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| Wydaho..."Best of both states" |
So it was pretty EPIC. Grand Targhee received 5 feet of fresh powder over the week I was there. Luckily the snow settles a bit or else I wouldn't have been able to ski.
We headed up on Tuesday after Crystal got off of work and got into Driggs at 130am. The drive was pretty sporty. I got stuck behind a snowplow and was really happy since I could finally see the road. The first time in a while I didn't complain when driving 20mph in a 65 zone.
In the morning we headed to Grand Targhee which had gotten 8inches over night. Unfortunately one of the three lifts was broken down but I was pretty happy with what terrain these two lifts had to offer. The snow was amazing with the nice 41 inch base from the last few days with an eight inch top coat. This gave us consistent powder turns and face shots all day. First observation of the trip was that the difficulty ratings are a bit different for CO. Anything in GT or Jackson Hole that was double black was no joke, cliff with mandatory airtime, or chutes that required super confidence in order to shoot through and avoid the rocks. Unfortunately I learned this the hard way when Cate and I chose a line that required passing a 3-6 foot rock band. The snow had lightly dusted the rocks and where I chose to come down landed me flat on a rock damaging my lateral ski edge, ripping out a dime size chunk of petex, and bruising my lateral ass. Grand Targhee is a pretty small resort, kind of in the shadow of its more well known neighbor Jackson Hole. The crowd however is extremely chill, very few snowboarders (no park), and tele/AT setups outnumbered everything else. Even with 1/3 of the lifts down you only had to wait a couple chairs to get on the lift and even with a lack of a lift line maze people were chill about organizing the lift line. In CO I could see fist fights breaking out over who goes first in line.
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| Cate running Das Boat...I broke my ski just left of the image frame. |
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| The damage. |
The next day the resorts only got an inch so we headed to the backcountry for a lazy tour. We cruised up about 1200ft vertical up Chicken Knob and then cruised the mellow angle and trees back to the car. It was a great intro to the Teton Valley backcountry and just made me want to do more. This area has endless and accessible backcountry. There are 2 backcountry skiing atlases available so check them out.
After our tour we milled around the streets of Jackson window shopping and going into gear shops with the off chance of a cheap pair of skis.
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| Jackson loves fur and this baby could be yours, with tail of course, for only $35. Sweet deal. |
On friday we headed back to GT where we had heard the main lift, dreamcatcher, was going to be back up and running. This was attractive considering there was probably 2 or 3 feet of snow that was untouched on the terrain this lift feeds. We showed up at 9 when the lifts start turning and we found about every local in a 10 mile radius doing the same thing. This was the only time we had to wait any significant time to get a lift. The skiing was worth it though, knee deep turns which we couldn't get enough of. After we got a half dozen laps we found out Marry's Nipple, the area's hike up mountain was opened by ski patrol. We promptly headed that way and started hiking the ridge. We dropped in a little below the top and were rewarded with Thigh deep snow. I have to say this was the deepest snow I have ever skied and it was at a nice 35 degree or more slope which kept up the speed. That night we went to a house party for a friend of Dustin's which happens to live with the guys that make 22 Designs Tele ski bindings. These guys are pretty well known and do all the work out of there garage (it does have heavy manufacturing equipment though).
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| Hiking up Marry's Nipple...it's hard to see but there is a big cliff about 10 yards to the left of Dustin |
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| This slope is where the thigh deep snow was. |
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| Scale |
Jackson Hole was our last stop and although it couldn't compare to GT as far as snow was concerned the mountain made up for it with some of the sickest in bounds terrain I have seen. Google Corbet's Couliour to see what i'm talking about. It seemed like everything was over 40 degrees with cliff bands to pick your way through. They also have a seasons worth of hike to terrain. I would love to go back for a few days....especially if there was as good of a snow week as we had.
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| They stuff 100 people into these tin cans and haul you up 4200ft |
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| This guy was in the road on our into Jackson |
1K project update: 17.6% complete
Brought my ski descent total to almost 120,000ft
-Mike
