Jeff's Corner - Discovery Basin, Montana

It was minus 5 F the morning I pulled into the parking lot at Discovery. I had spent the night camping in the car, running the engine every few hours to make sure it would still start. It was 8, and the lifts were not open yet, so I went into the lodge for a coffee. "It's minus 5," I said to the woman at the coffee counter. "That's warm for around here," she said.

Discovery is in a cold pocket of the Rockies roughly halfway between Butte and Missoula. It sits just off a remote and scenic road which skirts frozen Georgetown Lake and is marked by high piles of snow. Perhaps because of the cold, this area does not receive tons of snow, though the snow quality is in general pretty good.

Discovery -- or Disco, as some call it -- has embarked on a recent expansion which has nearly doubled the area in size. Discovery now has skiing on four distinct faces, with the spread of terrain making up for a slight lack in vertical.

I started my day there moving methodically around the mountain. First up were several rides on Jubilee, for a quick and mellow 800 vertical feet per run through open to gladed beginner and intermediate terrain.

Next I moved over to the main face of Ramsey Mountain. Two chairs here operate side by side but only one was running the weekday I was there. Runs here are steeper and not pleasant if the mountain is iced up or hardpack. But runs like Southern Cross and Red Lion became favorites.

After a quick lunch it was into the expansive back bowls -- both of them. The summit area is a bit hard to figure out and I missed the entrance to the Limelight area the first time I tried for it. This bowl is huge and rambling and very, very steep. Of the two dozen runs, only one is a single diamond ... the rest are double diamonds. If you're trying to stay off of very steep terrain most of the steepest routes have easy outs but there are still lots of downfall, rocks, chutes and 20-foot cliffs to play in.

Finally, I wrapped up my day on the Granite chair, which has mellower expert terrain (if there is such a thing) and fantastic views out to the pale yellow valleys of southwestern Montana.

I was ready to quit for the day and back at the base when I reached in my pocket to pull out my camera and noticed it was not there. I scoured the mountain and lift line looking for it but nothing. I was crestfallen. I rode back up Granite just as they were closing and asked the liftie at the summit station if he had seen a camera. "Do you mean this one," he asked, pulling my camera off his controller panel. "Someone found it at the top of the lift station and handed it to me."

I celebrated with a mocha latte at the snowside coffee shed at the base and took due note of the fact that during the day the temperature had risen to a toasty 15!

Discovery's plusses:
•totally uncrowded
•light snow
•cheap
•ample terrain, and lots of steeps
•a back to basics area

Discovery's minuses:
•remote
•limited services nearby
•could use some more snow
•cold temperatures

Jeff Schmerker
Waynesville, NC