I’m breaking blogging silence with some very good news. This morning Jackson Hole ski resort president Jerry Blann announced the resort would sell its unlimited season pass for $1255 until August 31st. That’s a drop of 25% from last year’s ridiculous price. A long, long  overdue return to sanity for a resort with a huge [...]

Please read Michael Pearlman’s excellent post Ski Patroller Death Highlights the Real Price of Powder Turns on New West about the ski patrollers we too often take granted. It is sad that it takes the loss of one of these very professional and dedicated people to remind us that they risk their lives so we [...]

When all is said and done, skiing (and snowboarding) us all about the snow. Its is not about how new or expensive our gear is, or how fancy a resort we’re skiing at, or how great we think we look in our new parka, or how steep a pitch we just aced, what it is [...]

The holidays are great days to ski with friends and family, especially when its bright and sunny and the snow is soft and fun. The old adage that there are no friends on a powder day definitely does not apply. Today,  nobody was in any hurry to grab the best powder line or the last [...]

Yesterday evening a friend mentioned she had received three emails from Grand Targhee announcing the resort had picked up a foot of snow yesterday! I checked my inbox and I too had received three of the same emails. I already knew how good the skiing was during the day yesterday with nice light boot deep [...]

The promised snowstorm delivered a much needed blanket of snow to the Teton Range this weekend, not enough to provide “go anywhere” skiing, but enough to allow Grand Targhee to successfully open at least the more northerly facing aspects of its main mountain. My off snow life is still pretty hectic so I waited until [...]

Yesterday the National Weather Service posted a Winter Storm Warning for the Tetons. Often, I think they do that to protect their butts, not wanting to get called out for missing a snowstorm that causes accidents, closures,  and economic losses. They’d rather err on the side of caution since most people will be happy if  [...]

Infantile and absurd, but soul satisfying, peering out an early morning August window  to check  for snow, and seeing the heads and shoulders of the great Tetons  swathed in glorious white. Yes, an earnest blanket of snow above 9000, not a mere dusting. Transient, sure. But still, it looks great.

It’s May 1st and there’s more fresh powder on the Tetons again this morning, even down to 6000′ in the valley there’s a dusting. If the SNOTEL measuring is to be believed it looks like there’s about 4″ of new snow in the mountains, and the sun is shining! Could be a fun morning to [...]

With lift-riding skiing over with for this season, and avalanche danger usually less of a problem,  April is a great month to head into the backcountry for excellent spring corn skiing, and often some very fine powder skiing as well. Of course we need to get up earlier in the morning to beat the heat, [...]