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!!

Up Top To Corbets....

This past weekend Megan and I made our first trip to the top of the famed "Corbets Couloir". For those of you that don't know, Corbet's is considered the hardest "inbounds" ski run in North America. It took us 4 lifts to get to the top and by the time we got there there was 30mph winds. It was so windy and steep that Megan took her skis off and crawled to the edge because she was afraid of falling down. We waited and waited hoping to see somebody drop in and just before we left a snowboarder came up and immediately dropped in without any hesitation. He didn't land it cleanly but he did it which is more then I will ever be able to say.

Dogsled race and more skiing..

Friday night was the kickoff for the 2008 Wyoming International Pedigree Stage Stop Sled Dog race so of course we ventured downtown to get our first look at dog sled racing. By the time we arrived the streets were already packed so we really weren't able to get a good look at the dog sleds but the atmosphere was a blast and we saw a ton of our friends....it seemed as if the whole town came out for the event....

Megan, Rachael, Simpson and me waiting for the race to start...

One of the dog sled racers taking off.

I wish you could see the cliffs we are standing below better but trust me when I say they are insane AND they are considered inbounds skiing. We are actually standing just below Corbets Couloir, which is considered the hardest inbounds ski run in North America. We of course did not feel like going to the hospital on Saturday so we decided not to actually ski Corbets and just went to the bottom of it to check it out....believe it or not, this was actually the first day that Megan, Rachael and I all got to ski together.

Megan and me atop Apres Vous before we headed down Saratoga Bowl for the first time.....a run that we probably should not have done...

Our friend John high atop Saratoga Bowl.....he is actually trying to help direct us around the cliffs...YIKES!!!

you know it is cold when....

You know it's cold when you get to the gas station and you can't release the gas hatch on your car because it is frozen shut. This is a fun predicament when you are already late for work and you coasted into the gas station on fumes....
How to fix it.......
1st attempt: pry it open with keys
2nd attempt: pry it open with the edge of an ice scraper
3rd attempt: go inside the gas station filled with about 15 construction workers and ask for help...proceed to get laughed at
3rd attempt: punch the center of the panel in an attempt to dislodge the ice buildup
4th attempt: use a credit card to break up the ice around the edges of the cover = success!

A New Definition of Cold

Have you ever heard of a school district canceling school because it is too cold??? The thought sounds ridiculous to me but that is exactly what happened today. I woke up to subzero temperatures (-10, -27 windshield) and to reports of school closings all around....They rarely ever close schools for incliment weather here but they do close if the temperatures in the morning are cold enough.....crazy!!
So to start of my day I had to get bundled up (baggy jeans today so I could put thermals 0n underneath) and walk to the bus stop to go to work...not only did I have to walk in the freezing cold but I got up to the bus stop just as the bus was pulling away which meant I had to stand outside for 12 minutes to wait for the next bus.....Awesome! my first time missing the bus is on the morning of -10 temperatures.
It's funny because earlier this winter I was hoping and wishing for sunny days because it just kept snowing every day and I missed the sunshine....now however I hate it when I see that it is going to be a sunny day because sunny days in the middle of winter here mean subzero temperatures so it ends up being a beautiful day outside but way to cold to do anything outside which is such a tease! Cloudy and snowy days here are usualy much much warmer, typically around 20-30 degrees which is super nice here.

"cold" and "freezing cold" now have new definitions for me!

SNOWSHOEING

This week Rachael and I packed our backpacks and loaded up my car to go snowshoeing in Grand Teton National Park. We haver never been before and we were excited to get outside and do something new and different all by ourselves. Since we were by ourselves we didn't exactly know where to go. We researched some trails and found a moderate difficulty trail that would supposedly take us to Phelps Lake inside the park. We unloaded and started on our journey but the trail we were on quickly disappeared and we were left we no clue as to which way to go to find the lake. Therefor we pretty much just ended up breaking trail and going whichever way we felt like it. We weren't worried about getting lost because we knew we could always just turn around and follow our tracks back. We never found the lake but we did have an amazing time on a beautiful blue sky day in some of the most spectacular wilderness I have ever been.

Being the Georgia girls that we are we of course stopped to make snow angels along the way. Press play below to see the video of me making a snowangel.



We had no trail to follow so we just wondered around on our own, hoping all along we wouldn't run right into a moose.Breaking trail

I decided to take my snowshoes off and see how deep the snow was at one place. This was one of the shallower area. It was amazing how the snowshoes let us just walk on top of the powder that we would have otherwise sunk down to our waste in.

HOLIDAY PICTURES

Long overdue but I finally got some pictures from the holidays. Megan, Justin, Trey and I were treated to a blue sky, powder day on Christmas Day! We could not have asked for better conditions on the mountain

The girls in the hotel room before going out for New Years Eve. Luckily through work we get $30 rooms at the economy hotel in the Village so we all chipped in and got 2 rooms for New Years Eve so we wouldn't have to make the 13 mile trip back to town. Plus we were already at the mountain to go skiing the next day.

Galen and me at the Mangy Moose for New Years

Rachael, Megan and me waiting for midnight.....if only we had Jenny with us the night would have been complete

CHRISTMAS IN JACKSON!!!!

Christmas Eve we were treated with one of the heavier snowfalls thus far. For dinner Megan, Justin and I went to the Cadillac Grill for dinner and took pictures at the arches in the town square.

We could not have asked for a better Christmas Day as we had blue skies and about 10inches of fresh powder. Justin fixed Megan, Trey and I breakfast before we headed to the mountain for a wonderful day of skiing and snowboarding.

Megan and me at the base of the Gondola

Justin and I riding the Gondola up the mountain on Christmas Day

Megan and Trey on the Gondola

Trip to Georgia!!!!

After only being gone for a couple months I was already so homesick that I decided to come home for a couple days before Christmas...of course it helped that I found a super cheap plane ticket out of Jackson. My first night home I went out in Athens and got to see everyone (except Cleve). I had an awesome time with everyone and I can't wait to come back to visit again.

Also, CONGRATS TO KIM ON TURNING PRO!! Now I'm definitely never going running with you. Check her out at www.kimdunker.com

The girls at transmet..

Heading out from transmet to the Chapel....

Michelle and me trying on clothes at the mall and being idiots!!!

lots and lots going on....

It's funny how during the off season I was really good about updating my blog but once the mountain opened my posts have dramatically descreased. Alot has been going on the past couple week so I'll try to keep it brief.
The week before Christmas I decided to fly home for a couple days. Only my mom knew I was coming so it was a ton of fun surprising Jeff, Tyler and Lexi. I flew in on a Wednesday and Casey picked me up at the airport and drove me straight to Athens where we ate dinner and went out with a bunch of friends. I was thrilled that everyone I wanted to see in Athens came out for the night (except CLeve)....even Fetty who was sick showed up for a bit. I love all of you guys and I had such a great time seeing you all!! Don't worry Shannon I will put up pictures once I find my camera cord!!

After spending the night in Athens Casey drove me back to Atlanta where I spent the rest of my trip mainly hanging out with my family and doing some (ok alot) of shopping. Casey and Michelle defintely win the best friend award. Casey not only picked me up from the airport but she also drove me all the way to Athens and then drove me home to Marietta the next day. Michelle drove down from Nashville Friday afternoon just to hang out with me for the night and then drove back to Nashville early Saturday morning....not many friends are willing to drive 4 hours each way just to hang out for a couple hours but I think it was worth it. I love that we can go months and months without seeing each other and then pick right back up where we left off last time we saw each other.

My trip was way too short and it would have been perfect had I not had to fly home on Christmas Eve......As I was packing to come home I was treated to an early Christmas gift when Jackie called me to tell me that she just got engaged to the guy I set her up with and asked me to be in her wedding...congrats again!!!!! I love you both!!!

Which brings me to Christmas......Christmas started off really hard because it was my first Christmas not with family and Rachael's flight got stuck in Denver so she wasn't going to make it back to Jackson and Jenny of course was still stuck in Atlanta awaiting knee surgery. Luckily Megan was still in Jackson and was my lifesaver (of course!). Megan and Justin let me tag along for dinner on Christmas Eve and then Christmas Day we opened presents together and Justin made us breakfast before spending the day on the slopes.....we were treated to a ton of fresh powder and blue skies on the mountain which was amazing!! It was one of my most enjoyable days on the mountain thus far.....

A couple days after Christmas I signed up for a free cross country skiing lesson through the JH Nordic Center. It was alot more difficult then I had imagined it being but I had an absolute blast. There was another couple in the lesson with me and they happened to be here on vacation from Atlanta and are Georgia grads. They took the pictures below and emailed them to me when they got home. I am signed up to take a women's skate skiing clinic next saturday and afterwards I will probably purchase either a cross country or skate skiing set-up.....since I can't really ride my bike outside this will hopefully serve as a nice subsititute....

I have alot more to write and a ton of pictures to post and will do so this week!!!
I love you all!!!

Christmas Tree time.....

Last week our friend Dave took me out into one of the National Forests to cut down a Christmas Tree for our house which we then decorated with the "12 Days of Christmas" ornaments the my grandma sent me.....don't laugh at our tree!! I know it's a little sparse but it is ours that we cut down and we love it! (thanks Rachael!!)

No More Skiing/Boarding on Sunday's for us...

Things here are starting to really pick up as the winter season is almost in full swing. There is an excitement in the air like I've never felt before and everyone is constantly looking towards the skies and watching the weather report hoping and praying for lots of snow. It snows pretty much everyday (although not a ton) and I have only been outside on one sunny/blue sky day in the past 3 weeks. Everyday more and more runs open on the mountain and hopefully soon the majority of the mountain will be open. I have been going snowboarding about 3-4 times a week and have started to see some slight improvements although the terrain here still takes my breath away.

Last Sunday Jenny fell on the cat track and had to be taken down on the snowmobile. She twisted her knee really bad and is most likely done for the whole season. She ended up flying back to Georgia last Thursday because her insurance is not good in Wyoming and she need to get an MRI. The doctor's think she completely tore her ACL (which means surgery) but we won't know the full extent of her injury until she gets the results of her MRI this Wednesday. We definitely miss her here in Jackson and Christmas won't be the same here without her but hopefully she will get to come home to us soon!

This past Sunday (yesterday) was my first day going up on Sublet which is one of the higher lifts on the mountain. It services a ton of runs but all the runs are blacks..... I had a deathgrip on the chairlift going up because looking down was so intense. I could not believe that people skied some of the terrain I was looking at much less that the mountain allowed people to ski it. It was Rachael and our friend Chapman going up and Chapman was going to take us on a "secret" run through some powder fields. We ended up on some black terrain that was super steep and narrow and we were constantly dodging trees and rocks. I didn't really turn much going down cause if I took a split second too long to turn I was going to nail a rock or tree and I didn't really feel like doing that. The powder was amazing up on this run ranging anywhere from knee to waist deep. Once we got down we decided to go back and do it again.....bad idea......Right near the top I hear Rachael screaming and look right behind me to see her completely wrapped around a tree. My first thought upon seeing her was "oh crap, the snowmobiles can't get in this area to get to her, how the hell are we going to get her off the mountain"....luckily though she ended up with just some massive bruising and muscle soreness in her leg and should be fine. Obviously she was hurting and scared to continue down so it took us forever to get her off the steep slope and back to the easy cat track. Luckily she wasn't hurt too bad and will be fine but we both decided that Sunday's aren't too good for us and that maybe we should stay clear of the slopes on sundays for awhile..... :)

LONG OVERDUE PICTURES OF MY NEW PLACE

I figured it's about time I posted some pictures of my new place...I've been telling people I would do it for a long time now....

My new bedroom....

The outside of our place....it's a townhouse and ours is on the end
(left side as you are looking at the picture)Our dining room

Our living room

Last Thursday after our first powder day of the season.....

Jackson Hole Opening Day & New Job

Saturday was opening day....finally!!! There wasn't many runs open yet (only 3) and the snow wasn't that great but it was still fun to finally be out on the mountain that I have been staring at for the past 6 weeks. I also started my 2nd job on saturday as a cocktail waitress at the local bar at the base of the mountain....we specialize in $6 pitchers of PBR for employees so as you can imagine it got pretty busy with all the locals. There's defintely places I could make better tips but I really enjoy working somewhere where all the locals come and I can hang out with my friends at work.

Tomorrow I group of us are going back over the pass to Grand Targhee to board....the snow conditions are the best there of anywhere in the US so it should be another great day on the slopes.