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Teton Report: 01/16/07

My friends Paul and Tom were coming up from Boulder, Colorado, to ski in the Tetons for MLK weekend. It's a tradition. Several other friends were also coming, but they cancelled their trip when they heard of the sub-zero temperatures. I can't say I blame them. I wasn't sure I could handle those temps either.

The true Foam-Core (Tom and Paul), however, made the 9-hour drive to ski in sub-zero temperatures. I figured the least I could do is ski with them. At least for one day. It turns out that skiing in sub-zero temperatures is not that bad, as long as the wind is not blowing. Lucky for us, the wind was not a problem.

Windy Ridge, Untracked

Mail Cabin Creek

The first day in the backcountry, we did a tour that included several bowls in Mail Cabin Creek. First we climbed Do Its and skied a run down that. Although you could still see the old tracks, the snow was very good. Next we skied Asshole Trees, AKA Dark Mark's Trees. Asshole Trees was awesome. With the cold temps, these south-facing, gladed slopes had 8 inches of cold smoke. Lovely. Just Lovely. We could have kept skiing there all day, but we wanted to sample as many bowls as possible.

Windy Ridge, First Run

The next bowl we skied was Lone Pine. Again, this bowl is south, south-east, and the snow was perfect. While on Lone Pine, we could see that the North bowl on Windy Ridge was untouched.

Windy Ridge, Tracked

Windy Ridge was perfect. Untracked, deep, light powder. Three laps and 5,500 feet of skiing and we pushed ourselves out of Mail Cabin. The snow was so cold that you couldn't glide on the trail.

Windy Ridge Uptrack

Mount Oliver

By Saturday, many of the bowls were getting tracked up so we decided to ski Mount Oliver. Again, we toured Mount Oliver, skiing every bowl that looked good. With less sun that day, we did feel the cold a little more, but as long as we kept moving, we were warm enough.

Mount Oliver Approach

Table Mountain

I can see Table Mountain out my front window, and I have wanted to ski it all season. But I have been waiting for the base near the bottom to fill in. The last two storms did the trick and the only thing lacking was energy and a strong group to help break trail. Tom and Paul were ready to try something new, and even though I had never skied it and did not have any information to indicate it would be a good tour, they were willing to give it a try.

Table Mountain, Uptrack

Table Mountain, located at the head of Teton Canyon, requires a 3.8 mile slog to it's base. Not an easy feat in AT boots. Luckily, the road is groomed for track skiing so we didn't have to break trail in to the base. Once at the base, we had to break trail for 2.2 miles and 2,930 feet of elevation. It was a perfect, bluebird day. Not a breath of wind. Good thing too because the temperature was around 0.

Table Mountain, Uptrack

The climb up was very perfect. Because the West Slopes of table are gladed and low angle, it was easy to make a gradual uptrack. But we were a little worried about the snow conditions. On the bottom third of the peak, the snow was rotten and would not support our weight. But as we got higher, the snow became more stable, and everywhere the mountain was covered with 8-10 inches of light, dry, powder.