You had to be a bit of a nomad to find good snow in the West last winter, especially mid-season.
Fortunately we snowmobilers are good nomads and will drive to find snow. Last winter that meant, generally speaking, heading north, north towards the U.S./Canadian border. In your mind’s eye, draw an imaginary line across the upper half of Montana, the top third of Idaho and top third (ish) of Washington state. Good snow above that. Average (at best) snow below. Case in point. Northern Washington’s Mt. Baker Ski Area received 840 inches of snow last winter. At one point in the middle of the winter, there was 153 inches of snow on the ground at the Schweitzer Basin snotel site in northern Idaho.
So we headed north to Montana’s Glacier Country, tucked away in the northwest corner of the state. More specifically, we stopped in Libby, MT, (pop. 2,691) to spend a couple of days riding in the mountains above town.
We weren’t disappointed.
Something we’ve learned over the years is to ride with the locals. They know the best spots to ride and the fastest way to get there. Showing us around during our Libby trip were Brian Gilmore, general manager of the Northwest Motorsports (www.northwest-motorsports.com), the local Arctic Cat dealer in Libby, and Andy Remp, head of sales at Dream Marine (www.dreammarien.net), the local Ski-Doo dealership in Libby. Our group number about a dozen riders on day one and a handful on day two.