Cooke It Up

Earning turns in Montana’s best winter playground.

When I asked people in Bozeman about backcountry skiing around Cooke City, the canned response was “get a snowmobile or find someone who has one.” Thanks, that’s helpful. Luckily, I caught wind of an area called Woody Ridge, which supposedly held a wide variety of terrain with a reasonable (by Montana standards) approach. Turns out, this drainage sits entirely within the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, and you can’t even hear the moto-heads braaping throttle down in the canyon. So slap on the skins and go check it out.

Taylor and I loaded up in the van and left Bozeman around 5am for the three-hour drive. After two great days of skiing on account of a late-October storm, the mountains around Bozeman had barely received any new snow, and we were itching to make some good turns again. Driving up Paradise Valley under a pristine night sky, the faint crest of the West Beartooths stood against a backdrop of bright stars. The mystique of where we were headed kept us alert (or it did for Taylor, at least, I admittedly dozed off for nearly an hour), and we pulled into the trailhead just after sunrise.

CalTopo map with *line of approach to upper Woody Ridge. About six miles with 2,800 ft. of elevation gain.*

Our approach went along Woody Creek and turned south up Hayden Creek into its upper drainage. Before long we were in some real alpine terrain without another soul to be seen. In fact, we didn’t see another skier the entire day.

Peering out towards the Beartooth crest as we entered the upper drainage of Hayden Creek.

We skied high into the drainage to get our eyes on everything this ridge had to offer. The image below shows an overview of the best skiing terrain. Our run choices were conservative because we were unfamiliar with the area and snowpack. It’s good to put out some feelers before getting too rowdy.

3D Google Earth satellite image of Woody Ridge. Red lines indicate our runs. Zone 1 has a plethora of moderate descents, although accessing this terrain requires either bootpacking up steep start zones or traversing behind on the scoured windward slope. Zone 2 has some steep lines with easy access.

Grabbing some water before heading up for our first run. The background ridgeline shows the NE facing lines of Zone 2. Note the large cornice. In hindsight, the snowpack was well bonded and despite wind loading, a slab avalanche would have been unlikely on this day. But as always, better safe than sorry.

After blasting up the shoulder on the upper end of Woody Ridge, we topped out to spectacular views across the northern Absaroka Range. The stoke was high and this ended up being our best run of the season so far. Short and sweet.

Looking back at our first run; about as good as skiing gets in November.

For the second run, we traversed across a long bench beneath the apron of Woody Ridge’s crest. This traverse would not be safe with a touchy snowpack due to its exposure to avalanche terrain above, but we decided that it was safe on this day and crossed gullies one-at-a-time.

Topping out on lower Woody Ridge for our second run. Lots of mellow terrain in this area.

Although this run didn’t have the same alpine feel as our first, it was much longer with some fun terrain features and incredible snow. This area could be reasonably safe even with a fickle snowpack for skiers who know what to look out for.

Feelin’ giddy after the middle pitch of our second run—the look on Taylor’s face sums up our thoughts on the day.

So there ya have it—some published beta for skiing off Woody Ridge. Don’t @ me, guardians of the secret, there are nearly infinite possibilities for human-powered backcountry skiing in this area. Get out the topo map and make your own adventure.

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