AtomicSkier Posted January 4, 2009 Report Posted January 4, 2009 (edited) 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. Edited January 4, 2009 by AtomicSkier Quote
AtomicSkier Posted January 4, 2009 Author Report Posted January 4, 2009 nice day one report!!!! You skied the entire perimeter of the resort..now check out some spots in between you missed.. 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. Quote
phillycore Posted January 4, 2009 Report Posted January 4, 2009 When we went to JH we took the tram up first thing then headed straight to the hobacks (because I got advice from TGR and they said that was the spot to hit...) That was NOT the run to do on your first trip to JH on your first run.... That quad on the traverse was welcomed with much joy...let alone getting to the traverse as we thought we were f'n lost in there as we started off on south hoback and worked our way to the middle by the time we hit the traverse.... Can't remember exactly but it felt like we were in there for a good hour at least. (of course we stopped a shitload of times too) Sounds like a good first day.... Quote
julz m Posted January 4, 2009 Report Posted January 4, 2009 i heard a guy was killed in an avalanche last week there. Quote
AtomicSkier Posted January 4, 2009 Author Report Posted January 4, 2009 i heard a guy was killed in an avalanche last week there. Yup. I skied on the trail where he got buried. Didn't realize it until I got to the bottom Quote
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.