“Wintering” Roland

“Wintering” Roland. . , Bitterroot winters are frigid and long-lasting, with the snow staying on the ridges and packed into the draws and gullies well into the spring., Roland and East Portal can receive up to a foot of snow an hour during a big storm. The snowpack can be twelve or fifteen feet deep at winter’s peak, piled up in countable layers, marking each storm just as a tree’s rings show the passing years., The bitter cold drained off the heat from even the largest steam locomotive’s boiler, leaving it with insufficient power to challenge the Bitterroots. Milwaukee’s electric engines were unaffected by the cold and could push and pull heavy trains, as long as the tracks were clear of snow., (sidebar) , Skiing Roland?, There was indeed a ski run at this lonely outpost. The Milwaukee Road, with Forest Service permission, operated a “ski bowl” at Roland in the late 1930s until the demands of World War II closed it down in 1941., Special “Ski Trains” carried groups from Spokane, Avery, and Missoula to the Roland slopes.