GOLD CREEK/LOWER BLACKFOOT CONDITION 17/18

[CATSLEDMAN1]

AS PER most of Western Montana the Thanksgiving rain took out a lot of ride able snow pack. The rain turned the lower valley roads all over the Blackfoot into a skating rink.

Three of us took the saw and gently road up the Mineral Mtn road to Shoo Fly meadows. We unloaded about 1 mile up the mineral mtn road, Christmas tree hunters out in force. Several big trees down across the main road limited the 4wd travelers. We cleared trees that had come down since hunting season, so for now no tree hopping on the main road.

Weather as it is, might be awhile before we have low elevation snow to comfortably ride up to the 7000 ft elevation where the rain had turned to slush and snow and put down good snow pack.

The big fires this summer in the UPPER Gold Creek valley and over and through to Boles Meadow area and the warming hut cleared out a lot of grown in old clear cuts. Black Mtn Gold Peak ridge was burned pretty hard, the 15' high thick new growth trees are GONE in many places, back to 20 years ago riding when we have reasonable snow.

 

[CATSLEDMAN1]

low no snow ohhh, but not unusual

still no improvement down low, wintery looking but only 10" of crustly snow at low elevation, so tough to ride from any reasonable parking areas. You could safely drive up mineral mtn road until you are about struck, then unload and break in a new sled slowly. otherwise, wait for more snow.

 

[swagbrdr]

Good to know. This is on my list for this winter.

 

[CATSLEDMAN1]

brrrrrr

ok, both the N Fork Joko and Stuart Peak have jumped to 60 plus inches, so Mineral Mtn Lookout has 5 ft of snow, should be good now for any 5500 ft elevation road riding even in the West Fork, we will go see this afternoon and log another report.

 

[CATSLEDMAN1]

saturday 23 ride

lots of new snow thats good. the snow came down pretty wet knocking down trees everywhere. we started up the Mineral Mtn road and got tired of trying to go around trees...........so unless someone cut it out, next trip up to Mineral is a chain saw trip.

We rode up into the West Fork of Gold Creek via the 10 mile bridge road, lots of brush hanging into the road down low but just ok. About 2 ft new snow, dense powder but still no real base. TUff going on the snowbikes, takes some HP to go through this stuff.

Up in the higher areas the big sleds and 3" tracks were making some serious trenches going down the road, but sun was out, all good.

Road plowed to gravel pit and plenty of snow on the plowed road to ride the sleds no issue.

THE PICTURES ARE LOW ELEVATION, THE GATE IS THE WESTFORK GATE , JUST GETTING INTO THE HIGHER ELEVATION SNOW FALL

 

[CATSLEDMAN1]

BLOWER POWDER

SNOWING every day, in the 6500 ft elevation range it is blower powder, 5 ft plus total with little base and still coming down by the hour.

5 ft on the ridges above shoofly, west fork cabin, 6200 ft elevations are showing 60 plus inches.

Down low just billowing powder going up a road, covering everything but use caution, can't see stumps or rocks but you sink in that silky powder and can feel all kinds of junk below...............careful until this settles out in the next week.

accumulated slopes have got to be AVALANCHE PLUS, it is sliding on road banks in soft billowing flow.

 

[CATSLEDMAN1]

Friday 29

North fork of Joko SNOTEL is always a good indicator of whats happening high around Seely and upper Gold Creek.

Joko snotel gained 20 inches of snow the last 24 hours, 80". Stuart Peak 14" 72" total, somewhere in between is what we get in the Gold Creek riding area. Snowing hard down in town this am, so likely putting down a couple of inches an hour right now...............all good, be careful.

 

[CATSLEDMAN1]

Sat 30

quite few bikes and sleds out. 4 place trailers at hiway and even with road plowed good snow to ride, by afternoon the locals had the road plowed and plowed good parking at the gravel pit, so no big deal driving/parking within 1/2 mile of end of plowing.

lOOK OUT...........deep flour consistency powder, really hard for sled or snow bike to make headway on any kind of uphill grade.
stupid stuck holes eveywhere, and I made some myself.

judging by some of the gates we passed, there is as much snow down low and up to maybe 6000 ft as we had all last year.
NEEDS to setup some to make me happy, but we now have lots of coverage for the rest of they year. AND IT SNOWED LAST NITE AGAIN

 

[CATSLEDMAN1]

Monday 1

Jason cut the trees out of Mineral mtn rd, good job. Hauled a big husky saw in on his Yam snow bike, good for now.

WOW WOW, what a difference two days makes in snow. We could see that the " BOTTOMLESS" has settled about 18" or better with the Sunday sun. Beautiful sunshine, you could play in the trees, lots of stuck sleds but, some traction now. Broke out 513 to uppper twin creek top clear cut play area. Couldn't of dreamed of doing that on Sat, set up that much.

Before we got to the Mineral Mtn lookout gate, back into tooo much work, that chit is deeep and works sled or bike. Lots of fun, lots of sun, great way to start the new year.

 

[CATSLEDMAN1]

GOLD CREEK ROAD

word is that they are salvage logging in the upper Gold Creek, North side of the West fork and along the road to Seely Lake.

Middle of the week the main Gold Creek road was being plowed.

You can drive to the Mineral Mtn road and park. If they plowed the road wide enough you can drive to the Gold Creek Meadows bridge.
I will check it out Sunday afternoon and report.

I drove up the plowed road as far as the West Fork turn, plowed so two vehicles can meet in most areas, caution if you are there mid week with log trucks running.

Pictures are at the junction where the Mineral Mtn road takes off. Easy to drive there, tight tight to turn around, ok with short trucks and bed decks. Small trailers ok if you unhook and turn them by hand.

 

[CATSLEDMAN1]

FRIDAY 1/12

JOKO SNO TEL SHOWS 98"

STUART PEAK 84"

GOLD CREEK IS SOMEWHERE BETWEEN THAT


Talked to a sledder that had ridden with a group over to Seely Lake via the BOLES meadow area warming hut. Road plowed all the way to the top of Black Mtn/Gold Peak ridge, limited parking at end of road.

New snow this week so it will be interesting to see if they have plowed again.

 

[CATSLEDMAN1]

sat 13

12-14" of new snow on fair base.
wet until you hit abou 6000 ft, dri snow on the ridge from Shoo Fly on up the ridge.

dropped into the West Fork, wet new powder with base, you could go about anywhere, good coverage, avy danger on steeps, beware
good coverage going into cabin, only the nastiest downfall areas have coverage issues, we avoided any big drops on hillside becasue of the sliding snow. need some wind to fix creek crossing, way ahead of last year for snow depth and coverage.

main road an ice skating rink down low, looked like most were unloading close to the hiway. 6 of us rode from hiway up the fingers( SHEEP MTN ROAD), cross country from there into West Fork.

 

[CATSLEDMAN1]

sat 20

road plowed, 1" of new at hiway, we drove to the MINERAL MTN road, no problem turning a truck around in the road, dicey or impossible with a trailer.

headed up the mineral mtn road, crunchy brittle snow............not concrete, but crusy and rained on and tracked up from the previous sunny sunday, we headed out cross country to North side of the West fork, great going in the trees and going up and down any slope, by the time we were on the ridge above Heart lake maybe 6-8" of fluffy fresh on a great base, best snow conditions of the year no doubt.

all good..........way good.

couple of pictures

lower burn area from this summer, odd but trees have red needles from ground fire but did not burn, then a few hot spots of blackened timber.
morning was overcast, later afternoon was sunny..... nice

 

[CATSLEDMAN1]

Sat 27 more snow

more snow everywhere.

at 6000 ft and up in the area of Mineral ridge, over 513 trail at least a foot of new light fluff on good base, go most anywhere but that stuff was flying in your face at times. Over cast flat light and snowing all day.

Not as much new on the North side of the West Fork, still 6-8" new while we were out in the trees. Lunch at the West Fork cabin, too cold to stand around and the chimney is buried so no fire to warm us. Oh well, great day once you left the crusty snow in the lower elevations.

PICTURE of on the way to the good riding...........lower clear cut in the twin creek drainage

 

[CATSLEDMAN1]

2/2 2/3 storm'n

Friday morning ride, 4" fresh at hiway, and that was 12-15" up high. Dense powder, good going but it took hp. Basically covered all the tracks up high from the previous weekend. In the afternoon as we dropped down out of the high country, wow, wet cement.

Sat. raining at the truck, gold creek road an ice skating rink, a number of rigs with covered trailers turned around and headed to Seely because they didn't have chains.

Another 8" or better of wet cement new snow, covered a lot of our tracks from Friday. Climbing out of the valley up through some steep clear cuts and old burn was a chore...........some stuck sleds. Raining down low, blowing hard snow up high, serious avy conditions on lee slopes up high, we didn't go there.

pictures from Friday Morning, sun for about an hour before the wind and snow started, pictures on trail well used from last weekend when we were leaving tracks in 14" of new fluff.

 

[CATSLEDMAN1]

so whats up

I couldn't post about conditions last week except were I was riding the bikes in the Sonoran desert of AZ.

BUUUT, when I arrived back home in a blizzard on Sunday, my riding partners reported another 10" of fresh snow, no riders out..............really flat light and snowing all day.

So you could say snow conditions are great, riding poor......or at least seeing where you are going was real poor.

Road has no been recently plowed.............so ride from hiway 200.

 

[CATSLEDMAN1]

2/24 and 25 Sat and Sunday in a snow storm

New snow covering all our tracks from last week. Enough new snow and wind that Sunday morning our tracks from the previous afternoon were only faintly visable.

While the snowtel sites in the area don't show that big an increase.........141" at NFk Joko.......all the wind is stacking cornices everywhere, exposed areas the snow is wind packed hard, then you disappear into bottomless soft blown snow.

Most were riding from the hiway on sunday, no big deal riding the road and plowed berm. Loggers have given up, their plowing up to Gold Creek Meadows is now wide packed sled trail, a few ambitious 4WDs have tried to go beyond the private land owner plowing, 50 yards and stuck.......so don't go there with a big truck and sleddeck.

Snowing and blowing real heard when we left the west Fork at 3pm, so guaranteed no tracks and new snow for next week end.

Picture is looking up out of the doorway on the West fork cabin, snow is now touching eves, so maybe 200 inches have fallen here and compacted to a 9 or 10' compacted base..........lots of good creek crossing now.

 

[CATSLEDMAN1]

3/3 SAT

Sunny day .........yeah

about 8" of fresh snow on WED/Thurs.

Lots of wind blown slopes, hard snow or deep fluff, but the early week sun settled the old snow into more base, so you could really move around effortlessly. Watch for blow holes and 4' drift drops all over the place.

Other wise great riding about everywhere in the area.


first photo shows the new snow that came down mid week and setup, no tracks this am
2nd photo little canyon in the toughest part of West Fork of Gold Creek
3rd photo, far ridge left center clear cut lets you drop off Mineral Mtn Lookout ridge, good snow to come and go from the West Fork, steeper than it look and..........but oh wait the trees are just far enough apart as you reach the top of the climb you can weave through the trees to the Mineral Mtn trail

 

[CATSLEDMAN1]

3/11

Sat the 10th, lots of sleds and bikes were out in the sun, not an untracked climb anyswhere, tracks heading into places I didn't think anybody cared about. Must have been great fun.'

Next day not as much sun and no body in sight, did hear a couple of sleds in the West Fork.

We rode up to Gold Peak, the fire fighters with their D8 cats put 150' wide fire lines up and down some ridges that make it a hi way going down toward the warming hut or climbing the Northern most ridge from Gold creek up to Gold peak, dropped into the Seely Clubs warming hut in the area, no fire, no one had stropped, we were making new tracks in the area.

 

[CATSLEDMAN1]

ok

until further notice the conditions are toooo gooooood to report, sunny, dense powder, nobody around this week, really can't describe the fun......................you working ? Tooooo bad.