Jackson Hole 2019-2020 - & The 'Ghee, The King, Kelly Canyon, Pebble Creek

[Djongo Unchained]

It's a colossal goat fuck out there this morning. Get here early tomorrow.. or ski The King.
Attachment 314404

Can you see me?
I'm the guy in the black jacket.
At the Ganjala.
Right there in the singles line, you knooooooow.

First.

Bitchezzzzzz.

~~~~~~~~~~

Ok, One and done, cuz, well, ski school had all the on mountain mazes full before the public even showed up.

The best I could muster was one almost untracked lap top to bottom on the gondy, easily 24-30" everywhere and 8% snow that blew in deeper at mid-mountain.
The wind affect stiffened it up but a little pitch allowed for easy moving. Not cement, just stout.
Really nice on the old heavy super 7's, 195. Just kinda bottom feeder wiggling all the way, anywhere.
-- 8.9/10


Lines at every maze out the back by 10 minutes after opening.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jackstraw - you'd recognize my voice reciting the old tram announcements...'Rendezvous peak from the tram is recommended for expert skiers only.'

And here's one for Core Shot:



The Juice

RIP my brother

[xtine]

Got first box. Was patient all morning. The line for BRIDGER looped to under the tram line, with a guy holding a sign.

[skibrd]

Can you see me?
I'm the guy in the black jacket.
At the Ganjala.
Right there in the singles line, you knooooooow.

First.

Bitchezzzzzz.

~~~~~~~~~~

Ok, One and done, cuz, well, ski school had all the on mountain mazes full before the public even showed up.

The best I could muster was one almost untracked lap top to bottom on the gondy, easily 24-30" everywhere and 8% snow that blew in deeper at mid-mountain.
The wind affect stiffened it up but a little pitch allowed for easy moving. Not cement, just stout.
Really nice on the old heavy super 7's, 195. Just kinda bottom feeder wiggling all the way, anywhere.
-- 8.9/10


Lines at every maze out the back by 10 minutes after opening.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jackstraw - you'd recognize my voice reciting the old tram announcements...'Rendezvous peak from the tram is recommended for expert skiers only.'

And here's one for Core Shot:



The Juice

RIP my brother

I had no motivation to deal with these lines today after getting to skip lines all day yesterday. I was literally in a shit mood when I woke up today, just not wanting to deal with any of the chaos. Hell, people were in the tram line before 645. I feel I haven’t been here long enough to bitch hard, but that’s not JH.

The ikonic invasion confirmed my decision to get a sled and go rip mellow pow fields on days like today. December and January were awesome at the village, now it’s time to find other ways to get face shots. Still learning, but god these things are fun. Only decent pic to describe how deep the snow is. The close sled is stuck, the far one is sitting on another track.




Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[funkendrenchman]

Anyone have a couple vouchers for tomorrow, tentatively? Can pick up at the resort before opening. Have Aspen vouchers to trade.

Had a great day out there today! After the opening lines, it wasn’t all that bad.

[SirVicSmasher]

Dj Fify

Sent from my I3123 using Tapatalk

[kokomas]

From a friend at 945.

I got a few sloppy third and fourths after work. You all snaked my mid mountain lines!

[SirVicSmasher]

https://www.instagram.com/p/B8PTRall...=1pdb0fn1qvnbd

Skijunky doing Skijunky things

Sent from my I3123 using Tapatalk

[wstdeep]

That pic just made me puke

This ^^^^^^^

Actually have been puking for a few days and could not ski today (unrelated to Icon crowds) but we have hit the lowest of lows here, great snow and so many people here that it's actually barely accessible. Prior to this (this season) you could at least bail OB to get away from the people but current conditions avi wise are making that an unwise move and the lifts you could previously get OB quick on are over run anyways. I actually spent the entire day scoping new ventures up in Canuckistan as it is just too hard to stomach what is happening here. Pay 1400 to get a parking pass but there is no parking, a couple of season passes that cost about the same and you can't get up for more than a few tram laps a day unless you get there before 7am (which gets you one more) or pay another grand per day to hire an instructor so you can short cut the lines. When I found JHMR it was like finding paradise...but I think the party is actually over...paradise is lost and now I have to either stay and weather the shit storm or leave all the friends I have made here and start all over somewhere else so I can actually get some skiing in. The new GM in two short years has destroyed the ambiance that defined JH and has turned it into fucking Vail with good terrain...but terrain that you can't get to may as well be on the fucking moon. Color me bitter but this just sucks. She will deny all of this is her fault but numbers don't lie...she has killed it...she is the boss...she makes the decisions and the results are in. Taking a place with almost no parking, a limited lift capacity (they all have limits of course) and an staff at best unprepared and un-numbered (my own word) to deal with the crowds and jack up everything you can to get more people here and you have todays shit show...and it ain't over folks...Saturday will be WAY worse.

I'll save the tirade about fuckers cutting lines (my friend saved me a spot or I'm meeting up with my family) and the garbage that people in line casually dump on the ground of this hallowed place for somewhere down the line. Fuck em all.


The skull and crossbones dude is on his side because he's dizzy from it all and wondering what happened to his home. Probably should have flown him upside down instead.

[babybear]

nice Xtine and DJ getting firsties. I also learned something new about you- didn't know you ran the ol' red box- awesome

In non lift line related news did anyone see the story on White Pine? Owners selling. I love Pinedale as one of the most under rated wilderness launch zone anywhere and have always wanted to ski (okay ski and live) there but am always just 'passing through' Pinedale in the winter. Hope they find a buyer and keep things going.

https://buckrail.com/owners-say-they...ne-ski-resort/

saw this and hope it gets bought although I have no idea what their #'s are like there
the whole lodge burning down really put a hit to it's already shoestring ops.
How about that like 70 yo british guy that runs every dept? sells you the ticket, gets rentals, cooks your lunch. good stuff

https://www.instagram.com/p/B8PTRall...=1pdb0fn1qvnbd

Skijunky doing Skijunky things

yup.
And as funny as it is- that was his first OB run of the year
and he even gave up early tram tmrw bc we both had the day off and had a ski date. I told him to go for sure but he passed on it (shrug)

@skibrd- it's nice to have alternative activities for days like today. snowmobiling, snow king, figure skating

[rideit]

he even gave up early tram tmrw bc we both had the day off and had a ski date. I told him to go for sure but he passed on it (shrug)

I sure hope you properly rewarded him.

[babybear]

I sure hope you properly rewarded him.

I truly would prefer to sleep in a bit tmrw and meet up later and avoid the early mayhem (I work east coast hours so am up uber early all week long)
But honestly I think he's skied hard this week and is quasi-injured and doesn't want to have to charge for the camera. #soulskier (?)
But he did try to get me on early tram too but I'm not as ski slutty as he is, so got denied. now that would merit a good reward

[TG]

and then you have the mini-ikon in gtnp with arc-teryx and the once-revered institution of exum going all in and bringing in as many gapers as humanly possible & wringing every last penny out of them. selling out the soul of the tetons for the almighty dollar. wonder if they’ll top last years record of 70+ up the wimpy’s skin track at once. fuck all that exum now stands for. old Glenn would be turning in his grave.

[LesterSmoove]

I don't want to complain too much because we all know, and I need to stop being negative, but it was necessary for the crowds to get way worse this february if JHMR management is going to be convinced to pull out of ikon. for all the "JHMR is gonna sell to AspenSkiCO" rumors I've heard, I hear just as many "Oh mary kate and connie hate ikon, but jerry blann signed the contract and stuck them with the bill" rumors. of course, they were on the board and knew and signed off on it too. but if kemmerers aren't lying and they're "committed to maintaining independent ownership" and they really care about the product, it must have hurt them to see what happened this morning. it's definitely a PR nightmare and idk why, but I'm optimistic that ikon will go, and JHMR will become a high-priced premier product for those locals who care to drop $$$ on season passes and those visitors who care enough to pay for lift access to this beautiful terrain w/o today's shitshow.

nevertheless, if you got first box (took an absurdly early wakeup and a lot of luck this morning, plus thunder was on hold for a while, which amplified the returns of first box vs first gondi or other plays) or if you went OOB due to your recklessness or your "expert route-finding skills" or a mix of both, there was some unbelievably good snow, and I'm still feeling fucking great. possibly because my expectations were low.

sad to think about how much better it could have been, or how much easier it could have been to score, but I'm not even mad at the junkshow, I'm just amazed. and yeah, that snow was fucking good.

[Buster Highmen]

I blame snowboarding.

[Core Shot]

Dj Fify

Did RJ pass to Valhalla?
RIP dude.

What a shitshow of big lines
I don’t like powder days anymore. The only good pow days are stealth afternoons
Too much overnight pow sucks
I love 8” overnight with all day heavy snow afternoon fresh refills.
Afternoon pow is the best.

[passholer]

man, i'm out town and was pulling for y'all watching the webcams. now it sounds like i dodged a bitter bullet today. i hope monday will be better

[EWG]

This ^^^^^^^

Actually have been puking for a few days and could not ski today (unrelated to Icon crowds) but we have hit the lowest of lows here, great snow and so many people here that it's actually barely accessible. Prior to this (this season) you could at least bail OB to get away from the people but current conditions avi wise are making that an unwise move and the lifts you could previously get OB quick on are over run anyways. I actually spent the entire day scoping new ventures up in Canuckistan as it is just too hard to stomach what is happening here. Pay 1400 to get a parking pass but there is no parking, a couple of season passes that cost about the same and you can't get up for more than a few tram laps a day unless you get there before 7am (which gets you one more) or pay another grand per day to hire an instructor so you can short cut the lines. When I found JHMR it was like finding paradise...but I think the party is actually over...paradise is lost and now I have to either stay and weather the shit storm or leave all the friends I have made here and start all over somewhere else so I can actually get some skiing in. The new GM in two short years has destroyed the ambiance that defined JH and has turned it into fucking Vail with good terrain...but terrain that you can't get to may as well be on the fucking moon. Color me bitter but this just sucks. She will deny all of this is her fault but numbers don't lie...she has killed it...she is the boss...she makes the decisions and the results are in. Taking a place with almost no parking, a limited lift capacity (they all have limits of course) and an staff at best unprepared and un-numbered (my own word) to deal with the crowds and jack up everything you can to get more people here and you have todays shit show...and it ain't over folks...Saturday will be WAY worse.

I'll save the tirade about fuckers cutting lines (my friend saved me a spot or I'm meeting up with my family) and the garbage that people in line casually dump on the ground of this hallowed place for somewhere down the line. Fuck em all.


The skull and crossbones dude is on his side because he's dizzy from it all and wondering what happened to his home. Probably should have flown him upside down instead.

This rant resonates. It will never be the same, right? I mean the dollar always seems to win, but when the respect leaves - from management, from visitors, from people who don’t know and don’t care - that’s too much. Have respect for something bigger than yourself.

Selfish, self centered, egotistical people who haven’t earned anything and expect that they are owed whatever they want. I don’t care if you are good. I just care that you care.

Sorry all.

[shagadelicbaby]

Anyone have experience touring jackson peak around early march?

Sent from my SM-G9600 using Tapatalk

[idahospud]

but if kemmerers aren't lying and they're "committed to maintaining independent ownership" and they really care about the product, it must have hurt them to see what happened this morning.

I'm just an interloping northerly neighbor here, so take what I say with any number of grains of salt, but if I were the owner of a business with long lines, I wouldn't suddenly find myself thinking that these lines will be the death of my business, much less feeling hurt or worrying about it. Pretty much the opposite. These people have exactly zero stake in anything but how many tickets are sold. If they can sustain "independent ownership", for whatever that means in the face of Ikon passes, they'll keep the gravy train going as long as they can.

[wstdeep]

I'm just an interloping northerly neighbor here, so take what I say with any number of grains of salt, but if I were the owner of a business with long lines, I wouldn't suddenly find myself thinking that these lines will be the death of my business, much less feeling hurt or worrying about it. Pretty much the opposite. These people have exactly zero stake in anything but how many tickets are sold. If they can sustain "independent ownership", for whatever that means in the face of Ikon passes, they'll keep the gravy train going as long as they can.

There are a few grains of truth in there for sure. The irony being the preponderance of Icon users clogging things up who : primarily stay in town, eat in town, don't buy lessons or much from the village shops. Compared to say Vail who owns most of or gets a piece of whatever is spent in the vail valley the resort here doesn't own the majority beds in the village...so they don't participate. From what I understand Icon dollars are split on a daily basis ...so much per day in the pot split by all of the resorts based on what percentage of icon users they corralled that day so WAY less per user than selling even a discounted day pass I suspect.

The Vail model works because they keep almost ALL of the epic pass $$$ in house and sell lots of $18 dollar burgers $6 pops and $60 dollar parking spots...just show up and it works for them...especially if you bring your friends from Denver with.

But the truth is who knows how the math works but for sure they have pretty much abandoned the local skier and left them by the side of the overcrowded road. I gave them about 5K of my hard earned cash again this year and a whole lot more just to be here again ( I winter here..cant afford to live here full time yet) hoping for a quality experience, hoping for a change from last year. I could be wrong but I predict we have just seen the tip of this years Ice burg.

I think it's just going to get worse from here on a relative scale...

[idahospud]

There are a few grains of truth in there for sure. The irony being the preponderance of Icon users clogging things up who : primarily stay in town, eat in town, don't buy lessons or much from the village shops. Compared to say Vail who owns most of or gets a piece of whatever is spent in the vail valley the resort here doesn't own the majority beds in the village...so they don't participate. From what I understand Icon dollars are split on a daily basis ...so much per day in the pot split by all of the resorts based on what percentage of icon users they corralled that day so WAY less per user than selling even a discounted day pass I suspect.

The Vail model works because they keep almost ALL of the epic pass $$$ in house and sell lots of $18 dollar burgers $6 pops and $60 dollar parking spots...just show up and it works for them...especially if you bring your friends from Denver with.

But the truth is who knows how the math works but for sure they have pretty much abandoned the local skier and left them by the side of the overcrowded road. I gave them about 5K of my hard earned cash again this year and a whole lot more just to be here again ( I winter here..cant afford to live here full time yet) hoping for a quality experience, hoping for a change from last year. I could be wrong but I predict we have just seen the tip of this years Ice burg.

I think it's just going to get worse from here on a relative scale...

I think the thing is that they have the market cornered for skiing. Nobody comes to stay in the valley just to ski Snow King (I mean, I would, but I love small hills and hate ski resort parking). Even if JHMR doesn't see every dime people spend, they probably see almost every penny spent toward ski tickets - I can't imagine too many people stay in Jackson and drive over to Targhee only to return in the evening. They may not be collecting all the money spent on somebody's ski trip, but they're getting a good chunk of it.

[LesterSmoove]

I'm just an interloping northerly neighbor here, so take what I say with any number of grains of salt, but if I were the owner of a business with long lines, I wouldn't suddenly find myself thinking that these lines will be the death of my business, much less feeling hurt or worrying about it. Pretty much the opposite. These people have exactly zero stake in anything but how many tickets are sold. If they can sustain "independent ownership", for whatever that means in the face of Ikon passes, they'll keep the gravy train going as long as they can.

wstdeep's response is on the money. basically, if they sold enough window-rate lift passes or assorted discounted pass products to create those lines, they'd be raking in the cash. but they're not getting the same money from an ikon passholder as they do from even a discounted pass, and based on conversations I've had with some cool ikon passholders (don't hate the player, hate the game), it sounds like they're also cannibalizing the shit out of their multi-day sales by converting longtime repeat JHMR customers to ikon pass (like, the "I've been skiing jackson hole for 25 years" visitors), so they're trashing the quality in the hopes of making it up in volume a la walmart. vail and their resorts are set up to bleed cash from patrons, whereas JHMR is being used by alterra as a free bonus on a pass that many front rangers would buy anyways.

last year, mk's response to complaints was to blame it all on the locals. the only thing I can say positively about the situation is that clearly they knew a day like this was coming, because as fucky as those lines were, the yellowcoats herded everyone in as organized of a manner as they could. I don't want to think that that's our future. like someone said earlier, I maybe haven't been here long enough to feel the gutpunch as much as other jh residents, but I do know that it isn't supposed to be like this, and that I stayed because it wasn't like this.

[EWG]

The second something becomes primarily a commodity, it’s soul is gone. It has no meaning. It simply has a value.

[skibrd]

it's nice to have alternative activities for days like today. snowmobiling, snow king, figure skating

Next time SK trying to keep up with you!


I had too much fun sledding today to stress about the resort fucking everything up


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[idahospud]

wstdeep's response is on the money. basically, if they sold enough window-rate lift passes or assorted discounted pass products to create those lines, they'd be raking in the cash. but they're not getting the same money from an ikon passholder as they do from even a discounted pass, and based on conversations I've had with some cool ikon passholders (don't hate the player, hate the game), it sounds like they're also cannibalizing the shit out of their multi-day sales by converting longtime repeat JHMR customers to ikon pass (like, the "I've been skiing jackson hole for 25 years" visitors), so they're trashing the quality in the hopes of making it up in volume a la walmart. vail and their resorts are set up to bleed cash from patrons, whereas JHMR is being used by alterra as a free bonus on a pass that many front rangers would buy anyways.

last year, mk's response to complaints was to blame it all on the locals. the only thing I can say positively about the situation is that clearly they knew a day like this was coming, because as fucky as those lines were, the yellowcoats herded everyone in as organized of a manner as they could. I don't want to think that that's our future. like someone said earlier, I maybe haven't been here long enough to feel the gutpunch as much as other jh residents, but I do know that it isn't supposed to be like this, and that I stayed because it wasn't like this.

That's a really solid spin on it and makes more sense than assuming the owners have hearts. From that perspective, there's a break-even related to the number of daily visitors that's likely been exceeded wherein the mountain is getting hosed by Ikon skiers and it makes more sense to not be a part of the multi-hill pass. I don't make it down that way all that frequently but the preservation of towns that don't feel like Manhattan is near and dear to me. With any luck, the owners of JHMR will see that they're being fleeced by Alterra and get out of the deal at their earliest convenience.