Some photos...

Sunshine and a dusting of snow makes for a pretty morning walk....

A little love.

Lingering fog dancing in the sunshine.

Dusting.

Serene.

Bluebird.

Shadows.

Birch tree.

Not too much baseball happening.

Back at it

I made it through my first 2 days of skiing. The first day was on Tuesday, I went out with a big crew of friends from back home and also the rental shop. We lapped the bunny slope for a while and everyone went through the little terrian park that we were calling park-a-sorous. I took out our basic rental skis from the shop, the Rossingol Voodoo 74 in a 146. They were an interesting ski, certainly built back my confidence, they were light and easy to move around, but really didn't hold edges well. After a few laps on the bunny slope Sean, Eric and I went up to Apres Vous (the intermediate area). We did a few runs and then went in for lunch. On the bunny slope there was no pain at all, but it is also flat. The intermediate area caused my knee to be a bit achy, but nothing major. After lunch I took the gondola up. I got to the top though and had a moment of panic when I realized I had no idea how to get down since I had never paid any attention to the signs I didn't know what was rated blue and also was groomed. I ended up facing my fears and went on the trail I got hurt on. I really had no concept of how far I had gone on one leg. After working until 6:15 we went home and went to the WORT for bluegrass Tuesday.

First run on Tee-Wee.

Riding AV.

First real run with the brace, notice how huge my knee is.

Riding the rope tow!!

Top of the gondola.

Another Tuesday at the Wort (great expressions here).

The engineers.

PBR.

Wednesday I worked from 7:45 until 2 so I elected to take the day off from skiing. Our boss in the rental shop told us that at the top of the Tram (the highest point at Jackson ~10000ft) in the cabin they serve waffles and that with our employee pass it is only 2.50 (a bargin for food at the resort). Alex, Jacki and Kerry and I all rode up the tram to get waffles. We got there at 2:35 only to find out that they turn off the waffle irons at 2:30, but because we were so excited they turned them back on for us. The clerk asked us all how we wanted to pay, and I guess he must have assumed we were 2 couples because he asked if we wanted to pay couple by couple, we laughed and all said "no singles..." Alex, Kerry and I got Nutella on ours and Jacki got brown sugar buteer. They slightly overcooked Kerry's so we got one for free with strawberry presevers and whipped cream. It was a good time with awesome friends. Afterward the rest skiied down and I took the tram down.

Our new 100 person tram.

Today was day 2 post MCL. Kerry and Jacki were trying out snowboarding so I hung out on the bunny slope for a few runs. Jacki was snowboarding for the first time ever and Kerry for the first time in 6 years. Somehow, despite the fact that I was on skis I managed to give Jacki some of my limited snowboarding advice even though I haven't snowboarded in 2 years and have gone a total of 8 times. She did really well, especially after AJ gave her a mini-lesson. After a few runs I went up to Apres Vous and did a few blue runs, my knee felt really good and my biggest complaint of the day was that my ears were cold. After the other day on the performance skis from the shop (Rossignol Voodo 74's) I decided to take out some demos (Rossingol Scratch BC Girl). The Scratch BC were so much more responsive and lively. When I first rented them out I noticed that the edge was compressed in, which seemed like a big problem, but the guys in the repair shop told me to give it a try and just to keep the damaged ski on my non-injured leg. They also told me to bring them back in if they felt funny, but they felt great. I managed do 12 min laps of Apres Vous lift (liftline to liftline) which is pretty respectable (pre-injury record was 10 mins). My knee is feeling really good. Tonight Caroline, Melanie and Els (they all stayed at our house for 2 weeks while they were homeless) came over and made us all dinner. It was great. Now we are down to 5 in our house, Kerry, Mike and me and then Sean and Eric (friends from UVM). It is much quieter these days.

Ski count at 19.

Some random other photos....

Monday night at the Caddy.

Sean and Kerry riding geese ($24,000 geese).

$42,000 cowboy, now we have to ask why these are sitting outside.....

My very own cowboy boots!!!

Well since today is Christmas Eve I decided to treat myself to a present I have been wanting for a while- my very own pair of cowboy boots. I bought them at Stone's Mercantile in downtown Jackson. They are handmade in Texas out of bison. I couldn't be more excited about them!

My very own pair of cowboy boots!

I also bought my first Christmas ornament while I was downtown. It is a little moose that is actually made out of leather. I figured I should start collecting ornaments much like my parents have from all of our family adventures.

He's all made out of leather.

Beautiful snow covered streets. This is the norm here, they don't salt or bring it down to pavement.

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.


View Larger Map

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.

Christmas Tree Hunting

Kerry and I actually managed to work a full shift today and it was filled with characters. To add to our collection of entertaining renters we now have a 6'9" skier, a pair of children that speak no English and need ski boots, a kindly old man that heard nothing I told him because he didn't have his hearing aid, and also a very intense woman who blamed us for the lack of snow. The little children from Mexico City were my favorite, Roberta (the older girl) took a liking to me despite our language barrier she continually asked me if I was going to be her ski teacher. She had a little 2 year old cousin who ran off in the shop and almost got stuck between 2 rows of rolling shelves. It was quite a challenge to convince a 2 year old that speaks no English to stop and let me pry her out.

After a very entertaining morning at work we met up with Sarah for our Christmas tree hunt. we took Sarah's car because Kerry's seems to have a coolant leak and mine doesn't have a roof rack. We decided to head out toward the Gros Venture area past the Teton Science School. We headed down a park road past the school and continued to drive until Sarah got nervous we might not be able to get back out. After much deliberation we finally decided that we wanted the top half of a 12 foot tall tree. Kerry and Mike did the cutting, carrying and tying and we were on our way home.

Out for a drive.

Consulting the map.

Let the hunt begin.

Discussing an option.

Cutting down our final choice.

Our measuring system.

Bringing it back to the car.

Once we got home and got the tree up in the stand my job of decorating began. Being poor we elected to just decorate with white paper snowflakes tied with some scrap red yarn. We also came across some gold balls at Kmart that were pretty cheap so we added some of those. My mom also gave me a few sets of lights and some red ribbon to dress it up. All and all it came out very nice and our neighbors have already commented on how pretty it is.

Decoration sequence.

Final product.

Hiking adventure

This morning I got it in my head that I was going to go hiking since it was a fairly warm day and partly cloudy. Since Snow King isn't open yet that was the optimal spot. Kerry decided to join me for my adventure so we headed out the door and across the road and we were at the lift which we have taken to calling the yellow and blue lift (the Rafferty Chair if you are looking at the map). We hiked up a green trail (the gentlest slope) called Slow Trail starting at the bottom of the blue and yellow lift. Due to the altitude, and our bodies trouble with it, it was very slow going. It seemed like every couple hundred yards we had to stop because our hearts were pounding. I guess after living at 52 feet above sea level for 6 months and then moving to a base elevation of 6209 feet makes for quite a hard change on the body. Let alone then hiking from 6209 ft to 8008 ft.

The yellow and blue lift.

Kerry enjoying the nice weather.

It seems that Snow King had been hoping to be open much earlier because the snow guns were ready and raring to go as soon as the temperature drops and all of the signage was up on each trail. We had to laugh at the Thin Cover signs that could be seen all over the trail heads. We were quite surprised to find that apparently hiking Snow King is the popular thing to do in Jackson on a Saturday, we probably saw at least 15 people all out for a hike with their dogs.

Thin cover? No kidding....

The sun coming out to play.

The beautiful Tetons rising above Jackson.

We reached the summit (7800 ft at the top of the lift) and noticed that we could hike an additional 200 feet of vertical up to the top of the mountain where there were several radio towers (elevation 8008 ft) and a beautiful view. We decided to go past the No Trespassing sign and get the full view.

So when we both miraculously come down with some random disease we will know why.

Kerry and I with the beautiful mountains behind us.

Later that evening as we were sitting around in our living room and happened to catch the sunset off our back porch. Not exactly roughing it....

Sunset from our porch.