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Published: January 29th 2011
Tram!
They pack 100 people in each load. Tram goes to the top every 10 min. Yes please!Jackson Hole Shred Fest 2011!!!
The last few years the CO Crew (me and my buddies) have made at least one big ski / snowboard trip each year. Last year we made the trip to Jackson Hole (Jax) and had so much fun we just had to do it again! This year one of our friends who went with us last year moved to Jax and has been ripping up the slope all season. He has sent us some pics, and they are having an incredible snow season! Needless to say, we are going to be staying between his place and a hotel. We will be there from February 4-8, ridin for 3 days. I will be flying in and Ryan will pick me up from the airport. It will be nice to get outta camp for a bit and have some fun with the Crew : ) I added a few pics from last year to give you an idea of how we roll. Can't wait for round 2!!!
AAAHHhhHHhhhhh!!! It just gets better and better. This year was a whole different kind of epic. First of all, sorry for not getting this out earlier...still getting settled back
Jackson Crew
Standard Jax photo in front of the tram station. at camp. This year we stuck to the South side of the mountain and hiked out-of-bounds to get some righteous fresh tracks. And did we ever. We all got in safe and met our buddy Brett, who moved up to Jax before this season hit. He, and our other friend Will who also live there, are responsible for the the amount of fun we were able to have. They were our personal tour guides and showed us all the good stuff. More importantly, they kept us safe and showed us where NOT to go. Jax is a very technical mountain with plenty of 'death' cliffs both in bounds and out of bounds.
The first day we got up and took the Tram, which packs 100 people into every run, to the top and dropped off the back towards Rock Springs and Four Pines. These are two ridges that we hiked up to every day. Hittin fresh pow after hearing terror stories from the locals was a relief when we got up there. Turns out they're all just spoiled, especially this year since Jax has been getting hammered. We got some really good turns in and met up with Will
Earning it.
Virtually every run we did we made some hikes to get. We earned a lot of vert. half way through the day. It was amazing to me how much fresh powder there was everywhere even though they hadn't got any big snow storms in the last two weeks or so.
The second day we started earlier than the first as we were already settled in and geared to rock n roll. As Brett was sleepin in a bit, we lapped the Gondola twice and enjoyed the shorter route that requires a fraction of the energy were going to be using the rest of the day. After meeting up with Brett we jammed into the Tram. At the top of the Tram it is known as Corbet's. Naturally there is also Corbet's Cabin at the top where you can grab food and bevs. They are the most amazing waffles filled with jam or nutella. We all grabbed a tall beer and a waffle and knew we were living the good life. Ahhhhh. Game time. Took a lap in bounds on the Sublet Lift then headed back to the Tram to make our way back to the good stuff. Will and Brett guided all 6 of us down a chute called Zero G. You can see this chute
Four Pines
At the top of Four Pines. Gotta hike to get out here, but it's worth it. Believe me. in one of the pictures I posted labeled 'Chutes' I was the 5th, of 8, and as I started to make way down it I triggered an avalanche! Getting caught in an avy is no joke, but I kept my wits about me, kept my head up, and feet in front attempted to gain traction. Being in an avy is very much like swimming down some rapids. After about 50 ft I found ground and straight lined it outta the chute to safety. That being said, this avy wasn't huge, but sure reminds you that you're alive!! And we were all prepared with beacons, shovels, and probes. I have complete trust in these guys and know they would have been there to help if I had gotten in any serious trouble. After that we hiked back to Four Pines and lapped back up the Tram. Ok, round two. This time we we decided to take on Space Walk. We were determined to rock this one this year because last year we approached it but determined it was above our pay grade and hiked out of the area. We had to get redemption!! Se we made our way down to it
Super Bowl!!
Playin a bit of Pong at the Super Bowl Party. Success! and started down one-by-one with Brett leading and Will taking up the rear providing excellent beta. This chute was VERY icy and steep. I had to make quick jump turns going down it to maintain any kinda control, and you have to be in control or it's your ass. At the bottom of the icy patch you approach the crux. This is a fairly moderate left hand turn that you must approach from the right side of the chute. After clearing this a nice apron opens up and you can get some good speed on the run out. Nailed it...boom! Props to Will and Brett for getting 8 people down each of them safely. At this point we lapped Rock Springs and headed back to the Tram for the final run of the day.
And it was snowing, snowing hard : ) It's good to hear the locals murmuring about a huge dump, and with our third and final coming up it was just in time. Oh yes. But today is a special day...Super Bowl!! Not that we even really watched it, but a great reason to par-tay. We went over to Will's place for their Superbowl party. After being
Chutes
We took down two of these chutes : ) One close to the middle of that rock face is Zero G, the skinnier one to the right is Space Walk. Zerg G slid on me...yikes. there for about 10 mins we got them to set up some Beer Pong Tables hehehe. We played a few games and everything was going well until me and my partner played Will's roommate, Matt Schryber. We were beating them so bad Matt exploded and started ranting and raving about how the rules were bullshit and he ended up getting really mad at me. Background info: Matt rode with us some of the time, but I didn't mention him because he's a tool. He is a short kid with a Napoleon complex, not very bright, and managed to pile drive his head into boilerplate ice the day before, so he was prob a bit concussed...and drunk. Anyways, he turns around from the table shortly after this incident and proceeds to fight all of his friends instead of me. Idiot. He pulled so many dumb-ass moments that we dubbed anything stupid as 'Pulling a Schryber," or "Schrybed" for short. As in, "Hehehe You just got Schrybed!" Moral of the story, I'm so good at Pong I make people fight their friends Hehehehe It wouldn't be a Jax trip if there wasn't a brawl. Great night. We taxied back to get some sleep for the crazy day we were about to have.
After a solid 5 hours of sleep we awoke earlier than both the previous days. We all knew what was to come, we just didn't know how good it was going to be. A solid foot of snow fell over night so we got our stuff together and made the short journey to the mountain. Packed into the Tram, made our way to Corbet's Cabin for some 'breakfast.' Common, waffles and beer are a great breakfast!! Hehehe Without hesitation we went straight off the back towards Four Pines. Some of the die-hard skiers had already made a good boot-pack up Rock Springs. We hiked this and continued our jouney to the freshies. We strapped in at the top of 4 Pines and we were all grinning ear-to-ear. There was just sooooo much pow everywhere! At this point it's hard to stay together because everybody id having so much and jsut ripping the pow. Staying smaller groups we all had the time of our lives floatin on the freshies and met up at the bottom meeting area. We were all so stoked we went as fast as we could back to the Tram to get more in. This time we hiked up to Rock Springs to shred the gnar. It was amazing how many fresh powder fields there were everywhere, check out the short clips I uploaded, it's crazy!!! You can approach virtually anything and just launch off it without knowing what the landing is like. If you crash all that happens is you get up with a smiling face full of powder and query "Can we do it again?!" It's really absurd. Bodily injury is hard to come by in that kinda pow. We finished the run and were out of time for the day as the tram closes at 3:30. So we packed it in and grabbed a few beers at the Mangy Moose. The Mangy is a dank place for burgers, pizza, local brews, and even a good ol' bar fight if you catch it on the right night (we got to watch a hilarious bar fight there last year). As is standard procedure, we made our way out to the bars after getting our gear back to the condo and enjoyed our last night out on the town.
We all got a lot of video footage as this year almost all of us had cameras. It's amazing how fast they are blowing up. It seems like about 70% of the people at Jax had visible camera mounts on their helmets. Anyways, I hope you enjoy the photos and videos. I will try to put together a more comprehensive video soon.
JACKSON!!!!
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Will La Pointe
non-member comment
Time to shred in warm weather
At your latest reading of -13 F almost anything os going to feel warm... Hope you have a blast. Pops