Happy New Years Everybody. I hope everybody is sticting to their New Year resolutions.
Brad and I started 2009 in Jackson, WY. We did not stay up til 12 on Dec 31st because we wanted to be well rested for skiing. On Jan 1st we got up early and hit the slopes. Driving to the ski resort we saw four mouse on the side of the road, the snow was half way up their legs. They are some big animals (I got some pictures but they aren't very good). The 1st was cloudy, snowy and cold. Brad and I had to go in a couple of times to warm up, but the skiing was great. They had some great trails with some powder on them. We skiied the whole mountain. It was kind of on the crowed side, and there were some lift line but it wasn't bad. We almost died late in the afternoon, because we took the tram up to the very top of the mountain (over 10,000ft in the elevation). When we go off the tram at the top we could not see anything at all. Brad and I were forced by the other 98 people getting off the tram out to the top of the mountain, a ways away from the tram. We stood thinking about how we couldn't see, and how easily it would be for us to get out of bounds, and have an avalanche bury us. We could barely see each other, so if one of us fell, we wouldn't be able to help because we wouldn't be able to find them. Not to mention we didn't know if there was a cliff, or giant rocks on the slopes. We we started to hike back to the tram, because we didn't want to risk it. As we were heading back to the tram a Jackson Hole ski instructure told us to follow her down the mountain. We agreed, and stayed very close to her, and went very slowly down the mountain. About an hour later Brad and I were at the bottom of the mountain. We agreed not to go up the tram again and to go back to where we were skiing in the morning, where we knew it was safe and we could see. We had a great day of skiing. That night we walked around the little tourist town of Jackson, and found a great pizza place. Then retired for the night knowing we were going to do it all again tomorrow.
On Friday Jan 2nd, we decided to ski Grand Targhee, which is on the back side of the Tetons. We drove the hour from Jackson to this little resort. It was another cloudy, snowy, windy day. This resort didn't open its main chair due to the wind and avalanche control, so Brad and I skiied the far right of the mountain which was perfectly fine with us. The nice thing about this resort is that it wasn't crowded like Jackson Hole was. We skiied about 3 to 4 runs and had to go in and warm up because it was cold and windy. We went in got some hot chocolate, and when we got back out to the slopes they closed down the right of the mountain due to the wind. So now only one chair was open and that was the kiddy hill. Which wasn't a completly flat area, and the runs were a long but thats not what we paid for. We went to the ticket window, and they gave us vouchers for another day, because we spent alot of money on our tickets and we weren't going to ski only a fifth of the moutnain all day. We did acouple of runs and went in for lunch. We were hoping that after we ate they would open back up the right side of the mountain but that didn't happen, so we did a couple more runs down the hill, and drove back to Jackson...were we almost died again. To get from Grand Targhee to Jackson to have to go through the Teton Pass. This is a curvy road on the side of some mountains, with the road going up and down. Not fun when it is covered in snow and ice, while it is snowing, and the wind is causing white out conditions. This pass is about 8 miles long. Brad and I didn't realize how bad it was to go through the pass until it was too late. We both held our breaths until we were out of the pass. It was scarry. We decided that 2009 wasn't going to the year for us, considering we almost died twice in two days. We got back to the hotel took a nap, and went back in to Jackson to walk around and eat dinner. We love the town.
On Saturday we decided to sleep in and take a day off of skiing (and hope we don't try to kill our selves today). We went out to breakfast and drove down to see the Tetons. Of course the only cloud in the sky was coving the mountain range, but we drove as far as we could into the park as we could. We saw that there were paths that we could take a walk on, so we decided we would go back to our hotel room, relax and come back later to take a walk, once we were dressed properly for it, because it was about 4 degrees outside. We relaxed and got all bundled up and headed for Grand Teton National Park again. This time the cloud wasn't there and we could see the mountains. It was so cold out now, about -4, so we decided against the walk, with the luck we had the last two days we didn't want to risk it, so we just drove the range taking pictures along the way. It was my favorite park of the trip. That night we went back to our pizza place and then headed to bed.
Sunday was the last day of our trip and since we got the ski vouchers at Grand Targhee on Friday we decided to go back there, once we saw that it was going to be a sunny cloudless day, and that the Teton Pass wouldn't give us any trouble. We got the Grand Targhee in record time, and started skiing. This time they had all the ski lifts running. Brad and I took the main chair lift up and at the top all the trees were covered in ice and snow. It was very cool. When we go to the top you could see for miles. And skiing down was so cool, because it was like you were going to fall off of the face of the earch it was very steep and open, and you had this great view. It was very neat. It was also very very cold with the tempature at 0. We did what we always do on cold days. Take a couple of runs and go in to warm up. This resort hardly had any skiers which we loved, and the snow was great. We found it still had powder on it after a day of no snow. We had a couple great runs. At the top of the mountain they had a couple look out point to the Teton mountian. That was very cool because here you skiing at an elevation of 9,800 ft and the Tetons (with elevation of 13,000) are right there. It was so cool. This by far is our favorite resort.
We strongly recommend everybody to go to Jackson because the town is so nice. Then we suggest not to ski Jackson Hole, but drive the hour to Grand Targhee.
On the right are some pictures from the trip. I also got some movies of us skiing. Just double click on the picture under the title Movies of Us Skiing, and on the top right of the picture it will say view HQ video-click on it and the video will play. The first picture of us with the Tetons in the back ground isn't a movie, but the other four are. Enjoy.