Glory Bowl 3-17-07

Last week, it was cloudy and not quite warm enough to get the corn cycle going. But the forecast for the weekend was for hot, sunny weather. I got out my maps and planned out a route I've been wanting to do on Mount Albright. After printing a map and loading up my gear, I was too keyed up to sleep well. I woke up at 3:30am and looked out the window. Clear sky. Then I checked the station on top of Rendezvous. The temp was right at freezing! And the stations near the bottom of the mountain were around 37 degrees. Not a good sign. I turned my alarm off and went back to bed. Figured I might as well work over the weekend and go out when a good freeze/thaw cycle started. But when I woke up I decided that I just had to get some turns in, as least to see how bad it was. I figured I'd do one run on Glory and come home.

Summit Mount Glory

When I got to Teton Pass at 9am, it was hopping. Lots of skiers headed up Glory. I strapped my skis on and started up Glory. A lovely day. No wind, warm, and good to be out. Much better than the StairMaster at the gym. Also, the snow had a hard crust on it. Maybe the skiing wouldn't be too bad. In fact, on the Summit, there were several people waiting for it to soften up.

Mount Glory Summit, Will Wetzel

My original plan had been to ski down the west side, but because the snow was still crusted on top, I figured the east face would be softer. I started talking with another skier, Will. Will said he'd never skied Glory and wondered where I was going? We decided to join up and ski Glory Bowl. We watched some skiers descend the ridge on skier's right side of the bowl and it didn't look bad, so we jumped into Glory Bowl and after a few scratchy turns at the top, we found good corn all the way down to the choked gully. After that, it was survival skiing in wet-slide debris.

Mount Glory West

I figured that if Glory Bowl snow was that good at 11am, the west side would still be good at 1pm, so we made another trip up and skied the west side of Glory one ridge north of Calvert's ridge. The terrain there is less than 30 degrees and the snow conditions were perfect. So good that we put our skins on and climbed up for a second lap on the top section. A great day of corn skiing.

Mount Glory, West Side

Whimpys Knob 3-18-07

After such a great corn day on Saturday, I started looking at my maps again and decided to try Albright on Sunday. I called Will and he instantly agreed to do it. Again, I woke up around 3am and looked at the Bridger/Teton weather stations. It was even warmer than Friday night! If I hadn't already made plans with Will, I probably would have gone back to bed and stayed there, but now I had to go.

Mount Albright, Tetons

Will and I got to the trailhead about 7:30. I had very mixed feelings about doing this route. First, I wasn't sure of the route, and second, I was worried that it was going to be too warm. But there were several other parties gearing up, so maybe they knew something we didn't, or maybe we were all blissfully ignorant. We would soon find out.

Whimpys Knob (below Albright)

The climb up Albright was long. We kept our skins on and climbed up on snow that was already getting soft. By 10:45, we were at Whimpys, 3500' of climbing and still 500' to go. The snow felt like it was already too soft so we decided to whimp out at Whimpys. We figured that if the snow was this soft at 10,000', it would be dreadful, and maybe dangerous, at the bottom. The ski down was awesome: 3500' of continuous skiing to the bottom. Also, the snow, although not perfect, was very good until the last 300' where it turned to bottomless mush. And the ski out the Death Canyon trail was FAST and easy!

Mount Albright Skiing

 For bigger, better images, see the Teton Corn Report Gallery

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