TR- Jackson Feb. 7-11.08

[sparkletarte.]

Someone was bemoaning the lack of Jackson TR's a bit ago so here's one for you. If you were being sarcastic and don't want Jackson TR's in fear of them bringing more people, don't worry, it was a bust of a trip. I lifted this from another place I posted it. There's lots of words. I'm wordy. Ready?

Thursday morning we get about 30cm here (in the Kootenays BC where I live) so I have to go up for an hour. First run, assplanted a 10-12ft drop and heard every bone in my back crack. I could barely move, but made my way to chiro, then to the emerg for x-rays to make sure nothing was broken. I was okay but in tons of pain- that should have been when we decided not to go (later found out it was compression-sprain-stress. Awesome). We left late.

First night spent east of Couer D'Alene somewhere. Friday we drove by Lookout peak and briefly thought about going there- the snow looked super fresh, and it was cheap, but I was sore and we really wanted to get to Jackson.

Heading down the 15, we get close to Roberts? and hear on the radio there are hwy closures. What? The roads are bare. We stop at a gas station and talk to some old farmers (who were awesome, way too classic) and the sherriff- no way to get to Jackson, all roads closed. Sherriff says something like 40 cars have gone off the road in the last 30 minutes. People are coming in from the south saying the road is crazy and asking us about the road north. Um... it's mostly bare? It's really good winter driving? Don't you people know how to drive in the winter or have winter tires?

We start to drive to Ririe hoping they will open, but hear that they are looking for emergency shelter for 200 people stuck in Swan Valley. Ooookay. The roads are bare with some patches of ice rink, and there are a few drifts, nothing over a foot, but still driveable. Anyhow, we head to Idaho Falls to spend the night. The road reports are funny- the recorded voice says stuff like 'watch out for white snow', and 'watch out for cloudy skies'.

Next morning, I check the reports. Everything is still closed, including Soda Springs due to an avy. Meet a Driggs local who says Swan is the first place they'll open, so we head out there. And wait. And wait. Blockade guy says that we are low priority, they are trying to get Swan people out, then maybe they'll send us in. Maybe today, maybe not. Meanwhile, we've seen maybe 4 plow trucks, none of which is plowing the drifts, none have chains, none are sanding... maybe the sand will blow off, we'll give them that. People, you send in two plow pilot trucks, you caravan the people behind, you bring up the rear with a pilot truck, and you are done. Seriously, wtf?

We hit Soda Springs, an extra 2-3 hours out of our way, the hwy alledgedly closed due to an avy. There is only one spot on the whole hwy that even has a slope steep enough and close enough to the hwy to cause an avy- and there is no debris anywhere. Whatever.

The Soda hwy... if these conditions are what causes road closures, the hwys around where I live would be closed every day. They even put poles every 30ft or so, so if there's a white out you can follow them. Granted, if it was really windy, I can see how that would be challenging to drive. But still.



We get to Jackson. The trees are green and there is water on the roads. Not a good sign- it's warming up. The road closures have now reduced us to one day of riding as we have to leave Monday. We pull into the Antler Motel. They were nice enough not to charge us for Friday night due to the road closures. They have cookies, hot chocolate, and coffee in the lobby. They have a really big hot tub. They are nice, stay there.

I'm not a fan of spring conditions, especially when I am paying for them. I stopped by the Ill23 shop (where I got a board from) with a 6 pack to get some deets from the shopguy David. He was nice and drew some lines to check out on the trail map.

We went out to the Tavern, his suggestion, more of a local scene. We were looking for some, er, stuff, but most people in there looked like they came from Sunday school so we didn't ask around. Avoided the Cowboy bar.

Sunday. I think it snowed an inch. Wheee! Hit the hill. $77 each. Oh look, groomers! High winds! Fun! Did the Hoeback, which I was really looking forward to, but with spring conditions it was small piles of snow everywhere which my back did not enjoy. Tried to hit the runs suggested but the trees were all tracked and frankly they kinda sucked. There's not a lot of them, they are really skinny and way too close together, and that's coming from people who like tight trees... but I do have to say we are tree connoissurs so we are probably hard to please in this area. Okay, not probably, we are. Tried hitting the lee slopes looking for windloading because the wind was so fierce but nothing. Got a tip from a guy to hit under the rope on the far right of the East?Ridge? chair... barely made it there due to high winds blowing us back, and oh, look, it's totally tracked and wind scoured. Wondered who could give us some, er, stuff us so at least we could enjoy the groomers. Rode more groomers than I have all year- they are so boring. Thought about getting drunk. Finally decided to hike the Headwall because it led to the only fresh we could see and what else were we going to do but ride groomers. We had spied some fresh lines in Casper so we thought we'd hit them. There I am!



We went through Ten Sleep bowl to the hike up. It was hard to catch my breath hiking due to the high elevation, but otherwise an easy maybe 10 minute hike. Oh my gosh there's fresh snow here! Started chatting up a guy at the top, turns out he's lived there for 13 years. Went into 'must get local info, must find stuff' mode. He implied he could help us out if we could keep up... no problem, we did. Followed him on the traverse to the top of the Crags, where we hooked up with a couple of his friends. Stuff sharing insued. Yay! Arrangements for later hook up made. Yay! The boys took us down the Crags. It was nice, lots of cliff drops, open trees, not too steep, wind affected. Short though, maybe 300ft to the cat track and it was over. A lot of work for such a short hit, but it was the only pow around. One of the boys started telling my guy that he could take us to this secret place where we could hit the pow for the rest of the day, but then he shut up when the other boys showed up. Bummer! I wonder if there's some heavy territorial biz that goes on there, and there's locals only spots that some people don't like locals taking tourists to. Regardless, thank you boys, you saved our day.

We wanted to do another but they close the hike at 2pm- wtf? There's still at least 2 hours of daylight. Annoying- it was 1:50 so that was it. The boys were done but we wanted to get our $77 worth so we did more groomers. We tried to find the boys later but couldn't, boo. Had a beer at Nick's, seems locally there.

The Crags:



While Jackson does have a lot of gnar, there's lots of non-gnar stuff too. Lots of cliffs, from 5-50+ ft, but other than that, meh. Like so many places, no fresh pow, and it's not that great. The pow doesn't seem to last long at all... I guess it is a big resort so what did I expect? I don't know, I don't usually ride at a big resort. I thought there would be more pow with the road and chair closures. It's that stupid ass wind.

Then we hit the hotel, slept, and drove home the next day, 12 hours. better than the 17 it took to get there counting all the detours and stuff. On the way we took a different route to drive by Lost Trail Mountain. Holy shit. Why didn't we just go there?! It's only open Thursday- Sunday. The nearest city is Missoula, about 1.5 hours to the north. It's really in the middle of nowhere. The terrain is intermediate but there's some wicked looking open glades, trees, and a few nice cliffy fingery spots. We had to pull over to give it a good check out, it looked so nice. And get this, they only got about 2" of snow over the weekend, but there was heaps of fresh everywhere! It looked awesome! Plus, there's a hot springs with a lodge about 10 minutes north, and lift tickets are only $31! The nearest town is Darby?Darcy?Danby? about 30 minutes north, really small place with a total western vibe, saloons and all. How great does that sound? I am so going there.

All in all, it was okay I guess. I got to see Jackson, and I had to go there sooner or later. It cost us about $900 and 30 hours of driving and a couple scraps for one day of groomers and 300ft of pow. Not a very good return. But now it's done and now I know.

The lamest ass thing is that was the last time I have been riding this year because now I am on rehab. I have a trip planned for next weekend though! I'll be back in action! Will post a tr on that.

[sparkletarte.]

What I learned on my winter vacation:

-Don't get greedy on the day you are leaving for a road trip and try to squeeze in an hour of riding, because you just might fuck up the trip plans.

-I am so spoiled for snow and terrain here. I love where I live. Next time I want a change of terrain, I'm going to stay around here. Yes, I am a powder princess. I am okay with that.

-Check the road reports even if there is no snow on the roads because people in the states don't use winter tires and are afraid of snow and ice. Or something.

-I love that the speed limit in the US is 75 miles in most places. That's 125+k an hour! Love it! But remember to slow down when you come back to Canadia.

-If there is no fresh, just go hiking. We drove through Teton Pass on the way home and there were lots of easy to access spots that were fresh. Would have saved $160 too. But we were pretty focussed on checking out the mtn and I wasn't sure if I could ride let alone hike- the original plan was the mtn the first day and the pass the next, but because of the stupid road closures that got tossed. We had no idea that the wind would fucking blow all the snow away. How annoying.

-Drive by other potential places to ride on the way to your destination and if they are fresh, go riding there. Don't be in a rush to get to what you think is the holy grail, because it might not be, and you might miss some really cool spots.

-Lost Trail is now on the hit list.

Recommended in Jackson:
-Antler Motel
-El Absomething or other. The family-run Mexican restaurant on the main drag. Free homemade tortilla chips and good, strong margs.
-The Tavern
-Nick's. The food is pricey though, but then so it is everywhere. Good off the main track spot to sit outside and have a beer.
-Planetary Palate. Good, healthy food. Breakfast buns for $6.75 and they even have spelt and sprouted grain buns. Avoid the Bunnery, except for a quick to-go muffin type of thing. Long lines, expensive breakies.
-The Crags/Casper. We were told the hike through Ten Sleep from the Sublette chair is shorter than the hike directly up the Headwall from the top of the gondie- we did the Ten Sleep.
-the little village of Wilson- the Stagecoach bar on Thursday (disco) and Sunday (country). Did not make it there but heard good things (sad). More of the Teton/touring crowd. It looks like where I live.

[grubbers]

Tried to hit the runs suggested but the trees were all tracked and frankly they kinda sucked. There's not a lot of them, they are really skinny and way too close together, and that's coming from people who like tight trees... but I do have to say we are tree connoissurs so we are probably hard to please in this area.

please warn us next time before comments like these. i laughed so hard my beer almost came out of my nose and it would have gotten all over my laptop.

[Imz]

You're right... that's a lot of words.

Welcome.

I'm sure you said lots of great stuff.

[183GotamasA/T]

Bummer! I wonder if there's some heavy territorial biz that goes on there, and there's locals only spots that some people don't like locals taking tourists to.

Good observations! Where do you live/ski?

[sparkletarte.]

ahem. I am serious. Most of the treed areas were what I would consider to be open glades- like all the trees in the pics I posted. When we got into the real trees, hoping to find some snow, they were scrawny and about a foot or two apart max. I guess we just grow them big up here.

[sparkletarte.]

I know, that's a bit of a duh, but it was just weird that one guy was offering to take us to some good spots but wouldn't talk about it in front of his friends.

I'm in the Kootenays in BC.

[Deep Days]

I guess we just grow them big up here.

That's what she said.

(I'd kinda prefer you didn't post this whine-a-thon. If you want to express your griefs, call Oprah. If you want to post pictures of skiing and describe a good time, please do that here).

[kush1]

Jackson sucks, not worth the trip do not come here! Our snow sucks, trees suck and everything is always tracked out.... again.... do not come here...


(maybe you should try venturing more then 100 feet from a fucking marked trail or come when they are ACTUALLY CALLING FOR SNOW!!!!)

[RootSkier]

Jackson rules.

Lost Trail sucks.

Deep Days is still trapped in his closet.

Do you have pictures of yourself in the hot tub?

[SuperGaper]

I think skiing at JHMR is pretty fun. Funner than anywhere else I have skied.

[Showtime06]

you're right jackson totally blows...

http://www.uvm.edu/~dwatkins/Jackson%2008.wmv

This was shot the week before you got there... too bad

[sparkletarte.]

I didn't notice in the rules that you were only allowed to post happy happy trip reports. Sometimes they suck. Crazy I know. We would have ventured father off the mtn and hit the pass had we had more time, if the hwys had been open. We expected to get there Friday for a half day to suss it out. We wanted to do more hiking but they closed the gates at 2- that was a surpise to us. We were expecting to do some later afternoon hikes after we checked out the Crags.

Really, every thing that went on during this trip was lame pretty much. To top it off it puked up here the whole time we were gone. I had been looking forward to hitting Jackson for a few years. So yeah, some expections and some bitter results.

Yeah, we missed the huge dumps you guys got and we were bummed. I had been watching the snow reports and was super stoked, but then it stopped right when we got there. It must have been our whining. While we were there the Jackson website and people we talked to kept saying they were expecting more snow "it's coming in tonight!", it just didn't happen. I was prepared to stay an extra day but nada. That's how it goes.

Lost Trail is small and pretty tame, but for lift accessed, long lasting pow on the cheap, it looks pretty good. Anyways, after this I think I'm done with big resorts, I am more into the tucked-away-a-few-old-chairs hills. Except Baker. That will always be a go.