Non-stop snow makes for great conditions. Deep, perfect powder was standard fare in the Tetons on the second week of January. Of course, it's been that way since mid-December. It's hard getting any work done with conditions like this.

A couple of Colorado friends visited and they found some great skiing. More

Ski conditions in the Tetons just keep getting better. The base is in and it's solid. All of the lower exits now have sufficient coverage, and even the tree skiing is good.

We keep getting storm cycles that leave a lot of snow, but not so much that it makes the skiing dangerous. For example, this week Targhee has reported 9", 6", 4", 3", and 9". That doesn't sound like a lot of snow, but when you add it up, you get 31 inches of snow. As far as I'm concerned, that is dust-on-crust at Grand Targhee, but in the backcountry, where you can easily find untracked snow, it means heavenly, safe, bottomless powder.

New Year's Day was clear and cold. And the snow was perfect. And apparently safe. The South Face of Taylor was severely raked. We had tentative plans to ski it, but decided on safer routes in Mail Cabin due to high avalanche conditions above 9,000'. Oh well. The skiing in Mail Cabin was perfect. Even the south-facing slopes were blanketed in hero snow.

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Skied Mount Taylor yesterday. Conditions were great: little or no wind except for the top 500' of the ascent ridge, temperature in the low teens, good lighting, and great snow on the east face.

Snow conditions don't get much better than they were today. Best snow of the season and more to come.

Yeah Baby!

A cold, beautiful, windless day. Skied from Teton Pass to Coal Creek via Columbia drainage. We found every snow condition, from wind slab, to zipper crust, to old, frozen, wind-blown tracks, to dense powder on sheltered areas on bowls and light powder over a bottomless base in north-facing trees.

Bottom line: You can still find some decent snow out there if you know where to look, but we need more snow.  P.S. The Columbia drainage exit is a knee injury waiting to happen.

It's finally happening it the Tetons. We've lived through the rain, the crust, and now we got the dust. It's been snowing for 3 days. I was starting to get depressed and even tempted to ski the BAD snow. Today was DEEP. Very Deep.