Stubborn

Being stubborn thinking my very sore foot (remember the ski boot incident) was just fine I tried to ski after my shift at work. Jackson had opened another new lift (Sublette Quad, as well as the Tram) so I headed out to see what was left of the snow. The snow was mostly skied out, and it was bitter bitter cold out. While I was on the Sublette lift it stopped, in full wind, for a good 5 mins, I was very chilled by the time I got off the lift. In the end I was very cold and my foot ended up hurting so much that I was almost in tears. I gave up after only a few runs. Saddness...

In the evening, Mike, Brandon, AJ and I ended up playing Canasta. Brandon and I lost horribly, but it was still a fun time. I know you are laughing, we really are a bunch of old folks.

Tram Opens!

Kerry and I were both scheduled to work from 9-1, after a very busy morning we elected to take out some demos. I took out the Dynastar Legend Exclusive Powder in a 158, a mouthful of a name I know. I think I would enjoy them a lot if I had remembered how to ski. I was just generally a mess and the light was pretty flat. I am going to give them another try another day.

I now agree that bad things happen in threes. In the course of 40 mins I managed to do a cartwheel on my skis, landing the cartwheel on my head (ouch!). After calling it a day on my skis, I went back to the shop to return my skis, only to find out my boots were totally iced over so I slipped and fell on the floor (whoops). Then, worse still, I went down to the locker room to take off my boots and ended up dropping my ski boot while putting it on the rack, Kerry and I both jumped out of the way to save our toes, but somehow my boot bounced off the floor and ended up slitting open the bottom of my foot, right on the ball of my foot. It was a bloody mess and made it very painful to walk.

We headed home and ran to the post office to pick up my Christmas package then we made a quick dinner and met up with our neighbors to go to Tram Grand Opening Party. It was really cold out, but everyone was there with PBR in hand. The tram made its grand entrance, and what an event it was! Santa even repelled out of the tram. After the ceremony we headed Nick Wilson's (a bar/cafe at the base of the mountain) for a pitcher of beer with Corinna and Nikki, then we headed along to the Mangy Moose (another bar at the mountain) for the after party. It was a fun evening and I met a ton of new people that I will never remember the names of. :) Here is a video of the ceremony!



And some of my not so good photos (excuse me it was puking snow!)....

Brandon, me and Kerry.

The new tram!

Kerry warming up his hands while enjoying a beer (yes, those are my mittens).

Quick Post

On Wednesday when I was in the lift line my left shoulder was really sore when trying to get to the chair and I woke up on Thursday morning in a lot of pain. I was scheduled to work from 9-5 so I decided it was a good day to take a day off and get some hours in. For the first time I worked for 8 hours in a single day, a novel occasion!

Another day in the life

Last week I ran into a fellow UVM engineer and TBP memeber at a bar that I graduated with named Corinna. Corinna and her twin sister Nikki are both living in Jackson. Funny thing about Nikki, upon meeting her she was sure that she knew me. Turns out she had all of her accounting classes in college with my best friend Jess and had been to my apartment to work on various projects during senior year. It has been really nice getting to get to know both of them especially since they are my only female friends here in Jackson (I live with 3 guys right now and our neighbors are 3 more guys that we have made friends with). My life has become a bit of a sitcom really.

Anyhow, today Kerry and I went skiing with one of our neighbors AJ and Corinna. The resort opened a new lift so there was a bunch of fresh snow off of the Thunder Quad since it had been closed before that. It was great to get to ski fresh snow with some new friends. We all had our fair share of graceful falls and it was a day full of good hearty laughs and screams. Corinna was a bit hesitant about the powder, but ended up doing a great job. After being out so late the night before it was an early night in our house.

Tuesday is the new Friday night

After a hard day at Targhee I decided to sleep in, but I guess the world conspired against that, Jon ended up calling me at 1 am on Tuesday morning, and then I got another call at 7:30 am so my sleep was very broken. I ended up getting up at 8 and doing some random stuff around the house, then I decided 10 mins before the bus came that I wanted to go skiing. I hurried to get ready and headed out. The bus to the mountain ended up never showing up, so we got the town shuttle to call and find out what was wrong. Turns out the driver, who had been doing the route for several years forgot to go to the stop and pick us up. The supervisor felt very bad so he ended up driving out to pick two of us up and drove us all the way to the mountain with no other stops. Once I got there my phone died so I couldn't meet up with anyone, so I ended up exploring around by myself. It was very peaceful.

Tuesday night we went to see a bluegrass band that plays every week at the Silver Dollar Bar. We found a table next to a group of women out for a Christmas party. They were all wearing festive hats and the boys (Brandon, Kerry and Mike) started chatting with them and convinced them to give them the extra hats. The boys wore them around the bar for a while until I refused to be seen with them anymore. By the time the band started playing the bar was packed and it ended up turning into a great dance party. We all had a great time and will for sure be going back!

The boys stoked on their hats!

Day at Targhee

Kerry and I went on a big adventure today. Since we are Jackson employees we can go to Grand Targhee for free. They are 100% open and they have gotten crazy amounts of snow in the last few days. The drive over there was quite interesting. We came across a pair of elk running right in front of my car and went through some very small little towns in Wyoming and Idaho. The pass that takes you into Idaho was a bit slippery and the access road to Targhee was crazy slippery. We made it there safely thank to my sweet new snow tires.


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Roadtrip to Targhee.

The pass with huge rocks, sharp corners and 10% grade.

Elk.

Targhee access road.

Welcome to Targhee.

When we got there we ran into another guy from the retail shop that I run into all the time named Andrew in the ticket line. We jumped on the first lift and we were amazed with the wide open nature of the mountain. Once you are above the tree line it is literally a wide open snow field, you can only imagine what that is like in the wind... brrr. When we got off the lift there was a million choices of ways to go and beautiful blue skies. We headed off to the right and we were greeted with windblown powder, but after a few hundred yard the snow softened right up and we were in soft powder about shin to knee deep. Once we got near the bottom I was cruising along a traverse and I recognized our friend Jake from the rental shop. He was there with his roommate Adam. We ended up skiing with them until lunch. We all had our fair share of graceful falls, but it was a great time.

Not a bad view of the Tetons.

Perfect blue bird and snow trees.

Loving it.

Reflection.

We ran into Adam (left) and Jake (right).

Me skiing in the pow.

Action shot.

After a lunch break and warming up our toes, Kerry and I went out for a few more runs, but during lunch the clouds rolled in and the light turned totally flat. We ripped down a groomer and when we hit the bottom we both agreed we were feeling pretty tired and sloppy so we decided to head home before the snow in the pass got too bad. We stopped on the way home for a little snack and because I was feeling sleepy and needed to get out of the car. As we came over the pass on the way home a guy in a 2 ton pickup decided to pass another car, which meant he was barrelling down the hill while fishtailing heading straight at me in my lane. It was super scary, I don't know why some people have to drive like idoits in the snow. Overall a great day, I can't get over how amazing things are right now. I wake up every day and I think I must be dreaming. It is nice to be surrounded with so many nice people and to live in such a beautiful place.

Classic.

In the evening we watched a movie and then me and the boys (Kerry, Mike and Brandon) went on an adventure to Subway for dinner. Meatball subs were thoroughly enjoyed and we learned that here in Jackson they put way more meat on your sandwich than a normal Subway would, good deal.

Gondola and Casper Open

Jackson finally opened the gondola and casper lifts today. Kerry and I were on different shifts on Saturday so I ended up tooling around on my own after I got out of work at 1:30. On Sunday Kerry and I got sent home at 11:30 so we skied for a few hours. Many rocks were hit, skis survived okay though. The coverage was a bit better on Sunday because they worked out some of the rockier spots, but the unpleasant sound of rocks on your bases was still a common one. No pictures for these 2 days, really how many pictures of big mountains do we need.

Ski day count at 9.