Winter "Break"

DISCLAIMER: Below you will find a rambling of a few days travel. Some places to ski, some places to eat and a whole lot of rambling. Enjoy.

The last few weeks have been nuts around here. Traveling, Indian Casinos, crazy amounts of wind and two of the coolest places on the face of the planet.

As the story goes, Christmas came and so did another storm. Dumping another 18" on the front range of Denver. Unfortunutly, the storm fizzled for the mountains. This made for some unforgettable"Front Country" but left the mountain resorts/passes lacking. The decision was made to skin up some of the local mountain bike trails and ski off of them. This is how I picture Japan to be. Lots of snow, a bit foggy, oak brush mixed in and heavier snow.



December 31st came around. Lacking motivation to do the standard New Years thing we loaded up the car after making some turns on Berthoud and headed to Taos. We had all the makings of an old school Warren Miller segment included Tele Glen, Annie, Patrick myself, and even a Pathfinder.

For whatever reason the 6 hour drive felt more like 12 and it was clear that even staying up until the ball dropped was going to be a struggle. I started asking myself if it counts that it turned 07 in another part of the country.

We toughed it out and popped a bottle of "champagne" in the most eclectic hostel I've ever seen, let alone stayed in. Check it out, www.abomindablesnowmansion.com

We awoke to fog, cold temps and no hangover. Walking around this subsection of town it was clear Taos is like no other ski town out there. The hostel epitomizes what it's all about, artsy, eclectic, and friendly.

We went to the mountain to find the storm that had just hit the area had been followed with extremly high temps. This put a solid sun crust n untracked snow did a solid amount of melting in a short period.

Taos is the definition of rugged. Some kind of cross between Alta, A-Basin and even Eldora. It's down to earth, gnar and steep. I just wish they had the snow we were hoping for.

We made the best of it, and although I was gaping it up everyone else seemed to be killing it, especially Annie. I decided to go old school for the new year, googles and a headband from the 80s

We finally got to hike the famous ridge and had a delicous lunch of summer sausage, brie, rolls and PBR. MMmmm. Due to how rough the snow coverae was on the skis and how beat up we were already feeling we called it a day at about 2:30.

On the way out of town we notice an Indian Casino down the road. We'd already had exceptional luck with scratch tickets on the trip so we stopped, and I gambled the only cash I had. $5. One "Max Bet" in a slot machine later and I walked out about a grand! Thank you Indian Casino in Taos! (don't ask, the money went right to American Express...) A great way to start off the year.


Here is Tele Glen in the great New Mexico Desert...feeling like a man.




Five days after arriving back from Taos we were leaving for Jackson. Being Pat and I are college students we decided to do the Jackson trip through Boulder Freeride, the ski club here at CU-Boulder. The deal for the trip was unreal and we didn't even have to worry about traveling...or so we thought.

We showed up on campus awaiting the bus at 4:00 AM. After one hour of waiting in zero degree temps for a bus that was wrongly scheduled to come at 11, we went back to bed.

Finally, we were on the road sitting in a bus that made flying coach look like a luxury. It sucked. We drove to Cheyenne where the highway (I-80) closed right in front of us.



Litterally, we pulled up and the do not pass gate was falling in front of us. The bus driver was too frazzled to figure another route out so at 5PM, some 13 hours after we thought we were leaving, we turned around and went back to Boulder. Arriving at 7PM, tired, feeling like hell, we tried to revive the moral with a gaggle of fireworks. Pat caught this one of "Hollering Parachute" Yeah, it was a good one.

We decided to not leave the next day up to chance so we packed up the vehicle, and left. The good part about getting turned around is it gave me an oppertunity to grab my new Praxis sticks.



These reverse camber, reverse sidecut spatulaeske skis are made for killing it in all sorts of soft snow conditions. After braving the 90mph winds on I-25 and seeing over 25 semi's turned over.



After trying our luck at another Indian Casino...(8 dollars down the drain.) The Teton's emerged just outside Riverton.



Pat had to take in all the glory.



After arriving, the friendly guys at Pepi Steigler (sp?) sports here at the base of Jackson mounted the new sticks and we were off. New mountain, new skis, new way of skiing. I was scared, I had no edge to stand on persay, they had no new snow the previous night making skiing groomers on these is very exciting. Both Pat and myself were just taken back by the mountain. It's just beyond words.


Later in the day, above the fog, Corbets was opened. Without looking at it from the bottom we rolled up to a big crowd gathered. People were going for it, that's for sure, but the sticking it part was not happening. Right before I was to drop, a giant rock in my line was exposed...that's when patrolled closed it until further coverage.

We ended the day with a hike into Casper Bowl for some buttery soft turns. No tracks, heavy snow. The Praxis shined like no other skis I'd ever been on before. It was a dream. Slash turns, butter turns, throw em sideways at speed...the pivot effect is sweet and so is the size. Landings were easy and stability was high...just keep them in the soft snow and it's like skiing in a dream.


We started figuring out the mountain the following day. Lapping a few chairs and really getting a feel for it as opposed to slingshotting all over. We found some tight chutes that in Colorado would be the spectacle of the mountain, but here in Jackson don't even get attention because there is so much terrain just like it. I found an open 40-50 footer and after sizing up the landing a few times, decided to wait until the snow conditions improved. It is really really big with a pretty small, pinpoint landing and a tough takeoff. We opted around it into smaller, techy, one ski only chutes for majority of the day.

That night we headed to the Mangy Moose for delicous beers. Although the beers are pricey, the food is cheap, even by normal city prices. 12 bucks for a large pizza, 6 for a hamburger. The people there were all about giving us some 'how to move to Jackson' advice. (that's the plan you know, finish school...move here) For dinner we checked out Merry Piglets, a Mexican place in town. Although pricey, I had the best tacos of my life. Woh.

Day Three-We awoke to 5" of new ontop of a pretty wicked crust. North facing terrain was a must. We skied with some guys on the trip with the club, lapping the same runs as the day before. After lunch, we proceeded right to Corbet's, only to have it closed right before we arrived.

Upset, and wanting to jump off something, we went to Expert Chutes, I dropped in and immediatly traversed it skiers left. As I traversed, the snow started fracturing and sliding exposing a series of unskieable rocks/ground. I kept going, thinking it would open into something skiable. This wasn't the case, I got sucked to low and too far left, most of the snow behind me had sluffed leaving me with two options. Send it, or hike out. I hadn't seen the line from the bottom but Pat said if I point it I'd be fine. He was right, it was a solid little rock band to huck with a super soft/deep landing.

That night we checked out Snake River brew pub. Home of many delicious Jackson micro brews. We tried a many of them, with their pale ale being my fav and the place has very good turkey chili. Definitly worth checking out.



On day 4 we awoke to sub zero temps. (The beer foam freezing as it came out of the bottle should have been a hint that the temps were cold the night before) Rallying to get out was a bit harder. Instead of the resort we decided to go explore Teton Pass.




The first ten minutes hiking up Glory was rough, my feet felt like they were in casts and hands totally numb. It got worse as we went up but finally I got my heart rate up and things began to warm up. Forty five minutes later at the top, the wind began to freeze my sweat on my face. (it's an interesting feeling to sweat while hiking in -10 degree temps)


(glory)

Skiing down Glory was just that. My new sticks performed flawlessly in the wind buffed/heavy untracked snow. I could just rip turns without thinking about it. Slashing big waves of snow the whole way.

After this we decided to take a run on the other side of the pass and who did we see but Tat himself. Tat is a legend around here, he's been skiing since before I was born. Some of my favorite movies have him shredding Teton Pass, in fact, through a movie he's in (the waiting game) I was first turned on to the area. It was pretty cool to be able to say hi to a guy such as him.


One more day to go, Expect an update and a recap then...I'm off to go grab a beer somewhere new. (Livin the dream!!!)