Rediscovering Jackson Hole
Mountainwatch | Tony Harrington
Generally, the first runs of the season are meant to be warm ups on groomers. In Jackson Hole, the sheer vertical drop provides more lactic acid burning turns then any other US resort. You can quickly regain that ski fitness that had been lost since last year’s southern winter. It had started to snow hard just as I drove into Teton Village on the Friday night. By Saturday morning the storm was moving up through the gears piling on inches every hour.
I decided to wait till later in the day for a ski. The snow was only getting better and I do need to be honest, I was scared to run into any of my local friends. I felt that if I hooked up with them, I’d be surely dragged along for some crazy ski, hike, ski mission – not that you need to get out of bounds at Jackson cause the resort itself is so large, but it also accesses some of the finest backcountry terrain anywhere in the world as well.
My plan for the day was to simply ski a couple of groomers and then get more adventurous for some out-of-bounds skiing later in the day. I don’t know why I then put my transceiver on. “Just in case”, I thought. As there would be a good chance I’d run into a familiar face. OK, if I’m wearing a transceiver, I’d better carry a pack and shovel, so I donned this as well, just in case.
Sydney’s Grant Simmer (left) is the renowned general manager of ORACLE TEAM USA who won last years America’s Cup. This was his first time to Jackson and got to ski it up with former World Heli Challenge champion Kent Kreitler (right) for the week. Image:: Tony Harrington
I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised to see some familiar faces as soon as I reached the line. Straight away I knew my warm up plan was shattered as I ran into Teton Gravity Research (TGR) founder Todd Jones as well as former ski movie legend and World Heli Challenge champion Kent Kreitler. From that second on I knew there would be no groomers…
On reaching the summit of Rendezvous it was immediately click in, and ski out through the backcountry access gates. Immediately the fat skis began porpoising through knee deep powder. Heaven was found in the first turns of the trip and the warm up was complete after the 150th turn. We’d taken a route lesser known and what came with that was a 45 minute hike-out through knee deep snow. My ‘warm-up’ turned into a massive work out.
The next call from Todd was to hike up to Four Pines. For the alpine accustomed, this is a reasonably a simple and easy hike, but after the past six months spent at sea level wearing nothing other than board shorts, being bare foot and the past hour of slogging it out after our first run, I was already in a melt-down. This kind of stuff is a love-hate relationship for me. But I really was grinning from ear to ear. For here we were, out on top of a secluded peak in Wyoming’s Teton Range, fresh, deep snow and a couple of long-time friends. ‘Life right now couldn’t be better’, I thought. And then it was, when a couple of minute later, during a massive descent through untracked bowls, through gladded pine trees and 36 inches of dry cowboy powder I was hooting and hollering back down towards the valley floor.
One of the elite Jackson Hole Air Force members, Rick Armstrong is one of numerous ski movie legends that the resort is home to. Image:: Tony Harrington
On reaching the village again my day was done. My legs were rubber, the lactic acid burned deep and I was forced to retire.
Days 2 to 5 weren’t as hectic, the legs accustomed to the 4,000ft vertical runs and more powdered was burned on this trip then most people get in a season. In fact there has only been one sunny day in over 35 days, every other day it has been dumping, it’s been ridiculous.
Untracked power, day in, day out. a birds eye view of what it was like. Image:: Tony Harrington
There are many good reasons why Ski Magazine has once again rated Jackson Hole the number one ski resort in North America. The ‘cowboy’ powder and the terrain are just a part of it, but so too the flight access from major airports, the ambiance and culture of what is a true-blue old-western town.
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