First Turns of 15/16

Sunday, November 8 -

The first day of winter is technically December 22, 2015, but for most western states this year it was really, on November 6. That was the first day you could take your skis out to go play in the snow.

Unfortunately for me, I work two jobs on Friday and Saturday leaving me with limited options to when I could have gone. I did make plans to get up at 5:40am on Saturday after going to sleep at midnight to go ski during a dawn patrol session then go to work for 15 hours but something stopped me to say, maybe I should sleep a little more. That Saturday I saw a few truck loads of people hitch hiking up to go ski Teton Pass. I was a little envious but at the same time a little skeptical about the snow conditions after only a few good storms.


After getting a text from Cody, who I really had not seen all Summer that much, about how Grand Targhee had been "skiing deep all day" my skepticism wore off a little bit. Targhee's chairs are not spinning yet but that does not stop the hoards of people who went up that day. With that in mind, we met up at the parking lot at 6:30 7:00am to go get a few laps in because Cody had to work at noon.

We made it to Edelweiss, a grassy knoll and noticed too many tracks and skinned deeper to Thanksgiving Bowl, or so I am told that is what it is called (pictured above).

The snow was surprisingly very good. Did not bottom out nor did I hit any rocks, which made it that much better knowing I would not end up with a core shot in my splitboard on day 1. It was not the most exciting turns of my life but, as for someone who feels like more and more of an adult every year, it felt great to act like 10 years old again.


Maybe that is why I snowboard, it keeps me young and you can surely see it on the faces of the people we saw hiking up while we were coming down. The stoke was high that day for everyone on the Pass.

Moving on though, Cody dropped me off and headed to work while my buddy Matt met up and we went for a lap on the Do It Chutes.


The snow was good up top, giving us about 8 solid turns of great powder but like I expected we ended up in the forest below and got caught up in the not-yet-covered deadfall. Which made escaping the area rather annoying and makes me wonder why I always forget that this happens...every single year. The definition of insanity is repeatedly trying something and expecting different results. I guess that makes me insane, but at least I am insane for something as fun as snow.

I, like so many others, have been waiting for the snow fall. Now that it is here, I can not wait for the next storm. I am glad I took the high road on the weekend and went up despite what all of the "experts" say of the area. We have lots of those here.


In other related news, it seems like there could be a tricky layer already being created, which is obviously lovely. Around 9:30am you could see that much of the snow that had been baked by the sun had turned to surface hoar, with feathers rather large. I had not seen it like that before, but then again this is only my second season in the Tetons. It might be worth noting though and we will just have to wait and see what this means for our snow pack come December.