Destination: Mount Hood!

After finally deciding that we didn’t need to get to Mooouuunt Hood until Wednesday night when supposedly the rest of the crew would roll in, Ryan and I opted to take off that morning and bang out the 14 hour ride with as much sunlight as possible. With a 1”-3” forecast of snow in town and a 4”-7” forecast at elevation, we figured it was for the better. Waking up to 5” in town with a solid foot at elevation, the morning started out slow. I figured that would be the case after checking out the pass between Wyoming and Idaho on WY22 for most of the night. This is where everyone usually parks to start the hike/skin up to ski.

Pulling out of No Name Alley at 6:20 in the pitch black with snow packed roads wasn’t bad until we started ascending and it started snowing again. I hadn’t been up to the pass since mid November before the resort opened. With dominating 5’ to 8’ walls of snow I at least felt pretty good about our chances of not sliding off into the abyss. With heavy snow falling and no sunlight helping visibility on the new foot of snow it was slow and steady. But we made it over and down into Victor, Id. with no hiccups and into the Targhee National Forest. Unfortunately most of the pictures Ryan got are from before or after Targhee Ntl. Forest.

After driving for six hours we switched and I finally got a chance to snap some pics. We split the ride 50/50 so neither of us was too tuckered out. This was the view driving through Mountain View, Id. then west and eventually south towards Mt. Hood.

 

Next stop, party at Government Camp... Mt. Hood.

The hut tour

It was brought to my attention that there are huts all over Jackson Hole. When I imagined how many and where they could be, my estimate was around 10 or 20... I was way off. Apparently there are close to a hundred all over the mountain. some time early this month I went with a crew that knew more or less where we were going and managed to find 11 in one day. It's cool to think of all the people that have taken refuge there in good weather or bad. Every hut has it's unique names (Bob Marely, Pain Cave, etc.)

...and characteristics (downed trees, group of trees, below a boulder or even down into a rock cave) and was built slightly differently. I didn't manage to get too many pictures but there's always another day. It's still early in the season.

And then after a long day of skiing around and looking for these huts it was time to call it a day.

Why pay for heat?

Being accustomed to horrible windows at my parent's house in Concord, then moving to Southie where Folger and I had windows that failed at stopping the howling, frigid coastal wind from coming in, I thought I had seen it all. Well, I was wrong. On my day off this week I thought it worthwhile to document how bad it really can be here in the dead of winter. Here are some pictures from the inside of our house on a typical frigid winter day (high in the zero range). The side door actually gets used. The door that looks like a freezer is the front door that never gets used. No big deal, I guess.

And our kitchen window has started to resemble more of an expressionists rendering than a window from all the ice swirls.

 

 

 Once the sun came out I happened to notice some fresh tracks up on Taco Bell Couloir in town. It's supposedly illegal to ski this as it's steep and empties right out behind the Taco Bell. None the less, it was a cool sight.

With all the steep terrain around town, I'm going to have to start doing some hiking and skiing once there's a little more of a base down around this elevation. For now I'll stick to skiing Jackson Hole, which, if you haven't heard, is a pretty decent mountain.

What a difference a year makes

Ever since Ryan and I decided over a year ago that we were going to make the move to Jackson for the winter, Brian and Tamsen have been telling us to prepare for their visit at least once to ski the best the west has to offer. Back home my ski trips often consisted of waking up earlier than I did for work and driving up north at the very least 2 hours. No matter how little snow, it was always worth it.

Going further north to get the goods at Jay Peak or Sugarloaf involved even more car time, like 6 hours. It was quite the life rarely being in the city on weekends and often losing more sleep than I gained (the story of my life). It was a struggle to get in over 30 days in one winter without flying out west, something I never did, or logging ridiculous miles every weekend, something I became accustomed to. I was a hardcore east coast skier, for sure.

Living in Jackson has really spoiled me for several reasons. In addition to fighting the urge to become a powder snob, no more do I have to wake up before the sun comes up to get first chair (first Tram is usually another story) and getting to the mountain is only about a 30 minute bus ride with my buss pass, compliments of the Four Seasons, to the best skiing in the U.S. So needless to say when it came time to mix a couple of my ski buddies from back home and this new ski life, I was pumped for their arrival. Even while being out of the house from 6am until 8pm left little time at home to hang with Brian and Tamsen, we did find time to meet up on my shortened ski breaks. Here's a shot from Pepi's Bench with the tram in the background.

Thankfully Olmsted had a few days off to hangout with our visitors and take them over to the pass to ski some back country so they didn't have to pay $91 per adult lift ticket at the resort every day. From the sounds of it they linked plenty of deep, untouched S-turns.

It's amazing the transformation the mountain goes into during major holidays. There are actually lift lines, and really long ones at that, the mountain gets tracked out much faster than normal and in general it means a lot more craziness on mountain and at work. One of the few things I enjoyed during the holidays (other than the tips) was the live band JHMR hired to play in front of the gondola every day. It was cool to see a band play live out in the snow.

With what little time I actually had to hang out with our guests, we managed to enjoy some serious apres ski at the Mangy Moose with some live bluegrass music on their last evening in town. Even though I couldn't convince them to stay and enjoy the storm that was dumping on us, it was great to ski and go out for drinks after with the two of them, just like the old days.

Being their last night, I wanted to make sure we all went out and had a good time. And with Beth's arrival the same night, we decided to make it fancy and hit up a Thai place right in town.

And of course what's a fancy night for Mr. Fancy Pants without a fancy drink to go along with it.

Next time I see Brian, Tamsen, and Beth will be at Taylor and Andrea's western themed wedding in Portland next weekend. It's going to be a hoot. Oh, and I'll get to see a lucky lady for the first time in months too. One more week and then it's off to Portland. Can't wait.

the first Masshole reunion of many

Ever since before moving out of my apartment in Southie, my college/Italy trip buddy Zepko has been hyping up winters in Jackson telling me that there is nothing else like it in the country. And especially since last winter was lame, he mentioned that word on the street was that this year could be potentially epic. And after reading about La Niña, it seemed as though his promises wouldn't be too empty. Talking to him was influential in my not moving to Aspen or Park City. Having now been here for a few months, Zepko and Lancour decided to join me to end their cross country journey in Jackson. For Lancour it would be the 2nd or so time on skis and for Zepko it would be a return to the steep slopes of his youth. Both would end up having an awesome time.

For me, all the previous conversations Zepko and I had had were based mostly on imagining what Jackson would be like once I moved here. After buying the DVD, Switft. Silent. Deep, I was definitely able to better grasp what the hype was all about and understand the wild past that this place has. And now with Zepko in town, he was going to make sure that his Uncle Bill (recovering from surgery to reconstruct both knees) would take us into the backcountry. That's him leading the pack.

To get there we had to traverse around Rendezvous Peak and down to Pepi's Bench.

The hike up is rather quick and painless. Just 20 minutes of ascending gets you to the top where you can traverse as far north as you'd like or hit any of the many pow stashes below. This is what the hike looks like from afar (middle part of the pic moving up to the right). If you look close enough you can see the boot pack.

Once up there the views were being masked by clouds but every so often the sun would reintroduce itself and I would try and capture the moment.

After traversing past a lot of good terrain (Headwall and Casper Bowl), we finally dropped in and hit the Crags. Even if I didn't have first tracks, it was definitely steep and deep. I've already had more pow days this winter than I have had all winters past. It's a pretty addictive feeling.

It was a great first run of the day and capped off a day of many other great runs. Zepko definitely knows his way around the mountain. For example, I probably wouldn't have found this hut without him.

Of course in due time I will know a large part of the mountain but long time locals still hit lines they've never done before. There is just so much terrain to ski here and not enough time. Poor Snow King; it just doesn't get the love even with the steepest run in America. You can see it rising out of Jackson in the distance.

After some more tree skiing it was time to call it a day.

With an epic sunset on Rendezvous Peak it was a cap to a great day. I'm sure I'll see Zepko and maybe even Lancour this winter.

Giving Thanks

For weeks now, maybe even months, there has been a lot of hype around how our Thanksgiving was going to play out. Being that we have a relatively sweet set up here at 536 No Name Alley, we figured we would play hosts this year. And what better way to play hosts than to get a deep fryer.

  
Our guest list was extensive enough to include probably our favorite guest of the week Cuddie.

Cuddie is an Aussie Shepherd mix that we took care of for about a week while his owner was gone. He's an unbelievably obedient and intelligent one and a half year old that loves to play fetch and has a half blue, half brown eye. By the end of the week we all felt pretty attached to this mut. It was sad to see him go but being that we all started work just after we got him, he spent most of the days alone waiting for one of us to walk through the door and play with him. But in the short time we had him we all fell in love and were able to teach him how to almost to a back flip, or more like almost a 360.

But anyway, back to Thanksgiving. After loading up the deep fryer with enough soy bean oil we were ready to test it out with some frozen pizza pockets pieces.

Not wanting to skimp out on appetizers, we made some beer battered hand cut french fries just before tossing the seasoned turkey in.

With the addition of our neighbor's turkey and spicy corn mix, we had a large feast ready to be devoured consisting of: pizza rolls, mozarella sticks, french fries, baked potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, cheese, asparagus, mushrooms and a pumpkin and pecan pie. Needless to say we were all stuffed after having gorged so hard.

With our stomachs at their breaking point we all made sure to digest properly with some heavy laughter thanks to Cuddie and his new friend, Leeroy (Jenkins), they became insta-friends upon meeting each other. Although a huge discrepancy between their body masses, they played rough house all night.

Even if the cooking could never compare to my mom's, it was definitely the best Thanksgiving I've had away from home, even if it was the only one I've had away from home.