Optimism
February 18th, 2009Posted in Skiing in the Tetons
There’s a bumper sticker I’ve seen on skier cars saying something like, “Skiers like to start every morning with a good dump.”
Perhaps this morning is off to one of those starts. Both Jackson and Grand Targhee are reporting about a foot of new snow in the past 24 hours with about 7″ having fallen over night. I’ve been getting tired of hear about all the powder falling in Utah and California. I’m hoping today marks a change in our fortunes.
A friend and I were commiserating yesterday about the hard life we were living as powder snobs lately. Neither of us has been particularly impressed with the inbounds skiing this past week. The recent 3, 4 and 5 inch rations of powder weren’t cutting it for us. Only heading out-of-bounds and into the backcountry was allowing our skis to run smooth and soft through the depth of snow we crave. The major exception has been the inbounds skiing on Mary’s Nipple and the hike-to portions of Peaked where we’ve found abundant snow lying deep and soft.
At least we don’t live in Montana this year! What is with the snow drought up there that has brought them hardly any snow since Christmas? Bridger has only picked up 166″ for the whole season so far. Bridger and Big Sky are only reporting 4″ this morning, and I’ll bet they’re delighted to get that much.
This being an important ski vacation week, in addition to being a powder morning, I’ll be curious to see what attendance is today, once the local powder hounds check the snow reports and join the vacationers.
Update: Optimism was justified! Skiing the new 7″ was remarkably like skiing real powder-finally! In pockets, the 7″ skied knee deep. Judging by the size of the lift line for Dreamcatcher at opening time and later by the number of cars in the parking lots on a Wednesday, it appearred this dose of snow did the resorts some good as well.
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