Jackson Hole 2/25-3/3

This has been a trip I've been planning for a long time, to attend the steep and deep clinic at Jackson and attempt the famed Corbet's Couloir.

Unfortunately, Mother Nature has not been cooperating, and it was more like the "Steep and Slick" clinic, as Jackson has not received much snowfall the second half February, and temps have been far above normal, creating a surface that ranges from somewhat slick to bulletproof boilerplate, depending on aspect. To add insult to injury, once I left Colorado Mother Nature started dumping feet upon feet on Colorado while only giving Jackson a few inches.

I made the 8 hour trek from Denver and arrived in Jackson around 1:30, just in time to hit Snow King for a couple hours. While Snow King is much smaller than Jackson, their trail map doesn't do justice. They have about 1,400 ft of lift served vertical, and a couple hundred more if you chose to hike. The top half of the Mtn is pretty steep and makes for some fun turns. Only problem is that there snow was very firm, talking to locals, this is par for the course here.



Bobcat trail at Snow King

Main lift




Sublette chair

The second day we went out of bounds with a local guide. I was amazed at how frequently this terrain is skied. There are no ropes here, and our group physically saw someone who must have not know where they were going or what they were doing, because they tomahawked over a 15-20 foot cliff just outside the ropes. Luckily for them, it seems Jackson ski patrol unofficially will rescue injured skiers or riders in the back country, I even saw a few toboggins stashed back there.

We made the 20-30 minute bootpack to the "four pines" area.



It has snowed 2-3 inches the night before, and I was hoping that that snow would be enough to make the skiing ok. Unfortunately it was not, it was typical "dust on crust" skiing that wasn't that fun considering the effort to get there.



We skied down and made the long traverse into the hobacks, an area I was hoping to ski from the top. Our instructor stated that it is pure misery skiing that right now. It's 2k+ feet of frozen snow that has no escape. Judging simply by the very slick backcountry egress to the hobacks, I'm sure he was right.

We worked on some jumps here and there, this is the "corkscrew" jump in the paintbrush area where we did most of our skiing.



I will say that the slick conditions did make for some good learning on how to land jumps. Since the snow wasn't easily edgeable, we couldn't get away with bad form. Once thing our instructor emphasized was the "coombs ism" to keep your nose over your downhill ski to scrub and control speed. That way, if we hit a patch of ice, we wouldn't be so high on our edges that we would go down.

Lower tower 3 chutes.


Off to the right of tower 3 chutes there were some night chutes that we used as a "corbets simulator" where we had to made a sharp right turn in a narrow chute where we couldn't completely turn sideways. We hit this 3 times until we felt comfortable with it.

"Corbets simulator" to the lookers right of this photo.

Jackson Hole received 5 inches overnight. Our group took the early tram to the top and waited until 9 for the mtn to open. Once it did, we skied over to Corbet's to take our first look. Our instructor told us that this would be the best conditions we'd see Corbet's all day......So despite be being anxious about attempting Corbet's as the first run of the day, we made the plunge. (wish the guy filming held the camera in landscape mode...)

As much as I hate to admit this, Corbet's is much easier this year than in years past. Ski Patrol has been shaving the entrance, so instead of a 10-15 huck and immediate turn, I was able to side slip the top part and make a 3-5 foot jump turn onto the goat path that has been carved out. There was a rock in the landing area which did make the landing a little tricky. With all that said, despite Corbet's being easier than in years past, is still not an easy trail by any account. Standing at the top of the trail was quite intimidating, at least for me. I was happy that I skied it successfully, so we rode the tram back up and did it again! Oddly enough, even though my legs were warmed up, I did not ski the line as clean second time around. The entrance was getting slick and the rock I had to avoid at the bottom was getting more snow scrapped off the side.

All in all, I've had a great trip though. The terrain at Jackson hole is tough and demanding, and I've had a lot of fun skiing and trying to navigate through it.

Corbets from afar

Great report and pics! Sorry to read the conditions were less-than-stellar. I've done their S&D camp twice myself ('99 & '03) and recognize all the inbounds views. The camp is not cheap but it's a great time and worth it IMO; I'm longing to get back again.

thanks for posting

Congrats on doing Corbets, skiNEwhere!! When I was there last year it was a 20 foot huck, the cornice was huge.

BTW, I was in Aspen last week, and it was awesome. I was skiing shin deep at Snowmass, all the Hanging valley EX terrain was filled in nicely.

Maybe you can drop from the men's tee next time Just kidding...I would have done the same.

Scruffy said:

Congrats on doing Corbets, skiNEwhere!! When I was there last year it was a 20 foot huck, the cornice was huge.

BTW, I was in Aspen last week, and it was awesome. I was skiing shin deep at Snowmass, all the Hanging valley EX terrain was filled in nicely.

Click to expand...

Thanks scruff. I could've done without you telling me that last part though!

After skiing here, I can see why some people think the "Extreme designation" at CO resorts is a joke. Some of the lines had some serious consequences for messing up, with no alternative route other than hiking back up.

I took some more pics today, my last day. Jackson needs snow, badly. Tower 3 chutes were closed since they were so icy. I really lucked out with corbets, the day I attempted it happened to be the only day it was open.



I wanted to just look at S&S couloir, an unofficial trail that's so gnar you need written ski patrol permission to "ski" it the few times it's open. Note that I didn't even want to stand over the entrance....I took these pics laying on my belly and holding the camera over the edge.




S&S to lookers left. Yea, I don't think I'll ever attempt that (or even want to). The guy teaching the steep and deep has done it though, twice on tele skis.....

Impressive. Great pics and report, thanks. You must feel very satisfied.

That's the first time I've seen a still from above S&S. It's even more ridiculous looking then in the movies. That takes some steel testicles

Sweet TR skiNEwhere!