-- beauty upon beauty: SO many majestic flights past huge trees within awesome mountain scenery!
-- open yet technical, often on the same throw: threading the needle on a 300-foot hole is one thing (it's got plenty of that), but holding your line for 10 or 15 or even 20 seconds on a relentlessly downhill hole -- quite another! (common refrain: "sure seemed like a wide fairway before I threw! do you have any idea where it landed?")
-- great balance of power<>control and risk<>reward: there is exactly one low-risk big-arm hole on the entire course (#17, 420 feet, slightly uphill.) on the other hand, there are 10 holes where a big arm (450+ level feet) would seem useful, except that the course keeps beating you upside the head with this lesson: "far ain't no good if it ain't in the fairway"
-- elevation and slope are complex variables: yes, the thin air at 8500 feet will stabilize your discs. on the other hand, properly nose-down drives on downhill holes tend to flip easily. (good luck with that!)
-- a multi-course feast: after you've played this monster, you'll feel like you just played two or even three 18-hole courses worth of energy, scenery, frustration, and thrill. (it appears to be the longest course west of the Rockies, measuring 2.44 miles tee-to-basket -- over 3 miles if you count the walk from the chair lift to #1 and the walk from #27 back to the lodge -- over 4 miles when you count basket-to-tee walks and looking looking looking for discs).
-- CRAZY NUMBER OF FLAT-OUT EPIC HOLES: these holes would be signature holes on most any other course, holes where you feel like you've committed a crime if you only throw one disc.
>> #2: straight ahead looks like the best route, but don't be suckered. it's really a gentle 552-foot finesse rhbh hyzer (drops 160 feet) around a stand of big trees in the middle of the ski run. [regular par 4, pro par 3]
>> #6: nice little slightly downhill 498-foot rip through a narrow gap of towering pines, from an elevated tee to an elevated basket. the monster hugemungous rhbh hyzer bomb is completely legit and completely insane. [regular par 4 / pro par 3]
>> #8: gorgeous exasperating 873-foot hole through a classic corridor of both mature and younger pines. a good rhbh drive can easily sail the first 600-700+ feet (drops 119 feet, mostly on the drive). but if it fades off the fairway into the mix of trees on the left -- like nearly every "perfect" drive ultimately seems to do -- then scoring a 3 will have to wait for another day. [regular par 5 / pro par 4]
>> #11: maybe one of every 10 drives lands in the 250-foot-wide fairway of this 1050-foot hole which drops 280 feet down the face of a ski run. If you can throw 325 feet on flats and hold your envisioned line for 20+ seconds, then it's an easy deuce. seriously. no joke. just try it. go ahead, you can totally do this... any discs left in the bag? hit the fairway yet? [regular par 4, pro par 3]
>>#18: run-of-the-mill double-dogleg (left-to-right drive followed by long right-to-left approach) from wide open space into a ski corridor with dense forest (read: jail) on both sides of the 75-foot wide, gently curving fairway. slight but persistent upslope makes it play much longer than 714 feet; requires two excellent shots for good players to reach the green in two. [regular par 5 / pro par 4] (note: may be extended seasonally to an equally ordinary triple-dogleg measuring over 900 feet - par 6 & 5 respectively)
>> #23: reachable left-to-right bomb (measures 784 feet, plays about 475) from an elevated tee 100+ feet down to a seemingly wide, relatively flat fairway, split by a single tall pine. if you find the fairway, you'll have a rare wide-open approach for your 3. [regular par 4 / pro par 3]
>> #26: no radical slope or 20-second flights here, just a gorgeous and scoreable 642-foot par 4 amongst wonderfully spaced trees. like several of the par 4s, the ideal drive is slightly left-to-right and the approach is right-to-left. [regular par 4 / pro par 4]
>> #27: one last sweet launch to close the round. 603 feet long, dropping 133 feet, reachable with a mid-range for many players. appears completely wide open, but beware the treacherous basket placement on a small steep sidehill and major lost disc potential if your rhbh drifts into the dense swampy brush to the left. [regular par 4 / pro par 3]
-- epicness honorable mentions:
>> #3: 636 feet, drops 140 feet, tight line over boulders and through mid-fairway goal posts, reachable on the drive but rarely 3'd [par 4/3]
>> #12: 312 feet, level, perfectly picturesque, framed by two huge boulders. great complement to the preceding 1050-foot mega-huck [par 3/3]
>> #15: 477 feet, moderately downhill, quintessential rhbh stable S-flight blasting through wooded gateway across open meadow. pure. [par 4/3]
>> #19: 405 feet, moderately downhill, wide open with a dramatic drop-off to the right. wind is more likely to be a major factor on this hole than any other; 5-10 mph coming from coming from 1:00-2:00 is tricky for rhbh throwers [par 3/3]
>> #21: 273 feet, steeply uphill, through 8-foot wide goalposts 45 feet in front of the tee -- the sphincter factor. [par 3/3]
-- the staff is friendly and helpful, especially in the shop. if lost discs are found with names but no phone numbers, they'll cross-reference their waiver forms -- yes, you need to sign a waiver, as there's a chair lift, it's Forest Service land, etc -- to find your phone number. lately, they've also left a large water cooler near the basket on #11 for players to replenish. that's service!