Jan 28-31, 2016, Jackson Hole

After a dismal start to the winter out east, my dad and I arranged a trip for late January to Jackson Hole to take advantage of their Golden Ticket promotion and enjoy what was shaping-up to be plentiful snow. I'd only been to Jackson in the summer on a family vacation decades ago, but my dad had done a trip there in the mid-2000s before the major recent upgrades had been done to Teton Village and the tram.

I flew-out of Seattle early Wed. morning, but had to connect in SLC so I didn't make it to the resort in time to justify spending the money on a half-day ticket (however, my dad, coming from DC did have time to make some afternoon turns). After checking into our "charming" accommodations (we booked a quad room at the Hostel), I wandered around the Village before settling oin the Mangy Moose for a late lunch. The weather was calm and overcast with high clouds and the snow was still soft and dry, despite it having been days since the area had received any new snow.

Thurs. 1/28
We awoke to a strong temperature inversion - by 9am the sun was baking the upper mountain and the temps had climbed into the 30s while the lower mountain remained enveloped in fog with a bitter 10F at the base. We lapped soft groomers up high and explored the mountain from north to south. I took a lap through the far skier's left of Saratoga Bowl before lunch then we worked our way back over to terrain accessed via the Sublette Chair before finally dipping to the bottom at 3pm for a top-to-bottom lap from the Tram to end the day (Rendezvous Bowl was chalky and pleasant - the Hobacks, not so much). After getting cleaned-up, we grabbed an early dinner at Teton Thai, which I would highly recommend.



Fri. 1/29
This day was a transition day - the morning was high overcast with decent visibility and 2" of new snow, but by noon the mountain was socked-in and the snow began coming down hard. My dad played around on his tele gear and the conditions wore him out early, so I did some exploring on north-facing aspects which had survived the previous days' inversions. By mid-afternoon, Thunder and Cheyenne Woods were offering excellent turns, as were the trees skier's right of lower Casper Bowl off the Casper Traverse. I caught last tram and found the far right of Rendezvous Bowl to be superb and finished the day off with a lap through Rawlins Bowl where I found plenty of boot-to-knee deep freshies. We caught the tail end of happy hour at The Spur for dinner and went to bed early, while the storm raged outside.



Sat. 1/30
The classic gongshow - err, weekend powder day. I awoke early to the sounds of heavy equipment clearing the parking lots and after lying in bed formulating a plan, decided to get up and get ready to grab the gear out of the basement when it was unlocked at 0730. There was quite the crowd waiting for the basement to open (The Hostel offers season-long ski locker and boot dryer rentals, which many locals seem to take advantage of), so we held-off a few minutes and let the truly hardcore break trail towards the Tram through the 16" of new snow which had come down overnight. The line for the Tram was already beyond the eaves of Nick Wilson's so we opted to continue walking up to the gondola and got in line around 7:40. After much bombing (I lost count after 68) and ski cutting, the gondola finally started loading at 9:25. While Eagle's Rest, Teewinot and Sweetwater chairs had opened 10-15 mins earlier, it didn't matter much because Casper was still on hold and remained that way until just before we reached the top. First tram didn't leave the bottom until 9:50. Being in one of the first 10 buckets helped, too ;D



For our first run, I took us hard skier's left into the lower reaches of Casper Bowl. My dad whooped the whole way down - despite it being some of the steepest accessible terrain at the time, the snow was so deep you could barely turn, and when you did it was a double-overhead total whiteroom affair. We followed the upper traverse back to the right then dropped an equally steep line beneath the gondola to the South Pass Traverse then followed that back to Casper. Casper was a ghost town so we knew what that meant - the new Teton Chair was open and so we continued along the traverse to there. We watched the first chair load from the back of the line then did a lap down the pillow-y Moran Face with 500 of our newest friends. Fortunately many struggled with the deep, soft snow, rewarding us with a short line for our second lap through the same zone. Arriving back at the bottom of the Teton Chair the line was already going up the cat track and growing rapidly so we dropped over to Apres Vous. Big mistake - the line was massive and took us 15-20 minutes to get through, during which Saratoga Bowl opened. We did a lap with the hoard in Saratoga and on the way out someone clipped the tails of my dad's skis and wiped him off the low traverse back to AV. Wallowing out from below the rope in the waist-deep snow wore my dad out so he headed to the base for a break while I took another lap through what had become a very tracked-out Saratoga Bowl.

After regrouping at the base, we decided to grab lunch to-go and eat in line for the tram. We hopped in line at noon and were standing on the top of the world just a little before 1 - not too bad for what's been billed as the best day so far this season. We did a run down the far skier's right side of R Bowl, flirting with the ropeline and snagging excellent, refilled-in turns. We were pleased to discover the crowd had abandoned the Sublette Chair so we explored every nook and cranny until my dad was simply too exhausted to continue. He skied down Gros Ventre to the base while I took a lap through Lower Sublette Ridge which delivered a whiteroom experience all the way down to the bottom of Union Pass. With a mile-wide smile stretching from ear-to-ear, I headed back to the Hostel, giving out countably infinite high-fives along the way. We had an early dinner at the Italian restaurant (Osteria?), which was much better than the reviews indicated.



Sun. 1/31
Another few inches of snow overnight and intermittent snow showers throughout the morning brought the storm total to 30", but there were half as many folks on the hill this day. My dad was beat and looking to take it easy on soft groomers so I received his blessing to go out on my own and tick things off my Jackson Hole bucket list. I got in line for the tram at 8am but missed the first box by 3 people (they let a lot of guides and their clients on). No longer in a rush, I decided to grab a waffle at the top and then head down to see what the status of Corbet's Couloir was. There was a patroller standing on the downhill side of the entrance and another skier standing next to him. "He's going first," the patroller informed me. "In how long?" I inquired. "Oh, I dunno, how about now," he responded, then proceeded to pull the rope across the entrance for the lucky skier who did a fine job of getting rowdy on the skier's left side. "Next!" The patroller barked. The 3rd box had just unloaded at the top and folks were streaming down to watch. I sideslipped my way in just a little bit in then launched into the middle of the col, stomping the landing in about knee-deep snow that had fallen and drifted in overnight. I took two full whiteroom turns, one toeside, one heelside, then launched off the wind-scooped rock feature in the middle of the col as it opens up. Grabbing method I heard the onlookers cheer behind me, then stuck the landing and bounced through the fun boulder field skier's left in Tensleep Bowl. I stopped at treeline and looked back up, watching skier after skier send Corbet's. I continued to the start of the bootpack for the Headwall then headed-up to sample Casper Bowl which had opened for the first time since Thursday.



About a half hour of hard work later, I passed the gated entrance to Casper Bowl and spied a familiar face from the Hostel the night before. Unsure of where the best lines were through the cliff band which separates the upper and lower parts of the bowl, I asked the guy where to go. "Follow me," he said, and we dropped in skier's right, making beautiful highspeed turns in the waist-to-chest deep snow. We cut hard right at the bottom of a tree band and were on top of a narrow, steep chute he referred to as Shot 12. He went first and disappeared into a cloud of cold smoke before shooting out into the filtered sunshine below. I followed and then traversed left across an apron to ride the far left side of the lower bowl. We caught the traverse over to the Marmot chair and then used the much steeper but more direct bootpack up White Spider to return to the top of Casper Bowl. From there, we traversed out to the Crags and made hippy turns down the wide open Sheridan Bowl. Absolutely gassed, I stopped at the lodge just above the bottom of the Casper chair for water when I ran into my dad. I mentioned how good it was up top so we went down to the bottom and caught the tram around lunchtime, finagling a run down the steep skier's left side of Rendezvous Bowl before heading all the way over to Apres Vous to meet up with a few others for some mellow afternoon laps.



At 2:30 my phone rang - it was my old college buddy who lives in the village and teaches on the weekend and he was letting me know he'd just finished up his lessons for the day. I met him at the convenience store next to the tram entrance where we grabbed a pair of tallboys and hopped in line for the last box of the day. We ended-up catching the second-to-last box by a handful of people and as we unloaded at the top the clouds which had hugged the middle mountain most of the day parted and the sun broke through. We dipped out the Upper Rock Springs gate and made beautiful turns just along the outside of the rope before cutting back through the Lower Rock Springs gate. We cruised the cat track for a bit, popped out the Why Not gate and ripped the standard couloir line in there to the bottom of Rock Springs Bowl then followed the exit traverse back to the bottom of Union Pass. Here we split up as it was easier for him to walk down the road to his condo. I was in such a state of ecstatic bliss that I almost forgot to unload the chair - I hopped off with less than a second to spare. With our legs feeling the last few days, we decided to make the short stroll to the Moose for dinner where we timed it right to order both off the après and dinner menus

Fantastic trip report and photos, plus enjoying the time with your Father.