Wyoming (Montana) Trip Roundup

hey now,

Just got back Friday from a few days out west and just want to toss this
out for the archives:

Reference:

The original idea was 3 days at Grand Targhee and 1 at Jackson Hole.

The drive from Jackson Airport to Grand Targhee is a bit more than an
hour at normal speeds. There really aren't too many places to really
speed and its probably not advisable when going over Teton Pass!

Driggs Idaho is the nearest town to Grand Targhee (technically located
in Alta, Wy). Not a whole lot happening in Driggs, there are a few
restaurants and bars, locally oriented. They also have a nicely done
outdoors/snowboard shop called Yostmark. Its about 10 miles from the
traffic light in Driggs to Targhee and takes 15-20 mins depending on
snow. When going up the winding section of road, heads up for deer.

Targhee does not look like it gets overly crowded just judging by the
limited parking. The mountain itself does not have tremendous vertical,
but is totally wide open. There are groomed 'runs' but if there is
powder then you just go wherever. There are steeps, chutes and the like
(as told me). Also there are 'inbounds' hikable terrain.

As I was told earlier - there is no 'night life' to speak of. Weekends
they have a band in the one bar and it was pretty full until 930 or so.
Weeknights..ghost town. Also very limited food choices. Steakhouse
was good, but NY prices.

Trip:

The prior week was very warm but temps dropped down to near 0 the night
we arrived. There had been no new snow for 12 days. Even so, conditions
on the groomers were quite ok under sunny skies the next day. While
they don't have the greatest vert, the runs are more down than outwards.
2nd day things were a bit more skiied off and firm. Locals were
complaining it was icy, but I saw no shiney snow nor blue stuff.. must
be east vs west coast thing

3rd day we decided to drive to Big Sky in Montana after hearing they had
about 5" day before and Bridger got a foot. Ref: The drive takes about
3 hours in good/moderately good conditions (we had some snow near the end).
About 160 miles each way and goes through part of Yellowstone.

Big Sky ended up being the highlight of the trip. From 1030 until we
left at 430 it was snowing. About 10" at bottom, near 20 at the top.
The snow was pretty dry too. Things never get crowded here and the runs
are generally very long and it remains one of my (if not the) favorites.

The last full day we were torn between riding at Targee who got 5-8" and
motivating to Jackson for 7-9". As this would be our only chance at
Jackson Hole, we moved on. In retrospect, snow-wise it was the wrong
move as the bottom runs were not quite corn, and further up the snow
was kinda odd - I think blocky is best word - not sloppy wet just very
clumpy. That and being beat I don't think we did the mountain justice.


Referene:

Jackson Hole looks like it can get crowded early in the day. The
lines for the Cram and Gondola were tremendous the next morning when
we left. I thought I had seen a lot of the beautiful people at Squaw
last year, but have to say I've never seen as many cell phones in use
on a mountain as I did at JH, including people stopping their runs. The
talent level was very high Prices however weren't quite as brutal as
I feared. Also, they have a large repair shop which will do a full
tune including base grind on a stone for $48 (needed after Vermont,
Montana and JH rocks this season). Board looks great.

Summary:

This trip should be done earlier in the year to ensure good snow
conditions, my guess late Jan thru late Feb. If you absolutely must
have vert, JH is a must. If you want a lot of open terrain with
some accessable hiking terrain and smaller crowds I think Targhee would
be a good choice for a couple of days. Big Sky is somewhere in between
and well worth a look.

On Sat, 19 Mar 2005 20:40:17 GMT, (Mike M. Miskulin)
allegedly wrote:

Jackson Hole looks like it can get crowded early in the day. The
lines for the Cram and Gondola were tremendous the next morning when
we left.

Nice report Mike... from my trip out there, I learnt that you have to get
up very early to get fresh tracks on a powder day. I heard people queue
from 6am for the tram!

- Dave.

--
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