WILL WE BREAK THE RECORD???

Check out the article below about record setting snowfalls.....it would be amazing if the year I moved to Jackson was the year we broke the alltime snow record..........we are close and it is still snowing heavily outside

http://www.jhunderground.com/2008/03/25/will-we-break-the-record/#more-811

HIKING THE HEADWALL....FINALLY

So after months of talking about it Megan and I finally set out to hike the Headwall in hopes of some end of season fresh powder. Seeing amazing skiers on a day to day basis can sometimes easily be intimidating and thus one of my main reasons for not hiking the headwall earlier this season. For those that don't know the Headwall is about a 20-40 minute hike depending on where you decide to ski down. It's famed because up until the late 1990's/early 2000's it was closed and considered out of bounds. Now however they do avalanche control there and have opened it up to those who are willing to strap their skis to their back and bootpack straight up in search of the ever sought out untouched powder. Once at the top of the headwall Megan and I had no idea where to ski down. We knew that there were cliffs everywhere and of course we wanted to avoid all cliffs so we just kept traversing across the headwall to the Crags which is on the complete opposite side of the mountain. While we were traversing we passed some guys who called out to Megan and oddly enough Megan had gone to high school with 2 of the guys. They were currently living in Chicago and were just in Jackson for a long weekend vacation. Talk about a small world. It was their first time on the headwall as well so we all ended up skiing the rest of the day together. Once we finally made it to the Crags we put on our skis and took off down the steep slope that was still knee deep powder much of which was untouched. Nothing like just letting loose and pointing your skis straight down knowing that the massive amounts of powder will help keep your speed in control and will provide a soft landing if you crash....which we did numerous times. Hands down it was one of the most fun runs I have done all season....the hike up was well worth it and I completely understand why some many locals are obsessed with backcountry skiing and continually hike up in search of untouched runs. If I had the money I would definitely invest in backcountry gear and opt for more out of bounds skiing then the tourist packed skied-out runs at the village. My only complaint and regret so far from the season is that I let intimidation get the best of me and didn't hike the headwall earlier in the season. We still had knee-deep untouched powder 2 days after the last snowfall so I can only imagine how amazing these runs were on days were we got feets of snow overnight. Next year I'll know better and will be waiting in line for those first tracks.

One of the guys with us took some video skiing down from the Headwall....if I can get a hold of it I'll post it up.

Looking up at one of the descents off the headwall.

Megan and I atop the headwall.....this was after about 20minutes of climbing...we still had another 20 minutes of traversing and slight climbing till we dropped in

Me atop the headwall

View of Corbets from the Headwall....I still can't believe they allow people to ski it

View of the Tetons from atop the Headwall

A DAY OF MANY FIRSTS....

1. Yesterday was the first day of spring.....we also got 9 inches of snow yesterday........(545 total inches this year)
2. I saw my first cyclist out on the road training yesterday....still too cold for me though....39degrees on a bike on a road littered with snowmelt is not my idea of fun
3. I did however go running outside for the first time this year....SOOOOOO much better then being stuck inside on the treadmill or elliptical....

Now I'm looking forward to the first day I can ride outside and the first day that I see some color around town.....green grass, budding trees, wildflowers, etc etc etc

New Camera and New Ski Boots!!!!!!!

So I finally caved yesterday and bought a new digital camera.....it didn't make much sense living somewhere as beautiful as Jackson and not having a functional camera or as in my case any camera at all..... I bought the highly rated Canon Powershot SD 750 and have so far loved it! It is the coolest (not to mention smallest) easiest to use camera I have ever seen.....since I bought the camera last night and had to work today I haven't had anything picture worthy to try my camera out....so, since I'm so bored at work I decided to take pictures of my new ski boots (well, they were new in January)....and since I'm on a rant about new products that I love, I am absolutely obsessed with my new ski boots...hands down the most comfortable ski boots I have ever worn not to mention that I have somehow been lucky enough to avoid any of the problems that most new ski boots cause....these fit my feet like a glove....too bad I don't have ski's to wear with them though :( why oh why does outdoor equipment have to be so daggum expensive?


Lots of fun end of season events are about to start happening and I

Its Official!!!

The mountain is reporting 501 inches of total snowfall for the 2007-2008 winter season as of 6am this morning....... and we still have 3 weeks left of ski seasons

SNOWMOBILING!!!!!

So, after 2.5 months of winter I finally got a chance to go snowmobiling. Rachael's parents came to town to visit and scheduled a snowmobiling trip and lucky for us since we work at Jackson Hole Resort Lodging we got to go free....just another one of our many perks. The day started off with a drive down to Alipine, Idaho where we ate breakfast and headed out into the National Forest surrounding the Grey's River. Megan and I got really bored riding in a line on a wide flat path...especially when were behind idiots that kept braking for the smallest thing. So we decided that we would have more fun stopping and letting the group get way ahead and then gunning it to see how fast we could get the snowmobiles to go.........the fastest I was able to get mine up to was right above 80mph. I'm sure they would have gone faster but that was about as fast as I was willing to go and that the terrain would let us go before the road would start to twist and we would have to slow down.
All in all it was a great trip with some great company. Rachael's parents were amazing the whole week they were here and even treated us to some of the best food I've had in Jackson.

What's a trip snowmobiling without some super posed pictures??? I'm the one in the light purple down jacket and black pants on the end.

MORE SNOWCAMPING PICTURES & VIDEO!

Video of two of the guys trying to make the snowcave collapse the next morning.....

Galen making some coffee in the morning and me trying to stay warm..

A couple shots of the entrance to our snowcave.

SNOW CAMPING

So I finally got the chance to go snow camping this past weekend. I was kinda nervous about doing it because I get cold easy so I was afraid I was going to end up being freezing the whole night. Originally our plan was to snowshoe to Huckleberry Hot Springs and camp out there so that we could keep warm in the natural hot springs. However, after being the good citizens that we are and stopping in at the Ranger's Station for Grand Teton National Park we learned that not only could we not camp at Huckleberry hot springs but that camp fires were not allowed inside the National Park during the winter. Since obviously we weren't going to camp in 10degree weather with no camp fire we scratched that idea and opted to head over to the Slide Lake area in the Bridger-Teton National Forest. Slide Lake is a natural lake that was formed in the 1920's by a massive landslide. It's a pretty cool story how the landscape was formed in this area and you can read briefly about it by clicking HERE. Once we backtracked over to the Slide Lake area we strapped on our snowshoes and our packs and started out across the frozen lake in search of the ideal campsite to build a snowcave. We snowshoed across the lake and up a steep slope searching for a spot. It was by far one of the hardest hikes I've done in awhile. I felt like I was on a stairclimber because the slope we went up was so steep and the snow was so deep that each time I took a step I ended up sliding further back down then where I originally started from. Not to mention the fact that I had a pack on my back as well. It ended up taking us about an hour or so to find a place to camp and by that time we were all dripping in sweat. Once we found our camp spot we immediately went to work setting up camp. All I know is that setting up a winter campground is MUCH harder then a summer campground. For those of you who don't know, when you go snow camping you build a snowcave to sleep in instead of a tent . This sounded like a fun idea to me but it ended up taking us about 2 hours of physical labor to build the cave. Then when we went to sleep I kept freaking out thinking the snowcave was going to collapse on us and we were going to be buried alive. However, luckily for us it did not collapse and once we tested the strength of the snowcave the next morning we learned that it was much stronger then we originally thought. Once we finished our snowcaves we built a fire and cooked a nice warm pasta meal . It was super basic (noodles and sauce) but I was so hungry from all the work that it could have been dirt I was eating and it would have tasted good. After dinner we sat around the campfire and talked and tried to dry out all our base layers that got soaked with sweat earlier in the evening. We ended up sleeping 3 in one snowcave and 2 in another snowcave and being the nice person that I am I volunteered to sleep in the middle of the 3 person cave so that I would have body heat on both sides of me. Our cave was so small that the 3 of us barely fit. I had to sleep on my side because there was literally not enough room for me to lay on my back or stomach. I was really surprised how warm I actually was throughout the night. Of course I slept in 2 pairs of long underwear, my ski pants , my down jacket, a fleece sleeping bag liner and my big down sleeping bag. Outside the cave it was probably around 10degrees but it was around 30degrees inside the cave. The next morning we were planning on cooking breakfast but opted to just pack up camp and head back to the cars instead. But before we left we decided to see how strong our snowcave was. There were 3 guys jumping on top of the snowcave and it was not budging. We finally cut holes in the side of the cave until standing on it caused it to collapse. The hike back out was so much easier then on the way in. We quickly realized that we were unable to snowshoe back down the huge slope we hiked up the night before so instead we sat on our bottoms and just slide the whole way down. What took us 30minutes to hike up took us about 30seconds to get down. Grant you I had massive quantities of snow down my pants and up my jacket from sliding down but it was worth it. All in all it was a great experience and was a nice little tease of the camping and hiking opportunities here in Jackson and has made me look forward to summer all the more.

Below are some pictures of our snowcave. I will post more pictures of the trip and a video once I get them from the other people that went on the trip with us.

The 5 of us sticking our heads through the holes we cut in the snowcave. The guys and me sitting in the snowcave holes.

Standing on the connecting snow pieces between the holes and it is still not collapsing.

NEXT POST.....SNOWMOBILING PICTURES AND STORY!!