Dog Sledding and Snowboarding in Montana

With the winter season here and actually being someplace we can take advantage of the conditions (as well as it being Katie's birthday), it was a perfect storm for a great weekend.

Eve and Wall-E return

Our current assignment is in Great Falls Montana and as luck would have it, that is only about four hours north of one of the premier slopes of the state, Big Sky. Big Sky has over 75 Kilometers of ski trails all at least 7700 feet in elevation. Pretty cool.
Not as cool as what the mountains actually looked like.

See, much better then boring numbers

We stayed at the Stillwater lodge with a few people also on assignment in Great Falls, the more the merrier. The lodge actually offered a fantastic deal that included lift passes for each person staying there. Considering each pass was $100, and we had four people, the deal was incredible. 

Selfie game is strong in this one

Now, it's important to note, that Katie and I have never snowboarded before, only skied. Trent, one of the guys who made the journey down with us, had some invaluable information on how to snowboard. But, despite all the great advice, we had a couple of wipe-outs.

Believe it or not, most of that ice on my beard was just from it snowing so much and going down the hill.

But we knew going in we'd land on our butts a few times and had an absolute blast the entire time anyway. A special shout out again to Trent for helping us out on the boards, next time we're going to get a trainer. And there will certainly be a next time....Love snowboarding....

One of the awesome parts of being up the mountain is how quiet and peaceful it can be

Sufficiently tired from boarding all day, our evening consisted of finding some Mexican food nearby, then coming back to our room for some chill time in front of a wood fireplace for the night.

Nothing like talking around the fireplace after a long day of snowboarding

The next day, we got up early, checked out of Huntley, and drove to another lodge to be picked up by Yellow Stone Dog Sledding Adventures. Long name, awesome company. Their Website.

A short ride later we were at the campsite with all of the simply gorgeous dogs.

Nice cool morning 

My folder of Katie and animals around the world gets bigger

Just puppies

After getting familiar with the dogs, we were off. We would ride along with the trainer at first, then we'd actually get into our own sled and follow him. We had an absolute blast during the ride, but i'm not sure if we were having more fun then the dogs themselves. They are trained that their reward is the running, so they were always ready to be on the trail. 

Beautiful scenery

Even tho it was about 10 degrees, we weren't cold. We had the right clothing on and the dogs certainly weren't cold. Turns out their ideal temperature is about negative 10, but it wasn't so warm they would overheat or anything like that. When we had our own sled of six dogs and were following the trainer, all they wanted to do was pass them, we actually had to hold them back from doing so. 

As cool as it is to ride, driving is where it's at. All about balance.

Our trainers were a lot of fun and we recommend the company to anyone who is in the area. After several hours with the dogs, we were shuttled back to the lodge and made our way back to Great Falls. But Katie had a birthday weekend we'll never forget. Hard to compete with dinner in Istanbul last year, but I think this one will stand out. 

Authors note: I ended up with a lot of pictures and some great video of the dog sledding, but I don't want to overload this post. Be looking out for a vlog and pictures post soon, as well as the missing India post. We went there, I have proof!