For all those Wind River rock-jocks out there, Joe Josephson has teamed up with Steve Bechtel to put out a new pocket/pack sized guidebook for the “Cirque of the Towers and Deep Lake” region. I’ve checked it out at the shop and they are nicely done, with informative trail and route maps, as well as […]
Trip Reports By Region
I got out with Penn Newhard and Greg Williams from Backbone Media this past Tuesday and even though the temps weren’t that cold, the snow still set up nice to make for fast spring time travel. We toured up to the Teewinot/Mt Owen Plateau and skied the Southwest Couloir of Teewinot. Here are some pictures […]
Can you spot the skier in this photo? You’ll never guess who. From a trip to the Teewinot/Mt. Owen Plateau on Tuesday.
Sunrise on Rockchuck. I’ve been out skiing the past four days…nothing too exciting though. Two shutdowns and two mini-lines out of the String Lake Trailhead. There have been some good freezes at night, but the weather forecasting has been tough. The shutdowns were due to lingering weather in the early morning hours. Both successful trips […]
Went up to Garnett Canyon on Saturday and skied West Hourglass Couloir with my friend Chris. Surprisingly, there was no one in the parking lot at 7 am on the first bluebird powder day we’ve had in a long time. I think a lot of people must be out of town…or just over skiing…if that’s […]
Randosteve sees another reason to come back. The wind blew all afternoon and night after touring up Mile Long Lake, and when we rolled out of the Megamid on our third day, we could see clouds lingering to the south…over Down Mountain…our objective for the day. I was pretty excited to explore a new area […]
I’m gonna milk one more post out of the Winds trip, but I wanted to congratulate Bryan Feinstein, Colin O’Farrell and Ty Cook for a descent of the rad Otterbody Route on the Grand Teton last week. If I have my numbers right, only four other people have previously skied or snowboarded the route…”old school” […]
Randosteve skis a Y-Couloir in the Winds. After a cold night in the Megamid, Mike and I finally forced ourselves out around 7:30. We didn’t feel the suns rays until almost 9, due to our proximity behind some large cliffs and it made putting our frozen boots back on that much harder. The morning coffee […]
Randosteve hikes along the high open slopes of Whiskey Mountain. After visiting the Ross Lake area of the Northern Winds River Range last year, I knew I would return. For those willing to gut out the dry approach, the variety of touring and skiing possibilities is endless. I thought this second trip would quench my […]
Bighorn sheep peer over a ridge line in front of the mountains of the Ross Lake region. I’m back from my trip to the Northern Winds loving where I live even more…and I’m not even talking about the skiing. More later.
I’m off to the Northern Wind River Mountains today to explore some new terrain (see map) for a few days with Mike Calla. I will be back next week. The zone we are going to be in has some cool and varied terrain, ranging from some tight couloirs I spotted the last time I made […]
Did the bike-ski-bike thing in the park this weekend and skied the East Face of Teewinot on Friday with Bryan, Colin and Ty. We were on our bikes at 5am and watched the sunrise as we climbed the Apex to the bottom of the route. Clouds lingered around the summit for most of the morning […]
Small avalanche just above the Meadows in Garnet Canyon today. Well, looks like I went 1 for 3 this week…scoring a fun descent yesterday, but today, high winds shutdown a planned descent in Garnet Canyon. I have a feeling a few other groups got turned around as well, since the forecast was for mostly sunny […]
Chris enjoys a moment of visibility above the Devil’s Stairs in the South Fork of Teton Canyon. Went couloir hunting in Teton Canyon with my friend Chris yesterday. Unfortunately the clouds obscured our objective, but we had some fun dust on crust skiing non-the-less. As we toured above Devil’s Stairs, a nice sucker hole came […]
Having made the decision to ski the couloir, it was now time to act and ski with confidence. Steep and tight couloirs are no place to be if your are tentative and you must be ready for anything…an icy patch…some breakable crust…windslab…you never know what you’ll get. Reed skied the top section first and the […]
Not skiing for a few days. I’m in Needham, MA visiting family. Hope I’m not missing anything. The Southeast Couloir of Buck Mountain is in the center of the photo, in the shadow behind the rock buttress. Click on photos for largest image. On Wednesday, Reed and I made our second attempt to ski the […]
I found myself at the top of Wimpys, three out of four days last week. Some people may think it’s lame to ski the same run all the time, but when it nuking winds and dumping a foot of snow a day, who can blame me for heading to slopes I’m familiar with and I […]
On Easter Sunday, I tried to ski the Skillet Glacier in a day. I tried to avoid this trip as much as possible since I wasn’t that psyched about the 2 am start at Jackson Lake. It would also be my fifth day of skiing the backcountry in row and I wasn’t sure how strong […]
I played hooky from the rando race this weekend because conditions were just too good with a bunch of fresh snow and blue skies. The timing was just right and I took advantage of the good weather to ski a new line that I have been looking at for many years with Bryan Feinstein and […]