The final week in the Jackson Hole’s regular winter season is always action packed! Lots of great events to wrap up the season: Mountain Festival, Gaper Fools Day, and April 4th, the final lift service day of the season. There was also one other event that was taking place… It was snowing.
We are not talking about a dusting, of a few inch’s here and there. Finally, just as everyone had given up on skiing and resorted to carriers in professional drinking a real winter storm cycle started to roll in. A deep low pressure system formed off over the pacific with really cold air pushed its way over the coast, covering all the western US mountains. Tahoe got dumped on again, Whistler got a couple meters and finally Jackson Hole got the goods! 80inchs in 2 weeks. Winter came back for round 2.
The 31st of March we saw some real brutal winter weather conditions. Winds up to 160km’s an hour were blowing on the peak. It was dumping hard. Too much for most people. The conditions were intense! The upper lifts were on wind hold in the morning. Then the tram even went down, AV, Casper. Leaving the Gondola and Thunder open.
A few of us lapped thunder for a coupe hours. The skiing was just stupid, in a very good way. Every run down was totally fresh, mostly due to the wind covering your tracks from the last run. Something that I haven’t experienced this season, a term know as ‘Free refills.’ This only lasted a couple hours until the weather got a bit too furious and the mountain got shut down for the day.
April 1st: Gaper Fools day. One of the guaranteed high light of a season at Jackson Hole. The idea is to dress up like a ‘Gaper’ (Is a person that you see at a ski resort that just has no idea. Pretending to be somebody there not, or thinking they are all that but really are clue less to modern day ski attire or ski equipment. This person is a Gaper.)
So everyone is suppose to dress up like an Idiot and ski around on 205cm straight skis with rear entry boots. Followed by a big party at the base of the resort. This is all fine but considering it had not stopped snowing in a couple days, we weren’t about to joke around and not properly make use of the awesome snow. Well not right away anyway.
I met up with a few mates and we headed up to the Crags. Definitely in the top 3 of my favorite runs on the resort. With a mission for the day I met up with Tristan Grezko. He wanted to get some shots in the snow using a big flash. Requiring a camera man and a guys holding a battery a little bigger than one in a car, and a big camera flash on the end of a boom. Pretty interesting process trying to get all people working together to get the shot. It was a lot harder and slower than the normal process of shooting ski shots,. But the end result is pretty awesome!
Photos by Tristan Greszko
Time to transform my self into a Gaper and join the party… Not a lot can be said, things got a little crazy to say the least. Everyone got pretty involved with the theme. Just to top off the day / night, it continued to dump snow… Everyone was pretty excited for the final 3 days for the season.
2nd April: Up at 8ish, the I jumped out of bed, my head definitely pounding. I raced down stairs to see if it had cleared… It did. Blue sky and fresh snow, it looked awesome. Unfortunately as much as I wanted too, skiing wasn’t going to happen today. Too much to do, packing, take Andrew to the airport, more packing...
3rd April: Weather came back in, snowing and windy again. Had to make the most of it, second last day and all.
First tram, skied hard all morning finished at about 2.30pm. Headed home for some more packing and cleaning…
4th April The final day: Up early 7am, on the bus at 8, in the tram line at about 20 past. The weather had eased up there was some cloud around but it was thin, and had that look about it.. Maybe its going to lift?
By 9am the line for the tram was about 250 people deep. We made it on the first box. On the way up the conditions look good, but as we looked past the resort boundary, it was looking even better. The atmosphere in the tram that morning was pretty amazing. Excitement for the snow, disappointment for the end of the season. Everyone was just going to go for it.
We unloaded and headed strait to the top gate making a b-line for 4 Pines. Once up the top we glanced down the fall line… Totally fresh. The clouds ware lifting and the un was poking through. There was still some very light snow falling, the light was almost magical. “This could be the best run of the season…”
It pretty much was. So go we did it again, strait up. Just as good, almost better.
12.30, what a morning! To the VC for lunch and beer to reflect on the amazing morning. Everyone in the village had a smile from ear to ear. No matter where you would have skied that morning, it would have been blower.
I spent the afternoon making the most of the resort charging around with Meg and Hillary. We skied hard until about 3pm. Exhausted, but there was one more box I needed to tick off for the day. Last tram of the season.
The tram normally closes at 3.30pm but to be on the last tram of the season is a bit of a fine art. First, everyone want to be on it, so there’s going to be a line. But you don’t want to be too early and end up on the second last tram, or be too late and miss it totally.
Meg and I just made it, 4th and 5th through the gate… Once again a pretty special atmosphere in the tram, the final run for the season. A definite sense of sadness and excitement.
Pretty much too tired to really enjoy the final run of the season, but we made it down. Very thirsty I might add, beer o’clock. The final après session of the season did not disappoint. Hundreds of people partying and having a good time. DJ Cutter mixing up a storm. An awesome and to an awesome season at Jackson Hole.
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