Last Thursday, after watching indeterminate weather patterns for several days,a friend & I decided to pull the trigger & head to Targhee for the weekend. We got on the road at 6:15 pm. A couple of hours later we were rolling through Wyoming about 40 miles east of Elk Mtn when the flakes started to fly. It always seems to snow when I drive this strech of I-80. The snow fall kept increasing until I was reduced to 60 MPH & driving by the reflectors on the shoulder.
I was rolling along in the right lane , when out of the fog & snow a car appeared stopped on the shoulder with it's lights on. As I instictively changed to the left lane, this dumb*ss in a silver Grand Am pulled out onto the highway without looking & with no blinker at maybe 5 MPH. My buddy & I both remarked what a imbecile this idiot was.After that close call, I decide to stick to the left lane to avoid something similar going down. The visability just kept getting worse & now I'm driving at the very limits of what I'm comfortable with. All of the sudden out of the miasma,a pair of headlights beam down on us from behind. In this kind of driving situation I rarely get passed, so I was concerned it was a State Trooper coming to inform me that I should be driving at a slower pace.As I move over into the right lane, this same A**clown in the Grand Am blows by me at 75 or so.He gets maybe 30 yards in front of me and starts to lose control.He slides to the right in front of me, hits the snow bank on the shoulder, then bounces back across both lanes, through the infield & finally comes to a rest out on the east bound lanes of I-80 going the wrong way! During this I'm trying to feather the brakes on the subie & down shift to keep from T-boning this heavily medicated, suicidally despondant lemming. Luckily for this miscreant, the east bound traffic was over a 1/2 mile away from him or he would have been road kill. Neither of us could believe what we just witnessed. This whack job had to have been seeing a whole team of doctors.Bad adrenaline buzz intact,we kept heading west.
After several hours & a written warning for speeding (76 in a 65) for my buddy on 191,& a slow down flash of the cherries from a Driggs' Idaho cop, we finally pulled into Targhee around 3 AM. When they say lift side,they aren't kidding.We were literally 50 paces from the Dreamcatcher lift.
It was snowing & blowing Saturday with 3" new. We tried to hook up with a local Mag, but my cell phone (Nextel) didn't work at all & my buddy's (Verizon) only worked sporadically at the top on the mtn. Thanks to Rideit for his mtn info, & offered Mag hospitality! It was boot deep most places with a lot of knee deep areas.
The Ghee is the 1st western facing mtn I've ever skied. It makes for very different snow conditions; this was my 1st snow ghost experience.The snow sticks to the trees & the crystals grow into trippy formations. The south facing aspects were a little crusty underneath,but decent.The North facing aspects were sweet & creamy. We found the wind deceleration zones on The Face & Ladies Waist to have the best combination of snow & vertical. We checked out the other 2 lifts & came back to roost under the DC chair. It snowed sideways all day,& really picked up steam after 5 PM.
We had some fabulous filets at the Steak house as we watched the snow fall.Talk of 12-14" overnight floated through the dining room.After dinner, I had my 1st chance to read the instruction book for my new camera that arrived Friday afternoon before we left.
We awoke Sunday morning at 7AM , expecting some deep snow totals.We were suprised that after it snowed hard all day, 3" was all that was reported. We packed the car,had a nice beakfast & then hit the hill right after the chairs started turning. Once again we were drawn to the same areas by the quality of snow there.
We ate dinner at the Trap around 4 PM & then hit the road for a nicely uneventful drive back to Boulder. Teton pass is awe inspiring with countless lines as rowdy as you wanna get. This was a scouting expedition & I've got to get back to this area when there's more time available.
We really dug the chill,laid back atmosphere at Targhee. There were no lift lines , no bumps, good snow, no pretense, & the locals we met were cool.To me, the terrain is reminicent of a larger , more consistant, lower altitude, west facing Loveland , or a better version of the best back bowl at Vail. There's a lot of wide open double fall line skiing,some glades with aspens as well as pines, & most steep pitches are short.The Ghee is a hi-speed & low visability mtn. I would love to catch this place on a big pow day.
