Part 1: Jackson Hole, Wyoming - 40" new upon arrival!!

So Erica and I ended up pushing out of Denver around 1pm last Friday. We were soon greeted by 40+ mph winds and news that the main artery west to Jackson, I-80, was closed due to heavy and blowing snow. Shit. We quickly scrambled to find an alternate route to Jackson. The route, which took us 11 hours total, provided a splendid car tour of the WHOLE state of Wyoming. After that white knuckle drive it was nice to hook up with Natkin & Grayson the next morning to ski my old stomping ground, Teton Pass. Erica's transceiver wasn't working and she was missing a shovel handle, but we were skiing low-angle pow in the trees with 5 people so I wasn't too worried. Grayson and Natkin, both backcountry newbies, were freaking out as usual. We had a great time thrashing pow in Jackson last week. Skied the pass multiple times, and clipped many a ticket at the resort as well. Even used the ole' "green pass" to get on the mountain after a small 7" (we were supposed to get a 15" dump!!). Nothing changes in Jackson, and it goes without saying that the drinking conditions were going off, the whole week was balls deep in whiskey!! So I've included a couple shots of various Mags killing it in Jackson. Part II is currently going down in Utah, and I promise you won't be disappointed!! Happy New Year to all!

Homies reunite on the pass - Chris, Tim, & NotJon:


Natkin, demonstrating that he's not always a backseat driver:


Erica getting after it on a pillow line:


Tim G. finding the deep stuff:


I was trying to get "aggro" on the Pass!:


The Landing, aimed to please my sponsor, K2 skis:

Merry X-mas

48 degrees outside and a few sprinkles in the air. Oh well...as new england skiers, we're always waiting for the other shoe to drop on the epic winter, and it seems to have fallen. But the good news is that some of the longer range forecasts are showing a turn around for January. Building a ridge out west and a big old trough for the e.c. I'll hope that they're right.
K-mart was legendary yesterday. It's awesome for me that they've jacked up season pass prices and raised the day ticket prices, leaving rif-raf like that Pierre character and Erik away for the season. Skier numbers are way down, leaving much improved ski conditions. Even on a saturday there was still a lot of powder to be found...even on some of the open trails like Downdraft. Also it was 100% open, a lot of it on natural snow, like devil's fiddle and lower ovation which almost never open unless they blow snow on it. It may not have been the white room but it was a hell of a lot better than the boiler plate i've gotten used on weekends.
Anyway, it sounds like ya'll w.c.er's are going to have a merry x-mas. TK, here's the deal,those pictures you've posted. Send me a round trip ticket to Denver for 1 and the board members from your school won't receive oversized shots of you chugging from a box of wine and I'm guessing spanking it, when you were done. Also you need to get Seth off his academic, erudite ass and get both him and Hilz back on the Balls Deep blog. Have a good christmas ladies and gents.

Intra-West Ski-Trip Forecast.....White Room!!!

Good to be back after such a long respite from good old Balls Deep. This entry is simply a prelude to the Intra-West ski madness that will ensue in the next two weeks. Friday, Erica and I are pushing off to our first destination, Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Forecast for the I-80 drive.....Deadly Snowstorm...shit!! Time to fuel up on coffee and dodge the any number of tractor trailers jack-knifing on this sketchy highway stretch!
Hopefully we get there to clip tickets (or shuttle with Tim's Pass) on Saturday. Although the TRAM is no longer in service, I'm sure fresh turns will be found on Cody, No Name, and Pinedale! The forecast for snow looks sick!! I promise some quality photographs for the Blog. On the 26th, we will be heading for the anti-booze capital of the U.S., Salt Lake City, UT. Erica flies home on the 27th, leaving the Wasatch to be Schralped by Seth and I. Looking forward to some serious east-west coast shit talking,
TK

Included are some pictures from last years Spring Ski Tribute for Jay P., RIP. Lets hope that Spring is a long way off!:

Tony gettin' after that box o' wine:


The Timmy G. look alike, circa 1999:


Eric B. cookin' those cheeseburgers in Paradise:

Avalanche Awareness

Hello Balls Deepers,
With all the freshies that everyone seems to have been getting recently, let's remember to stay safe out there. Although I have had some formal training in the past and a decent amount of back-country skiing experience with friends, I had never taken a level 1 avalanche course until this last weekend. It really helped me connect a lot of information and put pieces together. Thinking about weather, terrain, snowpack and the human element collectively helped me gain a very different perspective. I was also able to reflect on the many DUMB things I have done in the past. IF THERE IS ANYONE ON THIS BLOG THAT HAS NOT TAKEN AN AVALANCHE 1 CLASS, DO NOT PUT IT OFF ANY LONGER. Mine was WAY overdue. I know that I will look at things very differently going out there from now on.

A word of wisdom from the class:

"If you are going out with 3 people and somebody doesn't have their shovel, I recommend giving them yours."

Shenanigans & Powder (some sleet)

I think I need to call shenanigans on K-mart this morning for reporting 17" on their webpage. Bullshit!! I hate that crap, their snow stake is in a place that got drifted in, yet they still use that snow stake as the official number.
Anyway, on a brighter note I patrolled there yesterday & the winds were howling. Enough to shut down almost the whole mountain. In the morning they were trying to open Superstar Chair so they let patrollers on. They didn't open the lift but it was running for patrollers from about 7:30 - 10:00. Most of the work assignments were at the very top of the mountain where the winds were howling but the rest of the runs down were a buttery, velvet 6-8" of untouched with no winds (almost every other aspect on the mountain was getting wind hammered though). It made the drive there all worth it. The snow changed over to some very light sleet during the afternoon and a touch of freezing rain. I'm guessing they received another 6" last night bringing the total to 12-14". Not quite the epic dump that it could have been, but the fact that there is already a deep base underneath and a whole untouched mountain to myself, made it an awesome day. The woods were lovely dark and deep, & quiet...pretty much unheard of at K-mart.
Oh yeah..also we have another 3 storms on the map in the coming week. For those of you that need a good laugh check this out, maybe you've seen it...it's called Business Time and it's chorus was my anthem yesterday: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGOohBytKTU

Powder in the Tetons

We have had a slow but steady start to the ski season in JH. I must admit that northern New England has been looking good. Nonetheless, I got out on my first real tour of the season this past weekend. Matt and Liz and I climbed 2500 ft. up Mt. Oliver with our dogs, and had some great shots off the northeast faces from the peak. A great morning, with return in time to see the Pats embarrass the Steelers. Note Zaps working Mishka the mala-mut in the parking lot.

North Country, VT; Some thoughts

So...getting back to skiing...

This was pretty early in the morning last Tuesday...it snowed another foot before 3:30. The skiing, was shall we say, very nice.

North Country, NH; some thoughts

A single smokestack stands against the gray winter skyline of Berlin, it's billowing emissions dissipating as quickly as the hopes of the city's residents. In the distance, over a small height of land, lay two more stacks, silent and overridden by gnarled vines, snuffed out by the forward march of society into a brave new global economy.

Citizens, unable to understand the events that have cast this once prosperous city onto hard times, have taken to blaming imaginary enemies. A few times a day, some tired soul will walk into my office, and snarl invectives about "wetbacks" or claim that they could never support that "colored fellow" (this is the PG version of their word choices), not realizing that there is no minority population to speak of within the city limits (in fact, my coworker and I together make up the area's sole whole Latino).

One allure of organizing is that you have the ability to reach into the depths of a community's soul and grasp its pulse. In an area whose youth have fled for the greener pastures of Portland, Manchester or Boston, older residents are eager to share their experiences and stories with new arrivals, for they fear that their beloved town is losing a war of attrition which they cannot win. Last night, I spoke with a diminutive older woman, whose gray eyes held a strong flicker of life, and she recounted to me numerous tales which reflected her fears and concerns for the future. She spoke for twenty minutes, and though I couldn't offer her much in the way of comfort (not without lying, anyways), I was happy I was able to hear what she had to say, because, as she said "people have just stopped listening to one another."

Top 5

So it seems as though there is not much activity on the Balls Deep blog and I'm pretty bored at work currently so I've decided to exercise some procrastination measures to wheedle away the afternoon. Hence I've decided to try to come up with a top 5 ski days :

1) Cardiac Ridge - Big Cottonwood Canyon. Did two runs off Cardiac Ridge (ridge that runs north off of Mt. Superior) on a perfect bluebird day with a foot of fresh snow that had stabilized nicely to the previous layer. Here's a picture of the ridge, not the tree'd section. Mt. Superior is the tall peak in the center of the photo. The bowl in the center of the shot is where we skied off the ridge. Seth & Hilz, I would recommend it. Access is easiest via Little Cottonwood & finish the day in Big Cottonwood.


2) Jackson Hole - 46" new skiing with TK & Quinn for a couple of runs before he had to go to work (although I think I may have lost TK's pass this day, not sure). I remember coming down the headwall and the snow was over my head. The only in-bounds day that made this list.

3)Big Jay - 2 days in a row Can't remember how much snow had fallen, but it was a shit-load. It was my first time skiing Big Jay. Went out with Quinn the first day & buddy Adam the second, all on a $5 tram pass. Skied in bounds for the morning then made our way out, the snow was western-style by weight and bottomless. This was also before Big Jay become a household name among east coast skiers. Everytime I've gone since I've become more & more disenchanted by the sheer volume of people who head out there now.

4)Mad River Glen, read my last entry

5) Tuckerman's - 1st time skiing Tucks. Seth and I took off after a few drinks at Colby's pub on a spur of the moment decision. While it was not epic conditions, it was the first and sadly the last time I've skied tucks.

I guess I need have to do some real work again

Big Lovin

A lot of love from that last storm, I think most of us Balls Deepers across the country can agree on that one. Quinn should have some pics or vids from MRG with his two buddies Kip & Scott. Hopefully he will be able to post those sometime in the near future.
We got there to find wet heavy graupel falling, always a good base snow with maybe 6" new on the ground. Our first run down, you could still feel the underlying frozen layer from the rain about a week ago but no doubt about it, it was powder skiing. By the time we were climbing for the second run, the snow really started coming down, now in big moist flake form. At the bottom of our second run, an incredible run down Chute which was beautifully filled in, the snow was now pounding and it was drying out nicely. We hiked up to the top of the double for the third run which was about the time the first face shots got involved. By our fourth climb my legs were feeling like jello and thought I might have a heart-attack (acute myocardial infarction to you Quinn). Luckily by the time we dropped down the legs came back into focus for probably the best run of the day, filled with face shots on an untouched run that was pretty much bottomless.
Overall, I think I have to place it up there in the top 5 outings overall. It was my first time skiing MRG, there was maybe 30 other hikers all day, in deep powder, with a group of ripping telers and barely a puff of wind all day...yup it was that good. How was your Monday?