Mill Point (Bitterroots)- February 22, 2025

Date: February 22. 2025

Participants: Kimberly Meade-White, Paul Jensen, Sean Parslow, Forest Dean, Bily Brown, Tony LeBaron, Dexter Hale

 After all the great February snow, it was a little dismaying to see the rapid warmup the past few days.  Wet, heavy and sticky snow doesn’t make for great skiing.  But- its in the heart of winter and we couldn’t just sit at home pouting, so the seven of us went for it.  Susanna Phillips put the trip together, but illness prevented her from joining us.

 We got started about 8:45am at the Mill Creek Trailhead.  Only Paul had skied this area prior so he became our de facto guide.  We skinned up through wet and sometimes crusty snow for about 2500’.  Finally around 7000’ in elevation we reached the good powder.  Due to skin waxing, breaks, and varied speeds we arrived at the 8400’ summit between 12:45 and 1:15.  Early arrivals, Forest and Bily, enjoyed a short ski back down the east ridge that we had skinned up.  We all then skied (or rode, in Sean’s case) down into the bowl and Tag Alder Lake- a really fun run!  The next 1000’ was pretty good as well, but then we dealt with brushy skiing.  Fortunately the crust had softened as day progressed though, and we were able to basically ski all the way back to parking lot- arriving around 5:00.  It was a fun day with a fun group of members!

 Forest Dean