AtomicSkier

If I could ski powder at 9am, I'd be more inclined, but having to get there at 8:30am to get in line, and waiting until 11:30am sucks. BTW, not a lot of snow on the way for tomorrow, maybe a few inches at most.

With more snow tonight, I don't feel like spending $87 to wait until 11:30am to ski the upper mountain. The snowpack is taking so much time to stabilize in the morning that it's just not worth it. Yesterday, they were giving people full refunds as early as 10am because of the delays.

Woke up this morning at 7am, and was decided whether today or tomorrow would be a better day to use our last day on our Jackson Hole ticket. I thought about doing an afternoon today, and then skiing tomorrow, but an afternoon ticket at JH is still $70. Anyway, I decided today might turn out ok. And, it did. Got to the mountain and they were bombing like crazy, even though it didn't really snow last night. Extremely warm temperatures made the snow pack even more unstable, and they were having serious issues getting the headwall to stabilize. They hit the headwall at least 6 times. Gondola was the last to open because of it, but we were moving by 9:45am. There was no snow on the trees in AV, or until about 1/2 way up the gondola line, which didn't exactly make us rush over to AV as there was definitely rain/wintry mix on the lower portion of the mountain overnight. While we were waiting, the sun was shining on the top 1/4 of the mountain, and then worked its way down. Soon, it was a blue bird day at Jackson Hole. I was really wondering what the snow conditions would be like, so we took a quick groomer run down on Sundance to warm up. Wow. The high winds overnight had dried out about the top 4" of snow and smoothed everything out, so the ungroomed portion was absolutely amazing, especially since we were first tracks down it. We took the Gondola back up, and headed down into Amphitheater which was nicely groomed for some serious GS arcs, and then we took Thunder up. We could see that Sublette was closed, which sucked, but down into Laramie Bowl, there were only maybe 15 tracks in the whole bowl, and again, 4" of chalky/soft wind blown snow which was just awesome to ski. So good, we did it again, and maybe even a third time. By lunch time we had already racked up two gondola runs and 4 thunders. Before getting some food, we wanted to see how AV was, and hit up Saratoga, but as we got in line at AV, they closed it due to winds. Ugh. So we went back to the gondola, took it up to the top, and ate at the Headwall Cafe. The "Bridger Bomb" is an awesome sandwich, BTW. After lunch we alternated between the lower portion of Cirque accessible from Thunder, and Laramie Bowl. By 1pm, the snow was really starting to soften up, and become almost mashed potato like. By 2pm, the clouds came, and the storm starting rolling in, and the snow instantly firmed up. Ugh. It went from chalky and untouched to soft and skiable, to rock hard. We ended up with 9 laps off of thunder, and 4 gondola runs. Up till about 1:30pm, it was awesome, much better then expected. The sun was a bonus, as we were not expecting it, and an awesome way to end our skiing at Jackson Hole. I don't know what we're doing tomorrow, but sleeping in is on the list of things to do. Our flight leaves at 7am on Saturday morning, so we've got to be up at the asscrack of the middle of the night on Saturday morning to get the shuttle to the airport. I may just hang out as my feet really want a rest before I resume skiing in PA. I have some work I could catch up on, so we'll see. Jackson Hole is an awesome place though. Like nothing else I've ever skied. Everyone needs to come here at least once. I'll see everyone back in PA! That's Tom standing at the top waiting for a clean run

ill only buy aframes...they fit my helmet perfectly, and they fit over my glasses perfectly, and they're super cheap now

Let me know how they are when you do. Gotama's and Katama's seem to be popular skis out here.

I want to get some Volkl Katana's or Gotama's. I never thought I'd be on a ski thats 85mm in the waist, but I am, and I love them, so time to go wider Katana's are 111 in the waist, and Gotama's are 105.

My friend that's here with me has Mantra's. He faired [slightly] better then me today, i think.

heh....it's the nature of the beast. we had blower yesterday, but cement today. can't have everything now the question is to take tomorrow off with much colder temperatures expected for friday with some more [hopefully lighter] snow, or ski tomorrow to avoid what could be some pretty nasty dust on crust friday. It's not snowing in town anymore. I'm drinking a Snake River Lager right now. We're undecided for dinner at the moment. We skipped our normal early lunch in favor of a later lunch after we were done skiing before we caught the 3pm bus, so we're not super hungry right now.

85 in the waist? I forget. Doug's Nordica Blower's or some K2 Pontoons would be awesome right about now

It was 37 degrees at the base when we left. Wow.

What a buzz kill. After skiing some epic snow yesterday, I woke up to JH's snow report showing 15" in the past 24 hours, with up to 9" falling today. We were stoked. I knew that we'd have some serious delays this morning with the rising temperatures making the snowpack just that more unstable in addition to the new snow. When we got off the bus this morning, I ran my pole through the snow and could tell instantly, that at least on the lower faces, it was going to be wet, really wet. We got in the gondola line at 8:45 and people quickly lined up behind us. They announced at 9am that the whole mountain was on a "significant delay". By 9:30ish Teewinot was open, so people started taking that lift up and waiting at AV. At this time, it was a wintry mix, mostly made of sleet. It wasn't looking good as the bombing on the upper mountain continued with increasing frequency and more and more firepower. At one point, they set off such a huge charge so close that it shook the base area and some peoples skis slid off the gondola line dividers. Around 9:50am AV opened. Nobody budged from the gondola line, so we stuck around. By 10:35ish the line really started to thin out when some guides were talking to their friends ahead of us, talking about the avy conditions and what slid. We decided it was either time to leave, or ski. We took Teewinot up to AV to pretty nice line lift line. It moved nicely, and it only took us about 15-20 minutes to reach the lift despite all the people. At the top, it was still sleeting, ugh. The snow was still cement, so we popped into Saratoga Bowl, and traversed as far left as we could. There was plenty of untouched lines, but the snow in Saratoga was pure cement, and Saratoga is no where steep enough to ski snow that deep and heavy. Plenty of snow snakes though, between the heavy snow, and now hidden rocks and tree stumps. By the time we hit the ski area boundary at the bottom, we were freaking sweating and tired. The traverse out was not a fun one. We decided Saratoga wasn't the thing to ski, so we hit up Teewinot face, which was much more skiable. After our third run of the day, second on Teewinot face, we saw the gondola was open, so one more ride up AV, and we headed for the gondola. It was getting even warmer, and it the precipitation was a mix of sleet and rain. I was hoping, but not expecting, the snow was better up higher, but it wasn't. Down into Amphitheater, and even down Cascade, it was so sticky. There was no denying it was deep though, knee deep most certainly. Up the Thunder, and down into Laramie which slid this morning with the help of JH ski patrol. Some nice avy debris on the skiers right in Laramie, but nothing major, and some nice untracked could be had. Up Sublette, and down Bivouac, plenty of untouched, and for once, at the bottom, it was steep enough to make some decent turns. We took Sublette up, and went into Tensleep and then continued on to the Cirque. The traverse into Cirque had only a handful of tracks, which made the traverse very slow. Cirque was nearly untouched and had the most snow yesterday. It had plenty today, but the weight of all that new snow on top of a weak snowpack had me a bit spooked. Nevertheless, at the bottom, we were toast. Yesterday was one of my top 10 days of skiing, today was no where near that. I haven't seen snow this heavy at Blue Mountain. Great for making snow balls, bad for skiing. Still managed 8 runs and 15k vertical feet, but it was the toughest 15k. Every turn was laboring trying to keep the skis under me. It's a shame that it's going to be so warm the rest of the trip and I have a feeling that it's not going to get any better No pictures today, wasn't worth it. Weather was so shitty.

Definitely needed to straight line, but it was just so freaking wet.

I can't say it wasn't fawking deep, but I really wish I had super wide boards today. Even on steeper stuff, I'd sink to my knees and almost come to a complete stop. So many snowsnakes out there.

JH looks great on paper but it's the heaviest snow I've ever skied. Pure cement. On the gondola right meow

were at the gondi...teewinot line is insane. Gunna wait a little longer and might make this our day off or go ski the clusterfuck that is AV

Laramie slid. Headwall slid. They just bombed really low... Made peoples skis fall off the Gondi gates.

Big time delays this morning. AV just opened. I think a mountain host said the headwall slid again Big time delays this morning. AV just opened. I think a mountain host said the headwall slid again

15" at 6am, with up to 9" more expected today....

Nah, I'm going to leave it out here for Doug....he can bring it home with him.

I think we're going to try El Abuelito for dinner. I think we're going to save the italian place for friday night.

what are nani's prices like?

As for dinner, we're undecided...what would you suggest? We've done Bubba's, Billy's, and SRB so far. 49er is nice, and our suite is pretty sweet, plenty of room and the fireplace is steezy. JH was not crowded at all today. Our last run down at 2pm in the Cirque, Tom and I looked around and he said "where the hell is everyone". I think I could see one person from the top of the cirque in every direction I looked. In the afternoon, there was only maybe people on the sublette every 10 chairs? It's awesome

We did ski Grand one time, but it was groomed the night before, so meh. We didn't ski Moran Woods today because of the poor visibility hanging around in the valley, making groomers back to the gondola very difficult to ski, and plus, the upper mountain had a lot more snow then the lower faces. We rode the lift early morning with a instructor who said he skied a lower face and said it was "skiable" but nothing to write home about, so we stayed up top. Don't worry...I found it

At least a foot had fallen by the time we left + wind loading in the cirque....nothing else was that deep that we skied today.

We ate at Billy's last night. After a brief wait for a seat, I ordered a burger with cheddar, onions, and bacon. Nom nom nom. It was pretty good, and I definitely didn't have any room left in my stomach. Anyway, Jackson Hole's website said 6" had fallen at 6am. When we arrived at the mountain, that sounded OK. I figured it was going to be dust on crust. The Gondola opened right at 9am which was unexpected, frankly. We took Lupine Way to the Amphitheater. Wow. Amphitheater was groomed underneath, by 6" of super light stuff was on top, making a fun run of totally untracked down to Thunder. We took the Thunder chair up and dropped into Laramie bowl. Laramie was awesome with definitely more then 6" in it and totally untracked. We had carte blanche on lines. Turn after turn, I wondered if it could get any better? Well, we took Sublette up, and well, yes it could. After a quick run down Bivouac Woods, we took the Sublette back up, and traversed into Tensleep, which was above boot deep, and then hit the Cirque. Cirque was the run of the day. Only a handful of tracks could be seen, so I skied the Cirque totally untracked. We took Thunder back up and hit Laramie again, to the Sublette, and back to the Cirque. Rinse and repeat several times (including the totally untracked part). After a quick run down to the Gondola to eat at the Headwall Cafe, we once again went back to laps of Thunder and Sublette. While we were eating, the snow had really picked up, and was accumulating really fast. Our first run after lunch down Laramie was awesome and DEEP. Then we hit up Cirque again. Wow. My first few turns in Cirque, I sunk down to my knees. The next turn was up to my knees again. Turn after turn down to the bottom was epic. The snow was blower. Run after run on the Cirque it just got better and better. Second to last run of the day, we tried a different line, which, due to the rapid snow fall, was untracked, and yes, knee deep of the lightest snow. It was even better on the last run. Sans a day or three, some of the best skiing I've had. And there should be even more for tomorrow For the sake of taking a picture for my report, I snapped one on Thunder, looking down Thunder. It was dumping.