Thread: TR: Jackson was sickety sick today

IT'S STILL SICKETY SICK HERE AND THERE ARE MORE NEW PICTURES AT THE BOTTOM...



Sweet Jeebus, today was probably one of the best ski days I've ever had. I've skied more and better snow before, I hit rowdier lines or have gone faster, and I got some of the same lines with fewer tracks in sight, but coming back to Jackson after almost four years and shredding the gnar with some friends just like back in the day sent my stoke through the roof.

After a few days of skiing bottomless blower goodness in Utah with Stump, I caught a ride with nhtele back to his place in Jackson. Nhtele had to work today so I skied with his roommate alpinepronghorn. We got on the third tram and set out for Four Pines in the crisp and kinda bluebird morning. Kinda bluebird means that the vis was good enough that the whole sidecountry was getting raped but whenever I wanted to shoot some pictures clouds would roll in or the wind would pick up. You could still see some tracks from yesterday in Four Pines but they didn't feel like anything if you crossed them and so we had a mountain of shimmery slightly windbuffed hero snow to rip the shit out of. It was good. Knee-deep-huge-roostertail-and-an-occasional-face-shot-whenever-you-felt-like-digging-in-hard-enough good. So good that we skied it without stopping and I didn't feel like taking the camera out so I guess this part of the thread is worthless.

The first lap made us hungry so we got some grease at the Village Cafe and met up with an old friend non-maggot Nate and his crew of also non-maggots but hopefully soon-to-be maggots Brian, Dale, and Dustin. We headed out for Cody Peak with the hopes of skiing the skier's left of Pucker Face, as the right side was already getting tracked out. When we got to the top there was already a peanut gallery scoping out our lines, so alpinepronghorn didn't wait and dropped in. Next up was Brian, who without any hesitation aired off the nose of the little cliff band you have to negotiate on the way down. The rock had a kind of a kicker shape to it so he got tossed and did a 1/4 of a backflip to ass 40 feet downhill. He disappeared past the rollover but alpineprongorn who was waiting at the bottom and presumably could see him didn't start flipping out so we correctly figured that he wasn't buried and was just collecting his gear.

I dropped in next, and a little toeside ski-cut to the left took me away from the other tracks. It was almost thigh-deep and soft, total hero snow. I figured I should stop being a pussy and ride the fall line so I cut back to the right and got me some face shots. I had a few turns until I had to be able to see again to scope out a clearing in the rock band so I chilled in the white room for a bit until all that slough that I churned up spun me around and tried to toss me on my face, but I managed to get out of it and ride it out. Sick sick sick, not the smoothest line ever but I got a huge rush and I think I yelled out a couple of "Fuck yeah"s on the way down. Once again, no pictures from the top because if I had let everyone photoslut for me I would have been stuck with a mogul field. But I did get some pictures of the dudes who skied after we had our way with it:




At this point Brian started feeling the damage from the 40-footer to ass and bailed out. The rest of us traversed over to the hike to Powder 8's. There were a bunch of people heading up that way and none of them were coming back down so we figured that they must have been tearing No Name a new one. Oh yeah, while I was postholing my knuckledragging ass out of the flats alpinepronghorn ran up powder 8s like, well, a mountain antelope or whatever a pronghorn is and made some tight perfectly symmetrical noodle turns that would make Warren Miller proud. I think the other guys minus Nate got a lap in there too but I didn't see their turns because we got to scoping out the entrance to Breakneck. The snow in there was kinda beat from all the wind and the other two or three people that hit it before us today. I'll admit that we skied it about 50 times slower than the slow-mo of Micah Black's line down it in Mind The Addiction, but it was still sick to check that run off my list of things to do. And now that I know what it looks like down there, next time I'll hit it switch and ride it down to the Four Pines bootpack. Non-maggot Dustin redeemed us all by hucking out of it:


Finally we booted our way up Four Pines and topped the lap off with a run in Broken Branch.


I was a wuss and billygoated my way into it but Nate took this extra credit huck into it:


Unfortunately some other people got there before us yesterday and probably some more today but the snow was still incredibly fun. Here's Nate getting some speed after the entrance:


and non-maggot Dale rips while alpinepronghorn watches:


The choke was fully beat but I got fresh down the other 90% of the chute by hugging the left side and railing big natural halfpipe heelside turns. The snow was a bit heavier there but the lack of tracks totally made up for it.

All in all this could have been the epicest lap ever and the celebratory beers at the Mangy Moose were gooooood. Unfortunately our stoke was cut short by a phone call from Brian who found out that he cracked a vertebra doing his 1/4-backflip. My dad did that once and even though it was over 25 years ago he still talks about how shitty it was so I guess Brian's season is over. Fortunately it didn't fuck with his spinal cord and I don't think any surgery will be necessary. Nate visited him at the hospital tonight and we'll go hang out with him some more tomorrow, but in the meantime I'm sure he would appreciate some posi-vibes...

Nice work, I love the Nate pic. How big was that air he got? Hard to tell by the pic (which makes the pic freaking good by the way, I love pics like that)

GOOD GAWD....I live here, and I was reading this post thinking "Jesus, I wish I lived in a place like that!!"
Nice TR, GOOD vibeage to your slightly broken bro. I wasted 5 vertabrae as a kid, but rebounded just fine, I hope he will too. Onto other thangs, nice work in there, I desperately need to find some JH hookup-age this year, or I might go nuts. That being said, Targhee was, well.....Un fuckin' real this very same weekend. The Baugh' opened, (Mary's) and a powder-huge-stoopid'fat'turn'hucker's paradise-time was had by all present.
I wish I had photo's, fo' sho'.
Kudos, you gave me huge new stoke on where I reside...just gotta figure out the ticket angle. Enjoy. (NOICE PHOTO'S, BTW!!REALLY!)

Originally Posted by DownhillRider

Nice work, I love the Nate pic. How big was that air he got? Hard to tell by the pic (which makes the pic freaking good by the way, I love pics like that)

Thanks for the props, dude. I meant to shoot a sequence of the huck and this was the only picture I got before the battery died. I'd say that it was about a 15-20 footer. You land on the same ledge where alpinepronghorn is standing two pictures later, or you can just ski around onto it from the left.

Hell yes, Kubes.

very nice, very nice!

Now that is the gnar way into broken branch

siiick guys. I just got back from Jackson and reading your post totally brought my stoke level up again. Way to get after it, wish I was there.

Phenomenol Shots!!!

This doesn't deserve a thread of its own, so I'll add it to this one.

I wanted to take today off, but sitting on the couch and looking at the animal tracks on the hill outside nhtele's house made me think that I should make some tracks too. So I called up Nate to ski something west-facing off Mt. Glory in the purty sunset. We didn't start hiking until 4:30 and the pass was completely socked in, so the trip started looking like an accident waiting to happen. The top of Glory was above the clouds, though, and so for most of the hike we were chasing the light as we gained elevation and the sun got lower. Finally we broke through about 3/4 of the way up where we got this nice view:



Then the Earth started spinning faster than I could hike uphill so when I got to the top the sun was already below the horizon. That's also why I have no action shots to show for the day. Stupid Earth. The wind started howling and was depositing all sorts of snow in the bowl, it was colder than a witch's tit, and it was getting dark. We decided that skiing a western exposure had kinda lost its purpose when it was dark, and skiing a 2000' terrain trap maybe wasn't the best idea in these conditions, so we settled for the trees in the far skier's left of Glory Bowl. The snow was a little crusty in the open places but blower in the trees where it didn't get hammered by the sun. It was good, I even got a face shot or two.

Then something like 20 cars drove by and wouldn't give us a ride back to the parking lot, so a big fuck-you to them, and props go out to the dude who eventually did. Overall we didn't get to make porn-style turns in orange shimmery sunset snow like in the Powder photo annual -- like this but with a big roostertail flying off that snow at the bottom, preferably big enough to have the sun behind it



and we didn't get blower freshies with no track in sight, but it also felt kind of good to know that we made the right decisions and got out of the mountains stoked and safe.

The bottom line -- we took the day off but skied powder too, how sweet is that?

thats pretty sweet.

Great TR Kuba, you just motivated me to get up a wee bit earlier tomorrow and hike Glory for an early morning run...hope I can get some pics. It's gonna be COLD tonight, I guess.

Well I'm the idiot that landed on his back on Pucker Face. Unfortunately, the drop was slightly larger than the 40 feet that Kuba saw and the impact compressed my spine. I'll be getting out of the hospital tomorrow morning though and will be walking around just fine. I was very lucky with the type of fracture (L1 compression) I sustained and it sounds like I'll be back in the game in time for the ski mountaineering season in the Tetons. Thanks to all those that called me, stopped by, and gave their support.

Originally Posted by coolstine

sounds like I'll be back in the game in time for the ski mountaineering season in the Tetons.

Glad to hear you're doing OK. Heal well and heal quickly!

Nice write up and pics, Kuba. Those pictures from the evening on Glory are beautiful.

Originally Posted by BigKuba

This doesn't deserve a thread of its own, so I'll add it to this one...

But it should...amazing photo.




And this shot from above is very very very nice.




peace,
D.

Yesss!!!!

Indeed. Thanks to Kuba for hauling that big ass lens down sketchy terrain; those pics are going to help get me through another desk-bound week. Next time I'm making you pull that camera out a little sooner, that first run down Four Pines deserved a couple pics! Also, did you get any of the bus-sized cornice that plowed its way down off of Fourshadows? I'm wondering if any maggots know if that was natural or triggered...we watched a snowboarder come down right after the snow cloud settled. Scary stuff.

Vibes to Coolstine; man that huck was huge. Sorry I couldn't make it over to Saint John's; let me know if there's anything I can do for you.

Originally Posted by Bodhi

But it should...amazing photo.




And this shot from above is very very very nice.




peace,
D.

Beat me to it, I picked those two as well

100% pure STOKE!

Score! nice pics.

Well done - great writing in the first post - didn't even need the pics.

Heal up broken dude!

sweet! started my morning watching BC's sweet Tallac vid, and ending the work day reading this sweet JH TR. Stoke is high (we need some new snow in Tahoe!).

nice huck nate. and a sweet photo. way to redeem yourself for making ski patrol pull you off breakneck last year...

(sorry couldn't resist)

and hugs and kisses to brian. feel better.

CAW!!!!!!!!!! CAW!!!!!!!!!!

SICK!!!!

Awesome report and skiing.

For Brian, I sustained a 30% anterior wedge compression of T-6 about five years ago. I was skiing in six weeks and have nothing but a little morning stiffness now. My back feels OK too. No problem, do yer rehab, and you'll be back on it soon enough. Heal up.

Way to be, BK. Hope you get some more fresh while you're there.