10 days of skiing, and it's not ever New year's yet
Yay! Today was my tenth day skiing this season, not bad for a weekend warrior with a (sort of) full time job. The first five you have already read about, on Centennial ridge and Cameron pass. Decent skiing, but it was really on day six it picked up. A blower day up on Togwotee pass with Matt and Andrea, trying to find our way to some good laps in unknown terrain, really fun stuff.
The only pic that was taken of me on Togwotee, we were too busy slashing pow
On the other side of Togwotee pass lies Jackson and Grand Teton National Park, our next destination. We drive into town as the mountains are hammered with snow, what a feeling of anticipation!
Yes, in those clouds there are actually mountains, and big ones at that
We start off easy by riding 25 short the first two times, the first day in the storm and the second on the "sucker" first bluebird day after the storm. 25 short is the go to mountain when conditions are a bit funky, since it offers moderate angle slopes with nice trees but is still a respectable 900m vert.
Takin' it easy in the trees
The second day of bluebird the snow had settled enough for us to try a little bit bigger objective, and one I have been lusting over since last time I was in Jackson, namely Albright. Or really, we set our sights on the slightly lower peak called Whimpy's, but with the option to do Albright if we felt up for it.
Whimpy's knob to the left, Albright to the right, as seen from neighboring mountain Mavericks
As it turned out, when we closed in on Whimpy's we felt up for an extra 45 minutes or so of skinning, so we started traversing over to Albright.
Andrea almost done traversing. Whimpy's knob is in the background
Below and to the side of the snow field the led to the summit I dug a quick pit. The storm snow had not bonded well enough to the underlying layer, and the slope angle on the way up to the summit and its exposure to the huge terrain trap below had me a bid worried. Another party before us had already put tracks in, but I called it quits right there. From were we were the skiing felt safe, but I could not justify going on, so we transitioned on the spot. The ride down was glorious, the snow was fast and the terrain is great. Maybe tomorrow I will get another chance at the summit...
Lazy pow turns on the lower slopes of Albright
I really am happy I dug that pit, and that I called it a day even though there were tracks already on the slope. Maybe there might be some spine and integrity behind all that summit fever in me.
After yesterdays drama, today we felt like something more mellow, so we did Mavericks. It's a really nice mountain, but a long slog of an approach. For that very same reason, it gets skied way less than its neighbors 25 short and Albright, which is good. So again we got some great turns, sweet views and sunshine. The december sun packs way more punch here than in Sweden, but it is still not powerful enough to ruin the snow, really the best of both worlds.
Surfin Wyoming
So that's the first ten days of the season, now let them keep coming! And I want to remind everyone that most of the things I write can be found in more (and better) better words here.