AtomicSkier

I think when it's all said and done, 6 days of awesome skiing with 5 days in a row of 30,000 vertical is going to take its toll. We did 29k in boot to knee deep pow today, and by 2pm I didn't have anymore in me, so it was time for some apres ski at Nick Wilson's while waiting for the bus. We've gotta be up mad early on Saturday and as soon as we get home, we've both got to goto a cocktail party that we actually need to be awake for.

nah i don't think so...we've got a 6 of 8 day lift ticket so I think we're going to take friday off and actually check out the town.

I'll be there.

Can't believe it's day 3 already. Anyway, it was snowing when we woke up, not heavily, just a snow shower. Ate breakfast then caught the 8am bus to the mountain. Caught the 3rd gondola up top, where we were greeted to a nice inversion. The bottom was -12 degrees and the top around 3 degrees where it was snowing at a more rapid pace, but no where near "dumping". Visibility wasn't bad, but it was the absolutely flat light that was just horrible. We took Thunder to Sublette, and skied Bivouac, which was groomed over night; blah! We headed back down to the Gondola. We took two runs down Sundance, popping in and out of the trees on either side for some definition. It was a good run. I had saw from the top that the Sublette was on wind hold, so we did a total of 4 runs off the gondola, and heard over a mountain host's radio that Sublette was now open again, so we worked our way over there, sampling the Cirque as well as Bivouac woods. Cirque was great, but again, flat light. The run of the day was definitely Bivouac woods (on either side of the trail). The skiers right is steeper, but the snow was better on skiers left. There was a little more accumulation on the left side, boot deep at the top. We ended up doing those woods around 5 times, as visibility and snow were great. We took different lines every time to mix it up, and found some really good snow. I got in a little dicey situation, and took a huge bump head on, and my PE's popped off for the first time (just one of them) ever. It was nice to know the binders actually work We did a lot more runs today, so I'm not going to do a play by play, but we didn't get over to AV today. That's on tomorrows list of things to do. 2-4" tomorrow and 7-11" on Thursday. Current forecast for Saturday (the day we leave) is cloudy, so that's good news. We're going to eat at Billy's Burgers tonight as per the recommendation of everyone who has been to JH on PASR. We ate at Bubba's last night. The meat was tender, but the ribs had zero flavor. I'm sure they don't have the time to "low and slow" smoke every rack, but the spare ribs my dad and I made our first time blew these out of the water.

It is?!? JH Ski Patrol did an awesome job on saturday morning, when 11" fell the night before. They blasted the crap out of the place.

Glad to be of service Even when it's not snowing, conditions are awesome. Coverage is awesome, though the hobacks will be much better after this weeks storm rolls through. Current forecast is for a good travel day on Saturday (cloudy) so hopefully you shouldn't have an issue getting in.

goodbye.

I was actually scoping that out There wasn't a way to ski up it though, it was pretty much a rock face on the other side.

Ya it's decent here...LOL. Thank god for boot warmers today

We went to the Snake River Brewery last night for dinner. Tom and I both had wild game chili and a buffalo burger. Very good, and the beer was excellent. We both fell asleep around 9:30pm and didn't wake up until 7am, so needless to say, we were both well rested. We got in line for the Gondola at 8:55am, and we were the first ones. Due to the bluebird end to yesterday, it got extremely cold in the valley overnight, as cold as -25 degrees. When we arrived at the Gondola, the temperature was -20. It felt warm, lol. We took the Gondola up, and I wanted to try a Jackson Hole groomer, so we took Sundance back down to the base. Wow, you can get some serious freaking speed on that trail. I kept telling myself "Check yourself before you wreck yourself". We took the Gondola back up and did it again. And again. It was only 10:10am and we'd already racked up around 8500 vertical feet. We then hit up the tram for some serious vert. When we were at the top of the gondola, I saw a tram coming down, so I figured we could get right on that one, and we did. Big time inversion on the mountain, so the top of the tram was even warmer then the Gondola. It was actually really pleasant up top (a pleasant -5 degrees). We hit the steepest part of Rendezvous Bowl to Bivouac and then took the Sublette up. At the top of Sublette, we traversed over to Tensleep Bowl, which had untracked powder that we seemed to have missed yesterday. We continued on to the Cirque. The Cirque was awesome. Really light and fluffy boot deep cut up powder. Cirque to Amphitheater to the Thunder Chair. At the top of Thunder we hit Laramie Bowl, which wasn't as good as the Cirque, but still very good. We took the Sublette chair and then headed for the Hobacks. Hobacks were not that great. The snow wasn't as soft, and very choppy. Regardless, you really couldn't complain, it was still pretty good At the lift back to the base area, the current temperature was a balmy -8 degrees. It was time for lunch, so we pitted at the bottom. After lunch, we had a one tram wait. Rendezvous Bowl to Central Chute back to the Sublette Chair. We traversed to Tensleep and then to the Cirque for another round. It was just as good this time around. At the top of Thunder, we took a nice short cruiser under the chair to Thunder, and then into Dick's Ditch which was pretty cool. We boarded the tram for one last run as we wanted to catch the 3pm bus to watch the Eagles game. At the top, we took Rendezvous Bowl to Bivouac once again. We took the south path traverse to Gros Ventre as not to kill ourselves on the last run. No crowds, and still very good snow. The run of the day was Rendezvous, followed closely by the Cirque. We did 11 runs good for almost 29k vertical feet. It's supposed to snow tomorrow so I'm stoked Tom with Corbet's in the background... Laramie Bowl... Someone took the picture about 5 seconds too late when I was hitting the brakes... A random picture in the Hobacks... A crappy video of me in some cut up powder on the steepest part of Rendezvous...

Yup. I skied on the trail where he got buried. Didn't realize it until I got to the bottom

That's kind of what I was shooting for. I wanted to all the big areas, and cover the entire mountain, making mental notes where I saw some good woods, etc. Tomorrow isn't going to be a pow day, but it'll be another exploring day in anticipation of this weeks storms Going to be very cold tomorrow, warming up on Monday with an anticipated 2-5" of snow. Tuesday should bring even more.

Wow. So we left Newark yesterday morning at 11:55am en route to Dallas. The flight only took 3.5 hours, so that extended our layover another 1/2 hour. However, upon arrival, I saw the flight was delaying 1.5 hours. Ugh. I was so nervous about it being cancelled. We waited and waited, and they still weren't boarding at 6:20pm. But, I found out why. The plane came from Mexico, and had to be cleared by customs and "internationally cleaned". We pushed off at 6:51pm en route to Jackson Hole Airport. We dropped out of the sky onto the Runway at JH airport about 8:45 local time. Got the Alltrans shuttle to the 49er, and checked into our suite. I had trouble sleeping until 7am this morning due to the time difference. I was up at 5am tossing and turning because my mind told me it was time to goto Blue Mountain. Obviously not the case. I eventually fell back to sleep and woke up at 7am, got up and got dressed. We headed over to the continental breakfast, loaded up on carbs, went back to the room, booted up, and waited out front for the shuttle. The shuttle came right at 8am. After a relatively quick ride to the airport, we were in line for the Gondola at 8:45am. We were second in line. The continued sound of the Howitzer canon and dynamite was not a good sign when 9am rolled around, and then 9:15 and then at 9:30. At 9:15 it was announced that Apres Vous was opened but we were in front of hundreds of people, and we wanted the Gondola for the first run. 9:45am rolls around, and we see the ticket scanners grabbing their scanners. Stoke! Quick 2800 vertical foot ride up to the bottom of the headwall, and temperatures dropped quickly. Definitely below 0. JH claimed snowfall was up to 10" by morning, and I could believe it. We took Lupine Way to the Amphitheater. 1/2 way down the Ampitheater, there was quite a bit of avy debris and you could see where they were blasting above. JH Ski patrol obvious nervous about the slide that killed a guy just below Paint Brush. Traversing a bit, and it was untouched. We skied down to Thunder, which, upon arrival, was not open yet. Ugh. We waited about 20 minutes in line, and then it opened. At the top, we traversed into the Laramie Bowl which was awesome. Great snow and deep! We headed up Sublette and took Rendezvous Trail to the Hobacks. Probably the best run of the day. We took Middle Hoback and Doug was right. You are so happy when you see that cat track. Plenty of untouched and deep. By the time we hit the cat track, I was warm. Conveniently, like Doug said, it's a good run to do before lunch. It was 11:30am, so we decided to take a break for lunch. Quick bowl of Chili and we headed over to the tram. A 3 tram wait, and we were on the new "big red". Pretty cool. It was frigid at the top, but we hit Rendezvous Bowl to Laramie Traverse to Alta Chutes and back down to the Sublette. At the top of the Sublette, we traversed over on Tensleep to the Cirque, which was epic. Cirque to Amphitheater, which was now free of avy debris. We wanted to check out Apres Vous, so we took Thunder up, and traversed all the way over to the Casper Lodge, and then down through some trees to AV. At the top, we took the Saratoga Bowl, which I thought was closed, but it definitely wasn't. Awesome run. Towards the bottom where there was less snow and more tracked out, I managed to grab a nice shot of my friend Tom. Another ride up AV, we hit Saratoga again. At the bottom of Saratoga, my legs were getting a bit tired after skiing hard in fresh and chopped up powder all day. We took AV up again, and did a steezy speed run down Werner back to the base. I can see why Doug loves this place so much. Today was an exploration day. Wasn't trying to ski my brains out, wanted to check out a bit of everything. See what I liked, see what I didn't like. Simply put, it's just an awesome mountain. By the afternoon, the morning clouds cleared out, and it was sunny. Back in the room, watching some football, and we're going to head out to eat soon.

Though, that doesn't apply to Razors, as that snow still has plenty of moisture.

I didn't see your brother at Blue today though?

You can't compare today to yesterday. I just did, lol. I'm sure Blue this morning was better then JF this morning. It was THAT good. It was shit in an hour, but that's not a result of their grooming. It's the lack of moisture in the snow causing it to become sweet n low in an hour.

justin...just don't become a pothead out there!

heh....funny thing was...i was thinking that on my first run down

When I left work 20 minutes ago, I could barely open my office door. Wow.

Gotta admit though, first 4 runs today at Blue had better grooming then anything I skied yesterday at JF. Just sayin

Sucks. There was like 0 wind when I left at 10am.

It's crazy other places, too Someone got killed at Squaw, as well.

Grooming was epic on Razors and Challenge today for the first 4 runs. Better then Jack Frost was first thing yesterday.

Really? It was windy as hell up top at JF yesterday, and forecast for Blue was 20-40mph winds today, and it was calm.

Well, you're not going so what do you have to worry about?