Cat skiing in whitefish
The beats are thumping Black Sunshine’s “Burn to Shine” and Ryan Fogarty has his GoPro out capturing the scene and everyone’s smiles. You’d expect with the pumping music and the laughter we were at a high school party. Nope, we are inside a custom-made snowcat climbing up a snow-covered road to the top of a mountain about to go powder skiing with Great Northern Powder Guides near Whitefish, Mont.
After our initial ascent from the base on the valley floor our snowcat reaches our first destination, Stryker Ridge. Lead guide Taylor Westhusin gives us the intel on this run. “It’s steep with some nicely spaced trees and over to the right there’s a nice rock band if any of you want to huck your meat,” he says. “I’ll radio back up back up when I get in a safe position at the bottom.” Our group of 10 watches as Taylor skis away, each turn throwing up a huge wall of snow as he skis towards the bottom of the first pitch.
Taylor pulls over to a safe zone behind a large clump of trees and radios up to our tail guide that it’s safe for us to ski to him one at a time. Ryan of Coeur d’Alene, doesn’t waste any time and slides up to the edge and drops into the opening. By his third turn he’s hooting and hollering and laying deep trenches in the Montana Powder. His surfy turns look effortless.
For the next few minutes, one after another, we repeat the sequence, with riders all leaving their signature out on the mountain — some leaving their signature a little more than the others like the small yard sale I had after boosting off one of the small rock features.
Great Northern Powder Guides is the dream baby of Jay and Ky Sandelin who moved from Steamboat Springs to Whitefish 30 years ago. “We came to Montana to raise a family,” said Jay. “We couldn’t afford to live in Steamboat anymore, so we moved to Whitefish. It offered a great environment to raise our family.”
Ten years ago the couple saw an opportunity to purchase a snow cat skiing operation just north of Whitefish. Together with their kids they turned a low-key operation into Great Northern Powder Guides, one of the finer cat skiing operations in the United States. GNPG is located 25 miles north of Whitefish.
Covering about 20,000 acres, the terrain is in the Stillwater Forest of northwest Montana, an area well known for abundant snowfall and steep mountains. GNPG runs up to three snow cats a day throughout the winter and its custom-made snowcats will hold up to 14 riders. The snowcat rides up to the top of the mountain are typically around 15 minutes, just enough time to refuel your body, look at some photos and, if you need to, clean off and dry your goggles from the numerous face shots you encountered on that last run.
If you have nine or more friends, you can book a private cat, or if it’s just you and a couple of buddies, GNPG can put you in a snowcat with skiers and boarders of the same skill set. There’s even a steep and deep cat for those who like pushing it in the most challenging terrain. On a normal day in that cat, you can expect to bag 12,000 to 14,000 vertical feet in a variety of steep and treed areas.
With the ability to book a private cat, it was a no-brainer for my ski posse to book three days in a steep and deep.
My friend Matt Reardon, who’s a professional skier and an actual rockstar, joined me on this trip. Back in the 90’s while living and skiing professionally in Europe, Matt had a serious injury that laid him up for a couple of years. That injury made him pick up his guitar and focus on writing and playing music. He started playing in bars in French ski towns like Chamonix.
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Back in the early 2000’s when Matt returned home to the U.S., he formed a band called Black Sunshine. One day, Matt received a devastating phone call about two friends who had died skiing and then the following week he received more bad news about another friend who sustained a life threatening injury. Matt’s only outlet was music, so he picked up his guitar and wrote a song about what he was feeling after the loss of some good friends. Matt titled this song “Once In My Life,” it’s a song about never taking anything in life for granted.
“Once In My Life” hit the top 40 and settled in at No. 31 in the mainstream rock chart. Matt slowly gravitated back into his other love, skiing. Nowadays, Matt produces music soundtracks for action sports-driven films produced by Red Bull and Teton Gravity Research, just to name a couple.
Throughout the day, we were treated to a wide array of terrain from wide-open bowls to a nicely spaced old growth forest, where the branches were laden with moss nicknamed Old Man’s Beard. For our last run of the day, Taylor told us he was going to take us to a steep tree run with a cool rock feature and we would end the day skiing through a burn area that was ravaged by a fire.
We made our way out along the ridgeline where Taylor lined us up over the spot, a section with a steep, consistent pitch of about 45 degrees. Before we dropped into lead, Taylor does a quick snow safety check and digs a snow pit checking its stability. The conditions look safe and once again Taylor goes first, making his way down to a safe zone to watch each skier while the tail guide watches from behind.
We ski one at a time through this steep, snow-covered forest and pull out above the guide as he’s positioned over the rock drop. For those who like to get sendy, now’s the time. Matt tee’s up over the top of the nose, makes a couple of turns and then sends it out off the edge. At 50 years old, Matty’s still got it, textbook form all the way through to the landing.
A few more in our group follow suit. With everyone regrouped, Taylor leads us through some tight trees then into an opening where a lightning strike forest fire came through a few years back.
Wide open and you can see a long way down the slope. Joe Turner, a telemark skier from Bozeman, is the first to make his way through the burn. We all watch as Joe keeps dropping in and out of the white room with every tele turn. Sounds of pure exhilaration echo throughout the burn as we make our final run of the day down to the snowcat waiting at the bottom. Thankfully Ryan had the forethought to stash a small cooler of drinks in the outdoor cargo container for the ride home.
We all crack a celebratory beverage and load back up in the cat for the ride back down to the valley floor. The mood down is a little more mellow as everyone is tired but happy. As we make the trek back to the base, everyone is talking about their day and what their best runs were. It doesn’t get any better than being in the mountains with your good friends. Almost like it was a sign, Matt’s song “Once In My Life” comes across on the music shuffle. As I listen to the lyrics it all made perfect sense.
Better live it like there’s no tomorrow
I will remember and not take another day for granted
For once in my life
We did just that at Great Northern Powder Guides. We lived it like there’s no tomorrow. N
Story By Bob Legasa
Photography By Freeride Media
As Featured In: Winter/Spring 2022