Come prepared for early-season hiking in the Jewel Basin

Danni Coffman celebrated her birthday in style Sunday with a sunny jaunt in the Jewel Basin near Bigfork.

The Kalispell woman and her hiking companion, Amber Steed, used skis, climbing skins and hiking boots to cover a wide variety of terrain in the Jewel. They marched over snow-covered forests still strewn with debris from a long winter, and they enjoyed walking on dry trails on exposed alpine ridges.

The Jewel Basin still has ample snow on the north-facing aspects, especially around the parking lot. The road to the Jewel Basin was snow-free, up to about ¼ mile below the parking lot, which still had about three feet of snow on it. It was about a 10-minute walk to the parking lot. The trail out of the parking lot toward Mount Aeneas was completely snow covered, but passable. Early in the day, hiking was better, as the snow was more firm and hikable, using boots with treaded soles.

Skiing on the spring corn snow looked fun, and that’s what Coffman and Steed set out to enjoy.

“We thought we’d come out, bring tennis shoes and skis, and see what the snow was like,” Coffman said. She was celebrating her birthday and enjoying her first time on skis this year after the birth of her first baby. “My husband is watching the baby, so this is my free pass day,” she said.

Although we were the only people in the Jewel Basin in the morning, by afternoon the road up to the parking lot had several vehicles on it, with people approaching the snow-covered road in various forms of equipment. Some had ski poles, some were hiking in tennis shoes, just glad to be out in the fresh, early-summer air.

Steed, also from Kalispell, was cruising uphill on her randonnee (alpine touring) equipment. “We wanted to get some turns in, enjoy the sunshine, and have a good day,” she said.