Drive by Turns on South Pass

Turns right off the Highway on South Pass

January 2nd, 2006

Who says there's no easy access backcountry powder on South Pass, above Lander, WY?

I scored these turns right off the Highway. Started hiking from my truck. Little windy out, but it hadn't been that way long enough to turn the snow into cement. It was suprisingly pretty good powder. Almost too deep for my little board in places. Not too bad for road runs.

AAI Avi Class Attacks Two Ocean

January 22nd, 2006 Turns on Two Ocean

My level 2 Avalanche course finally gets a field day where it's not puking snow all day. Where do they decide to go? Two Ocean Mt. on Togwotee Pass. Bummer. I've hit this like three times already this year. Oh well. The snow was awesome and the weather was good. Plus I got to dig pits and gather info in terrain that I'll probably ski some more on this year.

Some of my class members, skinning up the hill.

Still skinning. Might be the first time our class got out of the trees all month. And probably the first time many of them had gone on a backcountry outing without seeing other people and other ski tracks. "Wild snow" they said.

Got to the top, after digging multiple pits on East and North facing slopes. Gathered enough data to determine it was probably safe. Bombs away!

The view, after multiple bombers were away.

A dude waiting for the rest of the class to catch up

Making turns on the East face of Two Ocean! Sweet powder!

Looking up at east face turns from the bottom.

Scoping out some more lines on the way up

A view looking down on the runs from the top

A view of our Two Ocean launch pad.

After hangin out on the East face, we climbed back up to drop some North facing shots through the trees. Done them lots. Always great pow!

Proved to be the same great stuff on this day too!

Dawn Patrol on Teton Pass

Dropping Titty Mouse Ridge on Teton Pass January 16th, 2005

A pre-dawn photo of the newest member in my little family of powder pigs. Ha! Be prepared to see more of this guy. He's pretty fun in deep pow. Not quite ready for a full backcountry debute yet though.

Finally, the sun is up and lines are dropped. Great stuff! Hard to beat first tracks. Was back to the truck by 8:30am and hitting the Headwall at Teton Village by 9:30am. Almost makes Jackson and all of the people worth it. Almost.

Teton Village Resort- Headwall

Dropping the Headwall at Teton Village Ski Resort

January 14th and 21st

Folks climbing up the Headwall

Groomed runs are cool, but fresh pow is hard to beat. How do you get fresh pow at a Resort? Ride the lift to the top and start hiking. The last couple of Saturdays I've been charged with helping to chaperon some of our HS students on the slopes at Teteon Village. One of them was ready to try some powder, so we headed up to the Headwall.

Looking down at boot packers from above

A view looking NE down the Teton Range from the top of the Headwall

Looking down into Casper Bowl via a steep ravine or gully. We dropped it, only because the other routes were couliours and steeper.

Some guy dropping the Headwall

Tony, the brave enough HS student to venture a boot pack up the Headwall, contiplating his first run down in deep powder. Must not have been that bad, he followed me up there a few more times!

Looking up at the Headwall about half way down from the bottom, where is runs out onto groomed runs

Tony, bustin' a line down the Headwall through the pow!

A view looking up at the whole Headwall run. Not too shabby for a resort.

A view of Casper Bowl, from a groomed run. We dropped from the skyline.

Teton Pass Runs

During our American Avalanche Institute, Avi Class on January 8th we went up Pass Ridge over to Avalanche Bowl. Dug some pits and made some turns. Not too many folks out that day. Great powder!!

Some dude in our class making turns down KB Ridge.

Lines down KB Ridge, next to Avalanche Bowl

Digging pitts On Avalanche Bowl

Gotta chance to speck out some more terrain on Teton Pass durin the Avalanche Course I took from American Avalanche Institute. I don't spen dmuch time around Jackson, so it was nifty getting to see some new country. Most the runs off Teton Pass are covered with people. That's not somethign I'm used to. Oh well. If the weather is bad, or you get up really, really early- sometimes there are less people.

This is a look down "Avalanche Bowl" off Teton Pass.

Turns on Togwotee

TOGWOTEE PASS TURNS 1-14-06

On my way to Jackson Saturday I stopped off on Togwotee to climb this hill.

Thought maybe I'd take a stab at this run.

I climbed up around the backside of the mountain though. Great powder runs everywhere on my way up.

Another great run and view on my way up. The weather was awesome and toasty.

The same slope on my way up, just looking the opposite direction.

Nearing the top. This is a view of the peak in the first photo, from the back side. Cool cornices.

Here are my tracks climbing up the peak.

This is a view of my tracks climbing up, form the top of the peak. I took my skis off and booted.

Here's a view from the top. Kinda looking down at what I was going to drop.

I hike down the peak about a hundred yards to scope things out. After further investigation though, I chickened out. One side of the narrow slide path I was going to drop was wind scoured down to rocks and the other was wind loaded. Not cool. Plus is was way steep. Plus I was by myself. Decided to save it for another day. I went back to where I came up and dropped a sweet powder line down a safe ridge instead.

Dropping from the top.








Down through the trees.

GREAT STUFF!!!













For quickie off the highway- not too bad. The weather and snow was awesome. Too bad it didn't stay that way. the next day it puked all day in Jackson. Made for great snow, but the pics... they're not as neat as these. More people too.

Blue Sky Powder Day in the Southern Winds

Hold the phones! Powder? Blue Sky? No wind? In the Southern Wind Rivers? No way!

January 1st, 2006

I got up Sunday morning expecting poor skiing conditions for the Winds. The Forecast said 100% chance of snow and 40 mph winds. I decided to go for it anyway- gotta start the New Year off right. Glad I went. Got up on South Pass to discover almost 2 feet of new snow, no wind and blue sky. Unbelievable. I stumbled all over myself with excitement as I readied the sled for a motor into Christina Lake.


There was so much powder, the groomer couldn't groom it- barely could drive in it. Thus, when I reach Gustave lake, the trail didn't go any further. Yikes! No way to get on the huge stuff. Not before it was too late anyway. Oh well, I settled for the mountain above Gustave lake instead. The sun is really blocking the view of it in this photo. It's at least 10,ooo ft. Some good lines too.

My skinning tracks up through the trees on the way up.

A view from the top of what I'll call "Gustave Mountain". Though, this view is looking righ tdown on Christina lake. The lake are close together. The big stuff looks very ready now. Whew- very nice view!

Another view of the same country. except more to the left. Hard to believe I dropped almost all of those peak and mountains last year. Can't wat for some more this year!

An interesting knob looking the opposite direction from "Gustave Mt."

Looking down on Gustave Lake and my flight path. Ha!

Time to drop!

Still dropping! 30-35 degrees and great powder!



You'll have to click on this picture and enlarge it to see my whole line. It was quite a ride. Great powder! So good, it took me an hour to dig my snow machine out about halfway home, when I got it stuck. Ha! Great day, other than that.