Warmer weather is finally arriving to Montana, and while that might be exciting for some, it means the end of ski season. Time for those of us suffering from the condition “skiers-seasonal-depression” to go back to the darkness of our rooms, stare longingly at ski maps, and watch old Warren Miller movies until the snow comes back. 

The end of ski season is always a sad time for any skier (or fine, snowboarder). But it’s not quite as bad if you get to end the season with a big powder day. And that’s surprisingly exactly what happened at Missoula’s own Snowbowl. 

One of the season’s only powder days came just in time for the April 7 closing day, with the Bowl getting nine inches in the forty-eight hours before. The parking lot was more full than it had been all season, hundreds of cars narrowly avoiding skiers walking through thick mud in their ski boots. It was a chaotic, wet, dirty sight. 

About halfway up the chair, it was like the season changed from middle-of-spring to dead winter. Fresh snow covered everything and an icy wind blasted the chairlifts. Skiers were shouting and whooping, getting face shots of the new April snow. It continued to snow all day, giving skiers a light at the end of a kind of horrible ski season. 

This is kind of a metaphor for Montana Snowbowl, especially this season. It may be bad and treat you horribly and not show you any kind of respect whatsoever, but if you give it the benefit of the doubt for just a little longer, it’ll give you a nice powder day, or a new chairlift, or a spot at the front of the parking lot. We may give Snowbowl a lot of hate, and a lot of that hate may be deserved, but at the end of the day it’s our home mountain, and there’s a little bit of love that comes with that. Thanks Snowbowl. See you in December.