jaywbigred
Active member
So if I really wanted, I could write this report in one word. I'll let everyone guess what that word is...
But as El Duderino would say, I'm not really into the whole brevity thing, so I'll give a run through.
Our flights went off without a hitch, and getting to the mountain was easy. Our Hotel (Hotel Terra) was nicely situated and appointed, but I will be posting a separate post about the issues we had with the service/hotel. We ate and drank multiple times at the Mangy Moose, and it was my favorite establishment of the trip. Terra Cafe provided very good breakfast choices at reasonable prices (for a resort). Other places we ate: Couloir, Billy's Burgers, Alpenhaus fondue, and Le Osteria. Le Osteria was above average, esp. for lunch, but I was not impressed by Couloir and Billy's. The experience at both was neat-o, but the food itself left something to be desired. We also drank at the Four Seasons and at the Million Dollar Cowboy, and I found both to be disappointing. Fondue is always good in my book, and the Aplenhaus’ version was on par, and I also had an above average cup of goulash.
Oh yeah, and we skied. The conditions were flat out spring. Temps in the low to mid 30s with a bright, sweat-inducing sun. A day or 2 of inversion made for interesting mornings.
The terrain...wow! I had been warning my trip-mates that the mountain would be steep and big, but even I was not prepared for the degree. Our first morning we started over on Apres Vous, and quickly realized that one needs to recalibrate what blue and double blue trails mean.
(This is a blue???)
But what a fun chair! You could really rack up cruiser-vert if you wanted off this chair. After a few "warm-up" runs (and we quickly learned that you need to watch how many warm up runs you take, lest you burn-out your legs on supposed warm-ups), we started heading skier’s right.
Next, we hit the Casper Bowl triple, and quickly realized it was a slow lift that didn’t open up that much more terrain to most skiers.
We soon moved over to the Thunder chair, and the ladies in our trip loved Amphitheater, which was bumped up on skier’s right, where you got nice views of the Alta Chutes, which looked like they needed some more snow. We lapped this a number of times.
Eventually we moved over to the Sublette chair to try to get a look at Rendezvous Bowl and let the girls appraise whether they thought they could ski it (aka ride the tram up without having to ride it back down). They decided they could, so we took the tram up and had a fun run down Rendezvous bowl.
(Lots of fun bumps.)
Then the girls took a cruiser and the boys happened into Central Chute, mostly by mistake. Woops.
(from the top.)
Steep, tight, and lots of protruding rocks. We made it down alive,
(The girls got some nice shots of us from their cruiser.)
then hit Lower Sublette Ridge, which was getting crusty in the afternoon shade.
(I took the line between the rocks and the tree, thinking it would be better snow in the shade...nope, it was crusty!)
Then we hit après outside at the Four Seasons, which had slow service, weak drinks, and even slower delivery of a plate of fries for the table. Somehow we wound up with 4 hot chocolates when we ordered 1, as they kept messing it up (1 hot chocolate was brought by mistake in lieu of a mixed drink one of the girls ordered, then another was brought plain, when it was ordered with whip cream, and then its replacement was brought with marshmallows…then finally, the appropriate one was brought with whip cream).
(Skiing home with on of our many cocoas.)
The next morning my girlfriend and I started at the Gondola without our tripmates,
who were late starters, (which would become our routine), and after warming up in Ampitheater and on Grand and Gannett, we did a long bump run on Lower Tram line
and had some fun in the little terrain park off Teewinot. Later we met up with our tripmates, and did some fun crusing on Gros Ventre,
(They had a handful of fan guns on trails like Gros Ventre, I felt the need to take a pic of one of these cousins of my friends at Mt. Snow!)
Ranger, and Sundance. We hit Ashley Ridge on the way back down to the Gondie, and the girls felt very accomplished getting down the big bumps and funky run out there. We skied Cascade into Ampitheater a couple times, and then us boys took a run on the Thunder bumps which were tiring, but fun.
(view from the chairlift)
We finished the day with a few more runs off the gondie on the those same cruisers. I tried to get my gf to ski some harder stuff with me (I had an ulterior motive than just wanting to ski steep stuff...) as we were alone, but she wouldn't do it, saying it looked too steep, and so we headed home to get ready for dinner at Couloir.
(taking the gondola to dinner at 9000+ ft)
The next morning my girlfriend and I went out early again, and the mountain was skiing great as it warmed up. I had some special plans in mind, so after quite a bit of nudging, I got her to ski Rawlins Bowl with me. I chose it because I thought it would be desolate, and I was correct. At one nice, openish south-facing slope, I told her I wanted to ski in front and take a video of her. She protested because the snow wasn’t as soft as she likes it yet, and she was having a tough time skiing well. But I insisted, and told her I was going to crouch down when I took the video, “because our videos from the last couple days haven’t really shown how steep these trails are.” I told her that I thought it would make for a cool video if she skied right to me and stopped. She had a tough time with this section of the run, and she didn’t quite turn where she needed to to come right at me, but eventually she got to me and I surprised the hell out of her by pulling out a ring and asking her to marry me, right there. She said yes (actually, “Yeah!”), and I felt very relieved. This was the second ski trip I had been carrying the ring on, as I was waiting to propose with the above scenario but during a snow storm. I had asked her Dad for permission a few weeks earlier, which I had forgotten to do before our Utah trip (when it DID, in fact, snow =( ), so I didn’t pop the question then. But having asked him, apparently her Mom was having trouble keeping it a secret, so the thought of not doing it this trip just because of the snow thing was troubling me, because a) her Mom might mess up and let some sort of hint slip out when we came back (“Did anything SPECIAL happen this trip, Beth?”), b) there was no guarantee that it would snow in March when we’d be in Park City, and c) I didn’t relish the thought of having to covertly hide the ring for yet another set of plane flights. So instead, we got a completely blue bird day on a deserted slope in a magnificent setting, so I thought that would do.
We skied the rest of Rawlins Bowl, and then met up with our tripmates, who congratulated us. Then we went and skied. Honestly, I cannot remember where we skied most of the rest of the day, I was just so glad to be done with it all. We went in early at 1:30 to watch the hockey game at the Mangy Moose, which was a ton of fun (other than the outcome).
There were a number of Canadian fans there, so the post game was filled with shot buying and car bombs for many of the people in our section of the bar.
(O Canada! These guys had never don a shotski before, and didn't know what a car bomb was...they got drunk, quick!)
Eventually we went home, napped, showered, and headed to town for Billy’s Burgers and the Million Dollar Cowboy bar. We had a good time, but I was underwhelmed with both places, and though I had warned them, the rest of the group was surprised at how kitschy downtown Jackson was.
(a little kitschy, but the booze got the job done)
The next morning we took the gondi up and did some warming up on Gros Ventre and in Ampitheater. We eventually met our tripmates, and even though my buddy had a conference call coming up, I convinced him to ski Tower 3 Chute with me before his call, so we could get it over with. I had lost a little sleep the night before thinking about it, so I wanted to go do it before it ruined my day. We took Thunder up, and got a nice look at it.
(lookin' steep!)
The girls skied down the other side to take some pictures. We went through the gates and I made a bunch of nice turns on the upper section of steepish bumps that got my confidence up.
(surprisingly fun!)
My buddy followed behind, and we are set to have him go first, under the theory that he was slightly more likely than me to fall, and we didn’t want his fall to take me out. Then something I have never seen before occurred: my swashbuckling iBanker friend, who I would loosely describe as an “aggressive risk taker,” stared down the chute for awhile and talked himself out of skiing it. I told him, as he was muttering, that I couldn’t stand here any longer, and was going, lest I wind up like him and wuss out. So I started down, and actually had a lot of fun skiing it.
(you can just make me out in this photo in the top of the chute; my buddy is in orange and still at the top)
It was steep, but it was also easily the best snow I encountered the whole trip. More than anything, I got tired, and had to take a break or two, but overall it wasn’t as tough as it looked. Just had to make calculated turns and plan your route.
(Couple of turns into it, and starting to get a rhythm)
I got down to the bottom and skied up to the girls to tell them my buddy had bagged it, only to have them point and say “Nope, here he comes.” Apparently he had been so mad at himself, that he had skied out then skied back in through the trees, and was now picking his way down. He made it down safely too, and though he admitted that he wasn’t going to win any style points on his technique down, he felt accomplished and found it to be within his ability. Anyway, we skied some cruisers to unwind, got some lunch, demoed some skis ($5 per hour, not a bad deal, but the skis they had for demo didn’t totally lend themselves to the conditions), and skiing off the Sublette chair skied Dog Face, Bird in the Hand, and some combo of Pepi’s Run to Split Rock.
(A little more than we realized we were getting into given the status of our legs, but still fun)
We also hit Flip Point a couple times into Laramie Bowl, which had some fun rocks to jump off in the bumps on skiers right. Took a run into Coombs and I had a binding pre-release in the slop which made for an awkward/steep hike up to get it and then controlled self-arrest slide back down to my other ski to step back in.
Eventually we called it a day, and went home to the hot tub, before heading to Osteria for dinner, and then to Mangy Moose for many shots and friend making with the staff and some other skiers we met who were on an epic road trip ski trip from Cali that saw them driving all over the West coast. They had good stories.
We pondered skiing the next day at either JHMR ($90 for a full day ticket was only option) or at Snowking ($30 ticket for 3 hour session). But we decided our bodies prob didn’t need it, and it would be a little rushed getting the airport in time. Little did we know that someone in the group had misread the plane ticket itinerary…our flight was NOT at 3:30 pm, as we had been planning on, but rather, at 12:55! We realized this at about 10:50 and were in a taxi by 11:30, so we made the plan, but not without a LOT of bustle.
Overall a good trip. Glad to have it over with and be engaged, and sad that it did not snow, but if you are going to have non-snow weather, this was the weather to have.
Cheers!!
But as El Duderino would say, I'm not really into the whole brevity thing, so I'll give a run through.
Our flights went off without a hitch, and getting to the mountain was easy. Our Hotel (Hotel Terra) was nicely situated and appointed, but I will be posting a separate post about the issues we had with the service/hotel. We ate and drank multiple times at the Mangy Moose, and it was my favorite establishment of the trip. Terra Cafe provided very good breakfast choices at reasonable prices (for a resort). Other places we ate: Couloir, Billy's Burgers, Alpenhaus fondue, and Le Osteria. Le Osteria was above average, esp. for lunch, but I was not impressed by Couloir and Billy's. The experience at both was neat-o, but the food itself left something to be desired. We also drank at the Four Seasons and at the Million Dollar Cowboy, and I found both to be disappointing. Fondue is always good in my book, and the Aplenhaus’ version was on par, and I also had an above average cup of goulash.
Oh yeah, and we skied. The conditions were flat out spring. Temps in the low to mid 30s with a bright, sweat-inducing sun. A day or 2 of inversion made for interesting mornings.
The terrain...wow! I had been warning my trip-mates that the mountain would be steep and big, but even I was not prepared for the degree. Our first morning we started over on Apres Vous, and quickly realized that one needs to recalibrate what blue and double blue trails mean.
(This is a blue???)
But what a fun chair! You could really rack up cruiser-vert if you wanted off this chair. After a few "warm-up" runs (and we quickly learned that you need to watch how many warm up runs you take, lest you burn-out your legs on supposed warm-ups), we started heading skier’s right.
Next, we hit the Casper Bowl triple, and quickly realized it was a slow lift that didn’t open up that much more terrain to most skiers.
We soon moved over to the Thunder chair, and the ladies in our trip loved Amphitheater, which was bumped up on skier’s right, where you got nice views of the Alta Chutes, which looked like they needed some more snow. We lapped this a number of times.
Eventually we moved over to the Sublette chair to try to get a look at Rendezvous Bowl and let the girls appraise whether they thought they could ski it (aka ride the tram up without having to ride it back down). They decided they could, so we took the tram up and had a fun run down Rendezvous bowl.
(Lots of fun bumps.)
Then the girls took a cruiser and the boys happened into Central Chute, mostly by mistake. Woops.
(from the top.)
Steep, tight, and lots of protruding rocks. We made it down alive,
(The girls got some nice shots of us from their cruiser.)
then hit Lower Sublette Ridge, which was getting crusty in the afternoon shade.
(I took the line between the rocks and the tree, thinking it would be better snow in the shade...nope, it was crusty!)
Then we hit après outside at the Four Seasons, which had slow service, weak drinks, and even slower delivery of a plate of fries for the table. Somehow we wound up with 4 hot chocolates when we ordered 1, as they kept messing it up (1 hot chocolate was brought by mistake in lieu of a mixed drink one of the girls ordered, then another was brought plain, when it was ordered with whip cream, and then its replacement was brought with marshmallows…then finally, the appropriate one was brought with whip cream).
(Skiing home with on of our many cocoas.)
The next morning my girlfriend and I started at the Gondola without our tripmates,
who were late starters, (which would become our routine), and after warming up in Ampitheater and on Grand and Gannett, we did a long bump run on Lower Tram line
and had some fun in the little terrain park off Teewinot. Later we met up with our tripmates, and did some fun crusing on Gros Ventre,
(They had a handful of fan guns on trails like Gros Ventre, I felt the need to take a pic of one of these cousins of my friends at Mt. Snow!)
Ranger, and Sundance. We hit Ashley Ridge on the way back down to the Gondie, and the girls felt very accomplished getting down the big bumps and funky run out there. We skied Cascade into Ampitheater a couple times, and then us boys took a run on the Thunder bumps which were tiring, but fun.
(view from the chairlift)
We finished the day with a few more runs off the gondie on the those same cruisers. I tried to get my gf to ski some harder stuff with me (I had an ulterior motive than just wanting to ski steep stuff...) as we were alone, but she wouldn't do it, saying it looked too steep, and so we headed home to get ready for dinner at Couloir.
(taking the gondola to dinner at 9000+ ft)
The next morning my girlfriend and I went out early again, and the mountain was skiing great as it warmed up. I had some special plans in mind, so after quite a bit of nudging, I got her to ski Rawlins Bowl with me. I chose it because I thought it would be desolate, and I was correct. At one nice, openish south-facing slope, I told her I wanted to ski in front and take a video of her. She protested because the snow wasn’t as soft as she likes it yet, and she was having a tough time skiing well. But I insisted, and told her I was going to crouch down when I took the video, “because our videos from the last couple days haven’t really shown how steep these trails are.” I told her that I thought it would make for a cool video if she skied right to me and stopped. She had a tough time with this section of the run, and she didn’t quite turn where she needed to to come right at me, but eventually she got to me and I surprised the hell out of her by pulling out a ring and asking her to marry me, right there. She said yes (actually, “Yeah!”), and I felt very relieved. This was the second ski trip I had been carrying the ring on, as I was waiting to propose with the above scenario but during a snow storm. I had asked her Dad for permission a few weeks earlier, which I had forgotten to do before our Utah trip (when it DID, in fact, snow =( ), so I didn’t pop the question then. But having asked him, apparently her Mom was having trouble keeping it a secret, so the thought of not doing it this trip just because of the snow thing was troubling me, because a) her Mom might mess up and let some sort of hint slip out when we came back (“Did anything SPECIAL happen this trip, Beth?”), b) there was no guarantee that it would snow in March when we’d be in Park City, and c) I didn’t relish the thought of having to covertly hide the ring for yet another set of plane flights. So instead, we got a completely blue bird day on a deserted slope in a magnificent setting, so I thought that would do.
We skied the rest of Rawlins Bowl, and then met up with our tripmates, who congratulated us. Then we went and skied. Honestly, I cannot remember where we skied most of the rest of the day, I was just so glad to be done with it all. We went in early at 1:30 to watch the hockey game at the Mangy Moose, which was a ton of fun (other than the outcome).
There were a number of Canadian fans there, so the post game was filled with shot buying and car bombs for many of the people in our section of the bar.
(O Canada! These guys had never don a shotski before, and didn't know what a car bomb was...they got drunk, quick!)
Eventually we went home, napped, showered, and headed to town for Billy’s Burgers and the Million Dollar Cowboy bar. We had a good time, but I was underwhelmed with both places, and though I had warned them, the rest of the group was surprised at how kitschy downtown Jackson was.
(a little kitschy, but the booze got the job done)
The next morning we took the gondi up and did some warming up on Gros Ventre and in Ampitheater. We eventually met our tripmates, and even though my buddy had a conference call coming up, I convinced him to ski Tower 3 Chute with me before his call, so we could get it over with. I had lost a little sleep the night before thinking about it, so I wanted to go do it before it ruined my day. We took Thunder up, and got a nice look at it.
(lookin' steep!)
The girls skied down the other side to take some pictures. We went through the gates and I made a bunch of nice turns on the upper section of steepish bumps that got my confidence up.
(surprisingly fun!)
My buddy followed behind, and we are set to have him go first, under the theory that he was slightly more likely than me to fall, and we didn’t want his fall to take me out. Then something I have never seen before occurred: my swashbuckling iBanker friend, who I would loosely describe as an “aggressive risk taker,” stared down the chute for awhile and talked himself out of skiing it. I told him, as he was muttering, that I couldn’t stand here any longer, and was going, lest I wind up like him and wuss out. So I started down, and actually had a lot of fun skiing it.
(you can just make me out in this photo in the top of the chute; my buddy is in orange and still at the top)
It was steep, but it was also easily the best snow I encountered the whole trip. More than anything, I got tired, and had to take a break or two, but overall it wasn’t as tough as it looked. Just had to make calculated turns and plan your route.
(Couple of turns into it, and starting to get a rhythm)
I got down to the bottom and skied up to the girls to tell them my buddy had bagged it, only to have them point and say “Nope, here he comes.” Apparently he had been so mad at himself, that he had skied out then skied back in through the trees, and was now picking his way down. He made it down safely too, and though he admitted that he wasn’t going to win any style points on his technique down, he felt accomplished and found it to be within his ability. Anyway, we skied some cruisers to unwind, got some lunch, demoed some skis ($5 per hour, not a bad deal, but the skis they had for demo didn’t totally lend themselves to the conditions), and skiing off the Sublette chair skied Dog Face, Bird in the Hand, and some combo of Pepi’s Run to Split Rock.
(A little more than we realized we were getting into given the status of our legs, but still fun)
We also hit Flip Point a couple times into Laramie Bowl, which had some fun rocks to jump off in the bumps on skiers right. Took a run into Coombs and I had a binding pre-release in the slop which made for an awkward/steep hike up to get it and then controlled self-arrest slide back down to my other ski to step back in.
Eventually we called it a day, and went home to the hot tub, before heading to Osteria for dinner, and then to Mangy Moose for many shots and friend making with the staff and some other skiers we met who were on an epic road trip ski trip from Cali that saw them driving all over the West coast. They had good stories.
We pondered skiing the next day at either JHMR ($90 for a full day ticket was only option) or at Snowking ($30 ticket for 3 hour session). But we decided our bodies prob didn’t need it, and it would be a little rushed getting the airport in time. Little did we know that someone in the group had misread the plane ticket itinerary…our flight was NOT at 3:30 pm, as we had been planning on, but rather, at 12:55! We realized this at about 10:50 and were in a taxi by 11:30, so we made the plan, but not without a LOT of bustle.
Overall a good trip. Glad to have it over with and be engaged, and sad that it did not snow, but if you are going to have non-snow weather, this was the weather to have.
Cheers!!
:beer:
