We were met with “skinnable” snow at about 8200’ and made the transition to skis. Using beta from Jay and Alex’s past attempts, we opted to approach the line by going up and over the Woodward ridge via a gully that tends to hold snow well. As a bonus, this route would also give us an opportunity to sneak in a couple extra runs. At the top of this ridge, we were able to lay eyes on the line for the first time that day and at least from afar, it seemed that it was holding snow well.

After a quick snack on the ridge, we worked through some thinly covered talus and scree trying to locate a passage to get us to the drainage below and the base of the line. Fortunately, we found a just barely skiable little tube with not too much effort that brought us to a meadow just below the couloir.

So far the mountains seemed to be welcoming us in. Apart from the snowpack being only about 40 cm deep where we stood, it was a beautiful day. After a quick transition, we began making our way up to the couloir and at this point we were feeling good about skiing the line. The fresh snow was limited and without an extreme amount of wind loading was not forming a significant slab on top of the weak, faceted snow below. We made a few switchbacks across the apron and as the pitch kicked up made the transition to booting. The 800 vertical feet ahead of us proved difficult as the snowpack lacked cohesion and I found myself often punching all the way through to the rocks below. It seemed the biggest hazard would be variable snow, a thin breakable slab from the recent snow, and the occasional rock buried just below the surface. Heads up skiing.

About 45 minutes later we topped out and were met with a premium view of the Madisons strung out to the south of us and the Spanish Peaks to the North. You could even make out the Grand way out on the horizon. It felt real good to finally make it to the top of this line.

My partners blessed me with the first drop in and I proceeded to crank a rock on the very first turn, and the third… perks of early season skiing. My quads were smoked after navigating the first 700’ so I pulled off to a protected spot and waited for the rest of the crew. We swapped drop order for the apron and rejoined safely below. Despite the challenging punchy snow we were psyched with a safe descent and even scored a few soft creamy turns in the sparse trees below.

We traced our path back to the summer trail and began the trek to the trailhead. On our way out we were lucky enough to be accompanied by some fresh bear tracks. Fortunately, we did not see the bear. 9 hours later and safe at the car I felt lucky to begin the ski season with such a rewarding line.

If someone knows if this line has been named let me know. In my opinion it’s a real beautiful couloir just off the more trafficked peaks in the area and it deserves to be appreciated.