In late March when the ice recedes from the river banks and temperatures climb above freezing, spring fever can overwhelm the angler in me. Flies tied and leaky waders patched, the river beckons. Even memories of that last cold November fishing day, the one that froze my hands so badly I couldn’t button up my pants, have faded.

Every year when the dawn of spring emerges from the darkness of winter, nature stirs discord in my heart. I ask myself, should I pull my fly rod out of the basement and cast skwalas toward eager hungry trout, or should I climb with skins on my skis in search of spring corn snow in the Swan Mountains?

When cabin-fevered fishermen hook their first trout of the season on a dry fly, I still yearn for adventure at the river’s source high in the frozen mountains. The feeling of bounding down a steep mountain slope like a tiger haunts my recent memories. In the spring, the mountains always win me over.
Three friends, three dogs, ski gear, a guitar and five days worth of food: we journey to the headwaters of the Clearwater and Blackfoot rivers on a five-day, backcountry ski adventure in the Swan Mountains. Our home: a 20-foot domed yurt nestled in the evergreen trees beneath Morrell Mountain.
Yurtski owners Brice Jones and Charles Savoia meet us Saturday morning at 8 a.m. at the Kozy Korner, a small restaurant at the end of the road. They have come to take us to our mountain retreat.
Their 20-foot yurt is a modern adaptation of the traditional Mongolian yurts, or “Ghers,” which have been used by the nomadic people of Mongolia for thousands of years. The design features walls made of wooden lattice work, a vaulted ceiling made of wooden beams leaning inward toward the roof’s domed skylight and waterproof canvas strung taut around the structure. The yurt provides a home away from home for backcountry skiers who want to earn their turns. A respite from the elements, the yurt is the perfect place for skiers to retire after a hard day of skiing — a place to warm their bones, boots and dogs.
Getting to the yurt is an eight-mile slog on forest service roads. We opt for the $25 gear shuttle Yurtiski offers, as we prepare ourselves for the water-ski–like ride behind the snowmobile.
With my 70-pound dog, Atlas, tentatively perched between his arms, Tricia behind him with her dog, Misha, in her arms, a guitar strapped to the back of the “bile” and a packed gear sled, Brice powers the snowmobile up the road. Charles keeps our skittish dog, Quest, between his arms while towing John, Caroline and me. This is our second year staying with Yurtski and it is clear our hosts provide the best local mountain shuttle around. By lunchtime we reach the yurt.
Brice and Charles recommend hiring a guide for those who have limited experience skiing in avalanche terrain. Even if you are versed in route-finding and avalanche assessment but haven’t yet skied at the yurt, one day of guided service proves its weight in gold.
Our first year at Yurtski we hired Brice and Charles for one day of guided service. They pointed out all the best skin routes and all of the great terrain. They showed us how to access runs with the names, Breakfast Bowl, Supernatural Bowl, Highmarker’s Bowl, Christmas Gift, Thang in Between, Hourglass Chute, Get Up and Get Into It, Burnt Trees, and the Poop Chute. They led us to safe places to shred the 20 inches of fresh powder. More importantly, they briefed us on the snowpack, weather and avalanche patterns throughout the last few weeks.
This year Brice and Charles re-familiarize us with the layout of the land and give us the recent history of weather, snowpack and avalanche conditions in the area. They wish us a great trip and motor down the hill on the snowmobiles. The only motor we’ll hear during the next five days will be our puffing lungs as we climb for our turns.
We unpack our gear and food and eat lunch, even though we don’t feel we’ve really earned it. After lunch we repack our backpacks for an afternoon outing. We slap skins to our skis and begin climbing up the drainage to the ridge between Morrell Mountain and Morrell Mountain Lookout.
Skinning is like meditation for the mind and the legs both. The skin allows me to smoothly slide my ski forward through the snow, then I step down and weight the ski underneath my boot, the skin grabs and holds me on the hill while I slide my other ski forward.
Slide, step, slide, step, slide, step, and so on. The smooth methodical repetition grounds me like the bass guitar in a jazz trio. And it’s a hell of a lot better than climbing the steps of a Stairmaster while watching Opera at the gym.
Within the hour we reach the ridge. A storm blows clouds over the peaks of the Mission Mountains to the west and clouds swirl around 8,161-foot Morrell Mountain and the Swan Mountains to the northeast. The stiff wind brings a chill and reminds us that we are far away from the comforts of home. The gusts whisper through the crystalline snow telling us we are not only perched between two beautiful mountain ranges, but perched between two seasons.
Spring weather in western Montana can be quite schizophrenic. The following days could bring 20 inches of powder and temperatures in the teens, or spring could bring 20 degree nights followed by warm sunny afternoons. We hope for the latter as we begin our quest for spring corn. Now we’re not talking about the vegetable that grows on a stalk, we’re talking about corn snow, a type of snow usually found in the spring after alternate freezing and thawing. And that,s the exact weather we’ve had for a week before the last two days of wind and storm clouds.
During that melt-freeze pattern the snowpack becomes cohesive and uniform — a solid seven-foot blanket of icy white, its surface a soft velvety carpet of corn snow when tanned by a warm spring day. One of my backcountry mentors, George Corn, calls it “hero snow.” And there’s nothing better then swooshing turns through glassy hero snow.
We continue touring along the ridge. When visibility decreases and the wind increases, we decide to ski the Burnt Trees, a run that was our staple last year when avalanche conditions were highly unstable. It’s a nice 30-degree pitch through a forest of burnt trees. For the first run of the trip, it’s not a bad idea to ski what we know, and ski conservatively.
Our assessment of conditions matches the information Brice and Charles gave us. A few inches of new snow layered on top of a super solid spring snowpack.
I look down. Flutter. I always get butterflies before blazing down a mountain in the backcountry. I feel a bit like Calvin and Hobbes perched on top of a precipice ready to harness the power of gravity.
Of course, in the backcountry you can’t just “Calvin and Hobbes it.” Those butterflies fly with excitement, but also from nerves. The nerves flutter around making the right decisions regarding avalanche dangers. Out here a mistake can be life-threatening in one turn.
We break into two groups of two and ski the slope in two pitches. It’s fast and a bit icy beneath the new snow, but we have a blast using the trees like racing gates. We won’t find the elusive corn snow today, but it is comforting to be traveling on skis again. With a little cooperation from the weather, nature may give us the gift of corn tomorrow.
When we reach the bottom we get a view of the basin we’ll ski in the days to come: steep tree runs, wide open bowls and rocky narrow chutes. After one more run, it’s time to head for home.
Although my friends in New York City and Boston might think the yurt rustic, it is truly luxurious lodging for anyone who has frozen their fanny off in a tent tucked in the snow. Yurtski equips the home with a wood stove, a three-burner cook stove, pots and pans, two lanterns, a main table and beds to sleep all four of us and our three dogs comfortably. By nightfall wet gloves, skins, and jackets hang by the lattice work with care. The smell of melting snow and moist evergreen trees tries to push out the smell of stinky polypro shirts, pants and socks. We all agree, “life is good” in the yurt.
After dinner the sky clears above the domed skylight as stars begin their dance across the night sky.
“Anybody for hot chocolate and peppermint schnapps?” John asks. We sit with our mugs and warm our feet by the stove. We talk about tomorrow’s adventure.
“What time are we getting up?” asks Tricia.
We agree to 5:30 a.m. and I look toward Caroline, who has been getting up at that hour all school year. “You’ll get us up?”
“Yep.”
When skiing in the spring, early rises are the norm. Skiers get up before sunrise to groggily hike to the top of the mountain as the early morning sun warms the surface snow. Timing is critical. The goal: to be on top of the mountain as the sun turns the surface of the snowpack into a smooth veneer of corn snow. Too early, it’s ice. Too late, it’s slushy.
“Time to get up sleepy heads,” Caroline hollers. Her dog, Quest, jumps up and dances excitedly around the room.
Wag, wiggle, wiggle, wag.
Quest makes his rounds, shaking his body in pure elation. He knows exactly what’s in store, and, besides, it’s breakfast time. The other dogs join the dance. That’s the best alarm clock in the world, slobbery kisses from our mountain mutts.
Before I know it, I’m skinning toward the ridge with a belly full of pancakes and sausage, the sun glowing off the tip of the mountain. We reach the ridge at 7:30 a.m. as the sun casts shafts of light across the ridge toward the Missions. Our dogs’ shadows dance like apparitions across the frozen snow as we climb toward our destination.
At the pinnacle of the ridge we have to skin our way around the ice cream cone — a giant cornice that nature shaped like a scoop of ice cream. Cornices are beautiful, hanging snow structures that form when wind drifts snow onto the leeward side of a ridge. Like an iceberg, the overhanging part of the cornice is visible, but the sheer mass of the cornice reaches into the ridge behind it. That hidden part is the dangerous part. Avalanche expert Bruce Tremper writes, “Cornices have the nasty habit of breaking farther back than you expect.” We climb well behind this icy behemoth.
I stop to watch my friends, the dogs and their shadows meander up the icy field behind the cornice. As their shapes disappear over the slope, my eyes dart from the ridge to the Swan Mountains and the Bob Marshall and Scapegoat wilderness beyond. I remember now why I keep the fly rod in the closet for another week. Standing atop this wonderful world of white is much like holding that beautiful 20-inch brown trout you just caught on a dry fly. These moments stamp an imprint on my brain. These moments, I feel most alive.
Don’t get me wrong, I love going down, but this solitude is food for the soul. People always joke, “Montana is beautiful, but you can’t eat the scenery.” I don’t plan on biting into the ice cream cone, but you can nearly taste these mountains. Life decisions and stresses just melt away and float downstream to be drowned eventually in the ocean.
We work our way across the north facing ridge and stop above Thang in Between and Christmas Gift.
I feel a tremor. We all do, even the dogs, as we gaze down the 1000-foot, 37 degree pitch flowing to the bottom of the back bowl. Normally a great fear would accompany the tremor: fear of misreading the snowpack and avalanche conditions, fear of triggering a large avalanche. Under certain winter conditions this slope could be a death trap, a slab avalanche waiting to happen.
That’s the beauty of skiing a solid spring snowpack. The freezing cold nights and warm days of spring iron out the wrinkles of all the unstable layers of snow that formed throughout the winter -- those hidden layers that cause major avalanches.
Spring conditions are simple. Rise early and ski in the morning and early afternoon when the surface snow warms up slightly. As afternoon approaches skiers need to be careful because rapid warming throughout the day can cause water to percolate throughout the snowpack leading to wet avalanches. The solid snowpack allows us to confidently ski all the amazing steep and varied terrain in the yurt’s backyard.
As we take our skins off and prepare for the plunge, my dog Atlas perches on the edge peering down the pitch below. He’s got the tremor. He loves mountains as much as I do, and he can hardly wait to bound down the mountain.
In these conditions, I feel comfortable stopping in the middle of the slope to shoot pictures. The slope is surely steep. I am happy to be on my skis - without them I’d feel helpless.
Caroline holds Atlas back and John drops into Christmas Gift, carving beautiful Telemark turns down the mouth of the slope. Like a Bach prelude, John arcs smooth, graceful and melodic turns as he disappears beneath the cliffs and reappears at the bottom of the bowl.
Atlas whines and whimpers because he can hardly control his excitement. Atlas knows no caution.
“Release the hounds,” I jokingly say to Caroline.
She’s let’s go and Atlas drops off a four-foot cornice into Christmas Gift. He bounds toward me, stops for nearly a second and chases John’s tracks down the steep pitch to the bottom. Any snow is “hero snow” to him.
We each take turns carving our notes into the hillside. I always like to ski last. I like feeling the adrenaline of being alone at the top of a steep slope. The solitude is invigorating. Gravity eventually wins and my mind disappears into the rhythm of my turns.
When we reunite at the bottom we are giddy with laughter. You couldn’t wipe the smiles off of our faces. We look up at our s-curves with pride.
It’s early and we decide to head to the top of Morrell Mountain. Of course it’s 1,100 feet above us. The skin route is steady and steep. I begin my breathing my skinning meditation.
When we reach the peak, a mountainous landscape unfolds. The peaks of the Swan and Mission Mountains seem a stones throw away. The next layer reveals Lolo Peak and the Bitterroot Mountains to the southwest, the Anaconda-Pintler range to the south, and the snow laden peaks of Glacier National Park to the north.
The sun warms us and a light breeze cools the sweat on our brows. The blue sky lightens our hearts and the corn snow forming on the stable snowpack beckons our spirit.
This is the perfect spring skiing day in the Swan Mountains.
For a skier and a fisherman, the times are few when the way of the world falls perfectly into place. Like Norman Maclean writes, “Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it.”
Today we are the river, carving bends and curves down the smooth glassy slopes of melting mountains. Tonight with embers crackling in the wood stove and the stars swirling in the night sky around the glowing yurt, we’ll close our eyes and think, “It’s only day two!”

Read more about telemark skiing.