AtomicSkier

I've had whole classes on springs...I'd be more worried about the low end not functioning properly then the upper end, but then again, I don't know what type of spring designs they use in bindings, so it's hard to say.

no.

haha...all my friends with pink wisdoms are legit skiers. Maybe that's what I'm missing?

Well...final day at Jackson Hole. We woke up to a snow report of 5" since the lifts closed. At the low temps, it was bound to be light...and it was First run was some woods down into Ampitheatre, which had at least 6" of fluffy stuff on top. Up thunder and 3rd tracks down Laramie Bowl with the full 6" on top. Was nice ripping huge turns in the pow down Laramie. Let's see what we did today...Grand Woods, Laramie Bowl, Cheyenne Bowl, Cheyenne Woods, the Cirque, Hobacks, Moran Woods/Face...and some other stuff. We did a rinse and repeat a few times. Great lunch at the Alpenhof. The hobacks were skiing the best I've ever seen them. Untracked at 11:45am all the way down to the cat track. It was heaven. Moderate temps, sun poking through the clouds, and a great group of friends. My friend Oscar and his friend Peter are great skiers and is fun ripping through the trees with them. Jackson Hole is pretty special...but can either have terrible conditions due to the sun exposure baking everything or great conditions when a surprise storm rolls through. I'll be back in 4 weeks on Friday. I'm back in the room now relaxing. My new boots are 100% more comfortable after only 18 days on them compared to my old Lange's during my trips out west last year. Can't wait to ski them on February at JH again. For now, that's all. My FC upgrade cleared tomorrow from Jackson to O'hare which takes off around 12:50pm MST...back in Bethlehem around 10pm. See everyone at Blue this weekend! Oh...the POTD...Peter in Cheyenne Woods...JADIP

FGT can't make it either unfortunately...We'll figure it out. FGT can't make it either unfortunately...We'll figure it out.

Sorry Jay....not too much to report about yesterday. It was my friends Oscar and Peter's first day at JH...they fell in love I think, even without any fresh snow. We did managed to find some untracked for plenty of turns in the Hobacks. I have them the grand tour. We took the first tram up, Rendezvous bowl, GSS Woods, the cirque, grand woods, Laramaie Bowl, Amphiteathre, the hobacks, Casper bowl, moran face/woods, saratoga, and a few other areas. Gave them a general overview of the mountain. 5" more fell upon us today, so today will be a picture day. Our FC upgrades cleared for tomorrow, and there is new snow....JADIP.

I went with rossi's....are you skiing on our team?

-1

Ya I know it's lame. Especially considering I'll get a new pow ski next year Glenn would be proud today...I was in the Saratoga Bowl which has boulders the size of houses, and I got "rocked" out at one point. Only option was to suck it up and jump. Not really my thing, but no option

I'll be skiing 20+ days out west this year...no need to push it on day 3...this JH trip is just a warm up for the February trip with AH and GSS. At JH only really Corbet's is out of my comfort zone, and maybe "Meet Your Maker"...otherwise, if I see exposed rocks in the line I need to ski, then I avoid it. I've come to not care too much about my powder skis, but if I can help it, i'd like to keep the edges/base relatively intact. I'm a pussy in that respect (that I care too much about my skis).

Those aren't the Alta Chutes (that may be Alta 0, almost never open)...those are rocks next to the Alta Chutes Alta Chutes aren't that gnarly, it's just a steep run. Alta 1 does get about 2 ski widths wide for about one or two turns. Even with an 80" base, it's a little thin, and I like my skis. Tower 3 is just as thin as Alta 1. Alta 2/3 have much better coverage.

I'm sorry that you feel underwhelmed, but I don't take the pictures to impress anyone, just to share some memories from my trip. I don't care if you think I should push myself, the great thing is when you're me, you do whatever you want. I prefer better snow conditions at lower angles then a few turns on crappier snow on a steeper pitch.

We take pictures for 2 runs first thing in the AM...then the camera goes away. And...the stuff we were skiing is extremely popular, thats why the pictures were our second run of the day.

Nah...the snow is better on the low angle stuff.

Because there isn't any terrain above them?

6"....yes...I was a bit down after yesterday's conditions. Today made me happy again

Well, I can't wait to get on my new slalom stix this weekend...what time we meeting up monday night?

It was much better today then yesterday...Jeff was happy.

Pretzel and caesar salad. I needed some greens...too much chili recently

-10 wasn't the problem, because the previous days were around -6, but no humidity. Humidity was very high today, making that -10 feel like we were on the east coast Pretzel was pretty good, for sure, but the highlight of the day was the layer of fresh snow on my last run down Bivouc Woods/Wally's World/Sherwood Forest/GSS's Forest.

Today was meh. -10 degrees to start the day with a so called inversion. It felt colder up top, despite an advertised 10 degree difference. Visibility was shitty, and only got worse. We had avoided some of the more popular trees the past 2 days, but much to my surprise, the famous GSS woods aka Wally's World, were awesome. I really got into a great rhythm threading the needle between the trees. With snow falling, the humidity was really high, and was pretty freakin cold in comparison to the previous two sub zero days. We mostly stuck to the Thunder lift because Sublette had some serious wind hitting you once you got above laramie bowl (they instituted the no singles rule). It was getting a bid harder to find nice soft snow, as a lot of stuff was getting crusty, but Grand Woods still had some goods, as well as Wally's World. Laramie Bowl skied really well this morning despite the super flat light. No pictures today, it was too cold. Tomorrow is looking warmer and sunny, so expect pictures then. Lunch was @ the Alpenhof. Thanks to NSJay last year for discovering their awesome soft pretzel. Oh, here is a lunch picture I sent to NSJay...

We were already talking about Alpenhof for lunch tomorrow...that's the plan

Happy new years everyone...We had dinner last night at the Wort/Silver Dollar Bar. Dinner was awesome, had some nachos and the Wort Blue Burger (medium, bacon, blue cheese), and a few Snake River brews. I couldn't fall asleep earlier so I was beat by 10pm, so I went back to the room and pass out. I woke up around 1:30am, and my friend wasn't back. Woke up at 4am, no friend. He eventually texted me at 6:45am saying he'd be back for breakfast. Turns out he bagged some cougar American Airlines flight attendant. LTD. 2nd gondola up this morning to a pretty chilly top of the gondola at -11 degrees. Took the same woods down to Amphitheater as yesterday, and another 1" of fresh coating on top made for some beautiful turns down to the Thunder Chair. Up thunder to Grand woods for some action shots. Up Sublette to the Cirque for some more action shots. Snow conditions in both Grand and Cirque were a little crustier then yesterday from the sun baking the mountain all day yesterday. Thunder up to Laramie Bowl, back up Sublette for more cirque. The top of Sublette was freakin freezing. 15+ mph winds and -10 degree temps made for some cold exposed skin. Another thunder with the plan to ski Paint Brush, but thin cover (and it was obvious from the top) signs turned us away. So that turned into a speed run down Amphitheater We then took Thunder up and skied the right side of Laramie, and then down to Rowlins Bowl (one of the lower faces) and cut far enough right to lower tramline so we didn't have to take union pass lift. Up the Gondola for lunch (same as yesterday, chili in a bread bowl, white chocolate chip and macadamia nut cookie). After lunch I can't really remember as it all blurred together. We pretty much stuck to what was good (Cirque, Laramie, Grand Woods). We did a Bivouc in there somewhere, and stopped in Bivouc woods to see the legendary GSS safety stop location. We quit around 2pm, a speed run down GV to the Mangy Moose, and enjoyed some really hoppy Snake River IPA. Caught the 3pm bus as it was pulling away, and now it's nap time. JADIP in Jackson Hole.

Pic 1 was 8:40am...Pic 2 was around 9:45am. There was a snow haze in the cirque which caused a few rainbows. Pretty nice views today

There will be a February trip report thread, so I figured we'd keep them separate. I got to ABE yesterday at 6:15am, bypassed the long check in line, went through TSA security without getting groped. We boarded about 10 minutes late, and were all ready to go around 7:15am (flight was scheduled for 7:10am). FA comes on and says that due to the low ceiling in and around ORD, we had to carry a lot of extra fuel to make it to the alternate airport quite a distance away from Chicago and thus, we were overweight w/ 52 people on board. They were asking for 3 or 4 volunteers and that "we weren't going anywhere until people volunteered". 10 minutes went by and nobody moved. I eventually said to my friend Tom, hoping other people around us would hear "she's lying to us, if nobody volunteers, they'll kick people off" All of a sudden some peoples ears perked up. I figured we'd have to be in the air by 8am to have a decent buffer at ORD to connect to Jackson. Eventually we made weight at after a quick deice, we were wheels up at 7:50am. Weather at ORD was really low ceilings causing delays for multiple days. Picked up my gate checked bag, and haul ass over to the B terminal, 10 minutes to go until first class boarded. The doors closed exactly 10 minutes prior to departure, pushed back, in the air, and smooth sailing. We even got into Jackson about 45 minutes earlier then expected, around 11:35am. Waited for our bags, grabbed a cab, and headed for the 49er. Dinner at the Snake River Brewery was awesome and some great beer (IPA and Pale Ale). Hit the sack early and up at 7am. The 49er filled the bus this morning, so we had an express shuttle to the mountain, and we got there around 8:30am. It was a bit chilly at -6 degrees, and it never really got any warmer then that. The sun was out though which made it very pleasant, except anything exposed to the air was super cold, including my boots (toes were warm, but the plastic at -5 degrees gets rock hard). The gondola opened up at 9am exactly, and first run was down some woods down into amphitheater. Nice soft snow and the wind did a nice job of redistributing some snow overnight. Amphitheater would have been heaven for NSJay...an inch dusting of sparking snow on top of perfectly groomed snow. Thunder up to Grand Woods which had copious amounts of untracked. Sublette up to Cirque which was nicely wind buffed boot deep pow (you can see a bit of it in the 2nd picture). Up Thunder again into Laramie Bowl, which had nice soft snow, not as good as Cirque and no fresh to be found. Sublette back up top to Cheyenne Bowl which was pretty good, pretty smooth with some wind buffed pow. Down Rendezvous trail to Sublette, and up to the Hobacks. It was already around 11:10am, almost time for lunch. We entered the Hobacks and traversed all the way over to the south hober. Just like last year, the few first turns were a bit rocky, and got my worried for what was in store. Well, Hobers were the ROTD. South Hober was beautiful. I traversed almost over to the edge of the boundry and made turn after turn in untracked powder. It lasted until about 2/3rds of the way down. By then I was sweating in -5 degree weather. The last 1000 vertical feet was a little crustier, but resonably smooth. Finallllyyy got to the cat track, and up the lift, up the gondola, and then lunch on the 2nd floor at the top of the gondola. Chilli in a bread bowl with bacon bits and chedder cheese, and a white chocolate and macadamia nut cookie. After lunch, we took the Casper traverse into Casper Bowl, which had some untracked all the way down to the Casper chair. We took the Casper chair up to Moran Face/Wooods and skied that down to Apres Vous. Moran wasn't bad, certainly no Hobacks. Some fresh could be had, but couldn't get a good rhythm in there. AV chair up and then into Saratoga. Saratoga Bowl is a wild ride, and once you're in there, it's huge. We just kept skiing left and eventually hit the boundary. Being lower elevation, the snow wasn't as good as the stuff up top, but still very soft. I will say that I hate the traverse out. It's the most painful thing at all of JH. AV lift back up to the top for a quick speed run down Werner down to the gondola. In the gondola with us with a girl a few years older then us and two guys. We got talking and she asked where we were from. When she heard PA, she asked if we knew where Lehigh was Her best friend went there and was a few years behind me. Then the guy next to me perked up and said his fried went to Lehigh and was a few chairs back. He asked if I was on the race team at Lehigh, and once he said the kids name, I knew who he was. We raced together freshman year, he was the leagues #1 racer. Small world. Some woods down into Amphitheater again (which was getting chunky/bumpy by now), and then Thunder up to Laramie bowl, which still had nice snow down the right hand side to the right of the rock out cropping. We took sublette up to the top for the last run (it was around 2:25pm). All of a sudden, my feet felt like they went into a freezer..WTF. I looked down under my pants and saw my heaters had run out of juice in the sub-zero temps after a full day of use. Tensleep to the Cirque to south pass traverse to GV, to the Bridger center so my friend could pickup some new gloves (his self destructed). Managed the catch the 3pm bus at 2:55pm. Back in the room, about to go pickup some beer and then figure out our plans for tonight. Didn't get a chance to take any action shots. It was pretty cold, and we just kept skiing. Action shots will come when my other friend shows up on Monday, maybe this weekend, we'll see. No fresh snow, but beautiful sun, and some wind buffed pow made for just another day in paradise at Jackson Hole.