Jackson Hole Roll Call Winter 14/15

[HVskier]

R3 to the ground on Twin slides this afternoon. Skier cut wind slab just below billboard and flushed out pretty good. Heads up, those wind exposed ridges are touchy and getting touchier... Everybody have an awesome and safe weekend!

I saw what appeared to be debris on the road up there this afternoon. That might explain it.

Got two quick and bottomless laps in on the south side. The road and parking lot were pretty gnarly. Great start to the season.

[thewon]

More from today: Ryan Halverson shot by our dutiful intern, Leslie Hittmeier:


And my own required hack to make it look better than it was:

nice shots!

what happened to your ski tip, ryan? sweet helmet, btw. pom pom and everything. i'd buy one a them

be safe.

[media310]

Look at that mountain
Look at those trees
Look at that bum over there, man
He's down on his knees
Look at these women
There ain't nothin' like em nowhere

[rideit]

Interesting to note that Targhee is closed to uphill touring.
This is new.

[HVskier]

From the Targhee Snow report...

For the safety of resort guests and resort employees, the mountain will be closed for all recreational access starting Monday November 17th to begin preparation for the winter season opening.

Mountain Operations will be conducting grooming operations, slope maintenance and avalanche reduction work using explosives. Think Snow.

I saw the note on the forecast too.

[media310]

pitted

[panchosdad]

Targhee open this weekend, closed next week for set up, SOP.

How does the BT not even mention the Twin slide in their forecast?

[WaistDeepGroomers]

Targhee open this weekend, closed next week for set up, SOP.

How does the BT not even mention the Twin slide in their forecast?

I saw them mention something minimal, like skiers triggering wind slabs, but not mentioned as a specific incident.

Fun Saturday afternoon at Targhee. Skinned up to Blackfoot for two laps. Classic Foghee lap first run, but second time around caught the alpenglow. Pretty special run that one was:

Rolling up the skinner. This one was a full high tower-up stair master. Good for the soul, good for the thighs:


The good/bad/ugly looked pretty good, but always pretty schralped:


Started to get the light right as we got up to the top of the 2nd skinner:


HVskier gettin' the good light:


GF Shauna on the slay!


Looks like some warming this week before another bout of snow. Hope everyone had a good weekend and stayed safe.

[Foggy_Goggles]

How do you know you live somewhere cool? You use the words "skinner" and "booter". Good to see the Tetons off to a good start. Contingent on weather and my work schedule, I should be around Targhee and the BC quite a bit this winter.

[iLLbiLLy]

How does the BT not even mention the Twin slide in their forecast?

It's likely because I unintentionally sandbagged the event report at r2 d2. After reviewing the scales, I think oceanman is right about it being closer to a r3. At the time, we were only concerned with making it the rest of the way down safety and making sure no one had been below us. I can't even remember what the crown looked like. D-scale is also difficult for me to estimate with confidence. There was a fairly large powder cloud and it had enough energy to just barely spill into the road. D2.5 or D3 is likely a better estimate.

Even a r1 d1 at that aspect would have been very bad to get caught in with the early season coverage. The path pulled right through two low angle, jagged cliff bands.

Either way, it was a very bad call on our parts. I endangered myself, my partner, people skiing the pass that day and worse of all, innocent commuters.

Thoughts about what could have happened have plagued my mind the past couple days. I sincerely, apologize to anyone who I put endanger and everyone who rides the pass.

If I've learned anything, it's that early season snowpack needs to be approached with as much respect as any other time of the year, and that the consequences of triggering something in a place like Teton Pass are much higher than when your in a remote peak in the backcountry. I should have already known the latter from the signs at the bottom of the bootpack... I truly get it now.

Anyways, just thought some additional explanation was owed to those of you asking for more details. Wish everyone a safe season.

[skibrd]

Skied in the park yesterday for one lap. It was awesome as long as you kept it slow, if any of our group got going too fast, stopping involved kissing some rocks. Might be headed for a pass lap today, Ill try to get pics if it warms up some.

[homemadesalsa]

It's likely because I unintentionally sandbagged the event report at r2 d2. After reviewing the scales, I think oceanman is right about it being closer to a r3. At the time, we were only concerned with making it the rest of the way down safety and making sure no one had been below us. I can't even remember what the crown looked like. D-scale is also difficult for me to estimate with confidence. There was a fairly large powder cloud and it had enough energy to just barely spill into the road. D2.5 or D3 is likely a better estimate.

Even a r1 d1 at that aspect would have been very bad to get caught in with the early season coverage. The path pulled right through two low angle, jagged cliff bands.

Either way, it was a very bad call on our parts. I endangered myself, my partner, people skiing the pass that day and worse of all, innocent commuters.

Thoughts about what could have happened have plagued my mind the past couple days. I sincerely, apologize to anyone who I put endanger and everyone who rides the pass.

If I've learned anything, it's that early season snowpack needs to be approached with as much respect as any other time of the year, and that the consequences of triggering something in a place like Teton Pass are much higher than when your in a remote peak in the backcountry. I should have already known the latter from the signs at the bottom of the bootpack... I truly get it now.

Anyways, just thought some additional explanation was owed to those of you asking for more details. Wish everyone a safe season.

I truly appreciate the self-awareness, albeit in retrospect. Not sure if you know all the history behind this issue. The sign is a low-key way to get you thinking about it, but it is really up to all of us to think and communicate our concerns, which CAN come off as dickheadedness. As more and more of us ski Teton Pass (or Little Cottonwood, or Tin Can, or wherever), it is NOT the Wilderness it used to be. You gotta think ahead and own your actions.

A few of us are working on/ thinking about a Backcountry Code of Conduct. Whistler has a decent one. What do you guys think?
http://www.powder.com/stories/the-sa...eedom-anarchy/

And there's a good amount of debate documented here (see link below, click on Teton: Taylor Musings)
http://www.avalanche.org/moonstone.php?cat=studies

Once again, iLLBilly, applaud you for your honesty. Thanks.

[Franz]

Having moved from the front range to the tetons, I always draw parallels between teton pass and berthoud pass. There are a shit ton of things that the land managers at Teton Pass beat the crap out of the land managers of berthoud pass at (ie the forest service of BT encouraging programs and signs that make people think about avys and consequences, providing funding for the TP ambassador, etc; rather than the forest service around BP thinking that if they ignore the skiers and snowboarders they'll either go away or cease to exist).
It does strike me though that there is a void that needs to be filled by other riders. Useage at BP has a lot of problems but one good thing is FOBP's on snow classes.
One of the main goals of FOBP's on snow days is discussing code of conduct and ethics with the newbs that show up. I think it's a super important part of the sport especially at crowded places like TP and it's probably the only way these places will ultimately stay open. It sort of provides a type of mild 'mentorship' even if a short one and allows practitioners to police themselves. If no one's ever told you not to boot pack in a skin track, how will you know it? Or if no one has ever told you not to drop in on other people in avy terrain, how will you know that?
It seems to me that BC riders policing themselves is the most ideal. Anyways, just my .02., sorry for the long non-stoke related post.

[Foggy_Goggles]

Salsa, I think this is pretty good.

1. Have you read the current local avalanche bulletin?
2. Do you know where you are and where you are going?
3. Does someone else know where you are going?
4. Do you have your shovel, probe, and transceiver?
5. Can you call out in an emergency?
6. Be aware of people above and below you!
7. Be prepared to spend the night!
8. Get trained. Practice often. Have a mentor.
9. The conservative choice is never the wrong choice.
10. If you don’t know, don’t go.

Having been involved in this grass routes backcountry education thing for a bit, I've developed a few theories that help me from getting too pissed. Really, you can only help the people you want to be helped. There will always be a few people who don't want to take any advise or suggestions. You just got to let it go.

The culture of safety is improving. It is now cool to know what you are doing. This is more important than any signage, classes or closures. It's a culture thing and it's changing.

The culture of skiing is soft. I don't know why. Try putting other surfers or kayakers safety at risk at the beach or in the river. See how that goes. Being sent to the beach or having I kayaker put a knife through your raft, that don't happen skiing. I wouldn't mind of the backcountry was a little more hostile and douche bags were regulated, but that aint' gonna happen.

The flip side of the coin is to consider other skiers an objective danger and avoid them. The is the classic early season conundrum. Before the ski area (Village in your case) opens, a large volume of users, often without much knowledge, are crammed onto the limited early season terrain.

The biggest think for me, and probably y'all, is to really think about promoting a culture of good decision making. While more people are getting equipped and educated, this does not magically create good decision makers. If fact I see way too much of this "I've got my Avi 2 so I'm more qualified/prepared to ski the questionable slope" attitude.

[Valhall.]

Skied 2 laps and Chivers yesterday, no base and rocks EVERYWHERE. The traverse out was not the most fun thing, especially for the snowboarders I was with. I wish I brought my bigger skis.

One of the people in our group tore a good chunk of his base off and had to hobble it back down.

[HVskier]

Perfect timing at Targhee on Saturday


I was quite impressed with how Edelweiss skied yesterday, Only one light scrape of the bottom on my two laps.

[Valhall.]

I'm still really surprised at how much people are getting after it this early.

Bring on the next storm!

[WaistDeepGroomers]

Hiked glory for the first time this am. Pretty quiet on the hike up and lots of first Turn was pretty wind hammered but the gullies were fun with some thicker and softer sections on the lee sides. Surpised to see tracks going down several parts of little tucks. A little bit of surface hoar starting to build and i imagine it'll be touchy once this next storm comes in warmer.

[WaistDeepGroomers]

Just saw Oceanman post some shit from mountainweather.com calling for fackin' 33" by Monday night. WOOT WOOT!!!

[Trace Hardslab]

Dusted off the cobwebs, oiled the squeaky hinges and visited good ol' HWY 22. Skiing mostly consisted of trimming cow parsnips & larkspur. Found a couple good turns amidst all the weed-whackin'. It was just nice to take a walk.



Then I saw this guy sittin' on a post. He was givin' me the stinkeye cuz' I was was making raven noises at him.



Here's to a good season.

[HVskier]

any reports on the ski down to the old pass rd lot? Skied Avalanche yesterday and it looked like there were several tracks continuing down but I wasn't sure of conditions. That is a heinous skinner back up.

[schwerty]

Dusted off the cobwebs, oiled the squeaky hinges and visited good ol' HWY 22. Skiing mostly consisted of trimming cow parsnips & larkspur. Found a couple good turns amidst all the weed-whackin'. It was just nice to take a walk.



Then I saw this guy sittin' on a post. He was givin' me the stinkeye cuz' I was was making raven noises at him.



Here's to a good season.

I don't know shit about photography but to me that's an incredible eagle shot!

[WaistDeepGroomers]

Killer eagle shot trace!

[Oceanman]

Heli above Teton pass just now. North side..

[babybear]

re: heli - I think they are just dropping the gear caches up on the pass for the winter