Jackson Hole

Jackson Hole
"We knocked the bastard off"

When planning for this trip, both Nate and I purposely didn’t choose many destinations that we “had” to get to. Spontaneity was one of the key parts of this trip. One of the destinations, though, that I was adamant about was Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It has a reputation as a hardcore mountain and I’ve dreamed about skiing there for at least 15 years. And on top of that there was one run there, Corbet’s Couloir, that I have wanted to ski for as long as I can remember. Well, I can happily say that not only did we make it to Jackson, but we dropped into Corbet’s three times.

The first day at Jackson, the temp at the base was up around 45 degrees. That’s ridiculously warm for skiing, and the snow turned into slush, and in places to water. Undeterred, we waited in line for the tram (which, after 40 years as a Jackson Hole icon, is coming down this year) and headed on up to the top of the mountain. On the first run we took a peek into Corbet’s, which produced an “oh my god, are you kidding!?” I’ll explain more in a sec. Instead of dropping straight into Corbet’s, we went and explored the rest of the mountain. The Alta Chutes, the Hobacks, and a bunch of other runs that I don’t remember. Finally, it was time. Back onto the tram and up to Corbet’s. The thing about Corbet’s isn’t actually the couloir (French for chute) itself, which is fun steep, not scary steep. It’s the entrance. There are three ways in: the Left, in which you ski straight down (and not pointed downhill, straight DOWN) for 8’ in a little space about 2’ wide, then turn hard right around a big wall of snow just in time to miss hitting the rock wall in front of you. The Right, in which you ski straight down (well, maybe only at 70 degrees) for 5’, then launch off a rock and fall for about 10’ and then slam into the ground pointed straight across the chute- don’t slide out! The Middle: just a big drop anywhere from 15’ to 25’. Our first time in, after psyching ourselves up for at least 10 minutes, we took the Right. Only afterwards did we find out that was actually harder than the Left. We both made it fine, minus a solid “thud” on landing, and skied out the chute and down. I was practically hopping around I was so happy to have finally skied Corbet’s. Cross another one off the list.

The second day at Jackson, we woke up to pouring rain. Not good. After checking with the mountain, we were assured that it was snowing from about mid-mountain up, so we parted with our $70 and hopped on the lift. Halfway up, the rain turned to (wet, fat) snow flakes, and it was game on. We didn’t feel like waiting in the tram line again, or skiing down to the bottom in the rain, so we did laps on the upper part of the mountain and had an awesome time. The wet, heavy snow actually made things easier to ski (it slows you down on steep stuff) so we explored all kinds of fun tree runs and chutes. Along about noon, Nate says that Corbet’s might be really nice with the new snow, maybe we should go check it out. After our successful descent the day before, I figure I’m up for it, so up we go again. This time we dropped in the Left, which only took 5 minutes to psych up for, and really did end up being “easier.” The snow in the rest of the couloir ended up being the best on the mountain, shin deep and untracked. With that in mind, we raced on down to the tram for another lap. Funny huh, how I went from “Mommy, please don’t make me I’m too scared!” to “That was awesome, let’s do another lap!” The next lap we dropped in the Left again. This time, about halfway down, we traversed over a small fin into S&S couloir, which has an even scarier entrance than Corbet’s (we were told it’s not really even doable unless there’s 3’ of powder.) Thankfully, we didn’t have to come in from the top. By traversing that 40’, we happened into the best run of the trip, and one of my best runs ever. The snow had blown into the couloir all night, and we had steep, thigh-deep untracked powder all the way down. At the bottom, the storm that had been hanging around all day suddenly came on with a fury. Once at the bottom of the tram (for another lap, of course) we found out that they shut down half the lifts on the mountain because of the wind. We jumped on the gondola, only to find out halfway up (from a patroller in our gondola) that EVERY lift on the mountain was now closed. On the way down we saw three or four downed trees, which certainly made the closures seem reasonable. With that, we finished our time at Jackson Hole, happy with the accomplishments and the awesome skiing. Next stop: Big Sky, Montana.

pictures home