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Road in Beehive on Sunday. Can skin right from the parking lot...over about 3-6" of coverage. Skied chutes just above tree line but before lake on the south side of the basin. The aspect faced North / Northeast. About 2-3' of coverage over rocks, but very consolidated heavy snow with an inch or so of lighter stuff on top. The whole basin needs another 1-2' to open up the good lines but if your creative you can find some fun lines!

Iceworm, you really get after it, don't you? Right on.

I hit up Big Sky on Friday for the benefit for Paulie. Next morning awoke about 9:30 and headed over to the Beehive trailhead. I talked to two experienced skiiers at the trailhead and got a snow report before making the decision that I could find some safe terrain out there to solo.

Snow coverage was acceptable for the first mile from the trailhead and then became very positive after that. I reached the end of the basin by around 11:30 and climbed the South side of the canyon for a run through some relatively low-angle, tree'd stuff (remember, I was solo). Snow depth ranged from 24 to 36 inches with the bottom 18 in. being of ideal consistency and density. Positively attached to the bottom layer was a warming layer of powder. Temperatures were rising all day but my intuition and education tell me if trends continue this will solidify this into a base of righteous proportions.

I stashed my snowshoes and poles, post-holed to the top of the ridge and took one run through buttery powder making a dozen turns. Having satiated my desire for first tracks of the season I post-holed back up to my snowshoes and poles and headed back down the drainage. Along the way I passed about a dozen skiiers and snowboarders. The skin/boot path was like concrete down the last half of the trail.


View down my line.

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My early season setup.

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My line. Conservative, but first of the season and done solo.

looks like a fun solo day samh...

most of you will hate this but i got a tele set up this year and went up for a solo day at bridger to see how the system road. just something about being out there alone!

anyway...went to Beehive today. lapped the crap out of some glades on the north facing ridge just shy of timber line. from the basin floor it looked like everything was super wind loaded, but upon further inspection of a pit...the out look wasn't too bad. There was about 6" of fluff on top of everything, but it wasn't consolidated enough to do anything but sluff. The bigger layer which contacts the ground looks to be holding together well.

It was a fun day, and I don't hate you for buying a tele set-up. As a matter of fact I picked up skis, bindings, boots and skins at the ski swap a couple weeks back for about $50. I don't plan to do much backcountry touring with them as I've only tele'ed twice in my life, but rather plan to use them on groomers when I want a change of pace from boarding.

Thanks for the Beehive update. I met a few tourers when I was in Big Sky that weekend and I hope to hit them up as partners for some of the burly stuff on the headwall and the South ridge. I'm also interested in getting into the Middle Basin.

went up beehive on sat(dec 13) with intetions of hitting southwest couloir, but my partner got to sidetracked by the pow and we ended up hitiing some mellow stuff. the snow was fantastic seeing as how it was about 8 below. our pit showed good results with about 35cm of new snow on top of the first layer down. Got CT17 with Q3 shear. there was some faceted crystals near the ground but everything was bonding fairly well. We were worried about possible wind loading but once we started skinning we were relieved to see no evidence of any wind events. It was freakin cold out there and today is just a bit much for me, even stoppin to dig a pit got pretty chilly. I'd say if it warms up a bit things are on up there, probably headin back to hit southwest real soon if I can find a new place to live. BTW saw some snowbaord tracks up there and no bootpack or snowshoes so the only other group up there that day must've had a splitboarder(pretty rare to have only one other vehicle at the TH)

Were you on South-facing stuff or North-facing stuff? And did the sheer occur at the 35cm mark or on another layer?

sorry for the jumbled info. The column did fail at 35cm and was a SSW(south southwest) facing slope. also the total depth was roughly 4 ft

Not jumbled, no worries. I just wanted to get more precision. I won't be getting down to Beehive until January but I still like to keep track of as much snow data as I can.

well my friend and I finally made it back to hit SW couloir. We also hit two more shots off the south ridge, one before the coolie and one after. The snow was actually very good on the shorter shots with the new snow sitting on a supportable crust which made for nice fast turns. The snow in southwest had seen more sun by the time we dropped in(12:00) and the new snow sloughed easily but again sat on a very supportable crust. We didn't dig any pits but my partners ski cut in the couloir failed to produce anything other than sloughing. Things are looking up, now we need more snow and less high temps. I have to admit though the rare montana bluebird day was a pleasure to tour around in. parking lot was also full(when we got back) but saw only one group of two the whole day, so I'm guessing the shots into middle got hit pretty hard. didn't have a camera but snapped a shot with my phone.

Gorgeous pic, Lifelink.

well beehive is definitely riding well right now to say the least. was up last wed and took two laps in bear and one back in beehive on my way out. the snow was very nice but had lots of wind affected areas. stuff in the trees was holding good. Would've liked to have got more but was touring solo(with my husky) and it was freaking cold up there, first time ever having to rock the balclava.

Thanks for the beta. Been up in Hyalite and riding lifts at Bridger so far so may need to hit up Beehive early given how stable everything is proving so far.