Slackcountry, Jackson Hole, Friday March 25th.

I will no longer call it Slackcountry, at least up in Jackson. The guys and gals that duck ropes and go through the access gates into Teton National Park are seriously fit, if in a different way, than us Nederland skinny ski skinners. This different culture of people, that head straight to the Sidecountry right off the tram, have strong hip flexors and glute's.  I have never seen someone with such big heavy skis, boots, and bindings side step a slope through deep powder so effortlessly. It was like trying to follow a Swenson on skate skis...ain't gonna happen. I guess that's what 15 years of experience getting 100-plus days a year in does to you.  

Our local 'guide' was an acquaintance named Hunter that used to live down here. He's friend or family of BigDaddy and has been living the ski life up in Jackson for a long time. The last time I saw him was when at a Dropkick Murphy's show in Denver about 5 years ago.  Wednesday morning, Hayride and I were in line at the Village Cafe getting our first Tramline Breakfast Burrito (highly recommended) and a quad espresso, when I noticed Hunter step in line behind us.  I am pretty sure he didn't recognize me right off the bat, but it didn't matter, common ski bum courtesy had him inviting us to his place to crash and take us out for a tour one day.  We had a bro-deal place to stay a mere 50 paces away from the cafe, so we made plans to meet at the top of the tram sometime on Friday.  When Friday rolled around, Hayride and I were both pretty worked from two full days of skiing and thought some resort time would be easier than heading to the Pass again...think again.  

We met Hunter in Corbet's Cabin at the top and quickly realized what we had gotten ourselves into. Hunter asks what we're up for, and trying not to influence his normal routine I say something like, "whatever you want to do, we're good with anything."  The following statement has to be in the top ten classic ski quotes in my book, "How comfortable with air are you...?" Um...hmm...'more comfortable than I should be!' I thought to myself, but really said, "well...depends on how much air?" The funny thing is that I was just joking to Hayride on the ride up that Hunter wanted to take us down Corbet's Couloir on our first run.  That ended up being the truth

We headed straight from the cabin to the famous Corbet's Couloir.  The couloir has a mandatory drop-in of at least a few feet...and goes up to 20ft or something like that.  I wish I could've captured his full run on camera but i was having issues (shaking profusely?).  Hayride played it smart and decided to go around and watch us come down.  I gave into self-imposed peer pressure (myself talking to myself) and followed Hunter down the entrance.  He explained that you only need to slide-slip left down the initial chute to the top of the mandatory drop and then simply hop off, "smear the tails" to head right, then smear em again to cut left (before you hit the cliff wall) and then "you're all good!" Ok, can't be too bad (what does smear the tails mean anyways...?).  When he faltered and hip-checked the 5-footer I thought, OK, maybe it is kinda hard!

Tribute plaque to Doug Coombs in the 'cave' just under Corbet's couloir entrance

What can possibly go wrong I thought.  The new snow was all scraped off and the entrance was pretty shaded and icy.  My entrance was surprisingly ok; i made the right turn off the small cliff and only fell on my ass in the ensuing left turn, mostly because i was going so damn fast within 2 seconds of landing.  Then the main wide open couloir with deep cut-up powder. What took Hunter 5 turns to head down the run on his fat Rossi S7's took me at least 20 turns on my relatively skinny Manaslus.  I popped out of my right binding (again) once, bailed over the bars, but only ended up with serious leg burn at the bottom and smiling ear to ear.  Hole f'ing s%@#, what a sick opening run!

View north to the Tetons from the boundary of the resort

After Corbet's we headed down and quickly under a rope.  After some side-stepping I thought we'd be putting on skins, but 45 minutes later I realized we were gonna keep going that way.  No reason to have the skins in the pack here I guess! Around the backside of the resort, we eventually hit a cliff band and followed as Hunter tried to find an untracked route down.  Our chute was only somewhat south facing but i found out soon had a good suncrust under the 5" of new snow.  "Guides go last" he says, so i volunteer to go first.  Confidence lacking, I sluff the whole chute (which wasn't that wide anyways but still...) after one turn and eventually get myself down to the bottom to take photos. Hayride does much better than me as seen below.  Hunter heads down in maybe 1 turn, passing me at about 30mph on the way to the next traverse into Granite Canyon.

Hayride heading down the first chute

The traverse, heading to Granite Canyon and the ABC's.

We were headed to the "ABC's" or something like that, naming three of many chutes, glades, and couloirs that lead down into the canyon's bottom and the traverse back to the ski resort.  

Hayride dropped in first to the next chute at the top of what you see below.  He took a ride, in more than one way, down that couloir and lost a pole in the process (he is ok).  Hunter led me lookers right to the rocky ridge above the main couloir and said to, "go down around 7 turns....wait...make that 20 turns for you, and stop" as we wouldn't want to miss the chute back into the midway point of the couloir.  The next 20 turns in those shaded trees were the best flippin belly-deep champagne powder turns that I've ever had the luck to experience.  After I stopped, laughing aloud, we dropped into the couloir and met up with Hayride at the bottom, where i took the picture below. 

The bottom of A or something like that.  This alone was longer than any run in the Front Range.

The traverse out of here apparently is created/skied at the start of every season by Hunter and his bro, and involves many short uphills that you kinda side-step/skate up, so to scare away snowboarders he says (not sure what I think of that as I'm also a boarder!). 

Hunter heading out the canyon on a traverse.

Hayride did quite well on the way out with only one pole.  We got passed by a few people including one girl, and a half-hour later we're back in the resort.

One-pole Hayride sidestepping out of Granite Canyon into the resort.

The next tram ride up, after our almost 2 hour loop out to Granite, we headed to the south side of the resort to something called Rock Springs. A quick duck of the rope along a well-used trail, we were dropping into some nice short chutes with only lightly cut-up powder into a huge open bowl with massive granite-lined sides.  The pictures don't do this justice at all.  Hunter said he loves this run because it reminds him of the Alps and I can imagine why.

Hunter heading down a mini-chute to start out Rock Springs.

Hayride heading into lower Rock Springs.

Hayride, we came down from the left of that cliff on the right.

Back on the lower Hobacks (what is up with someone name HO-back getting so many things named after him...?) we headed straight home to open an Abyss and celebrate a fine day of skiing and a great few days of skiing in a truly amazing location.  If we had more time, I would've loved to do a long tour in the park but there's always another day.