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JACKSON
HOLE
January 20-25,
2002
Another
state down the drain!
Guys are kind of funny when it
comes to their bowel habits, but we swear, this REALLY doesn't
have anything to do with that! You see, one of the things all of
us take great pride in is the fact that we've taken the time and
spent the money to travel this great country of ours. Of course some of
us have done this because we've traveled on business, but for
the most part, Hogs just travel a lot.
One of our goals is to visit
every state in the union and the Hogs have an open challenge
amongst themselves to see who will accomplish this first.
However, we needed to develop criteria for "claiming"
a state. You couldn't just be passing through and claim it. You
had to stay there long enough to.......to.....take a dump!
Caveman has every state west of
the Mississippi except for Arkansas, Alaska, Idaho and Surprise!
Wyoming! After the Olympics scared us asway from Salt Lake City,
we had to come up with alternate plans for this year's trip. Big
Sky was in the lead at one point, but guess what? Jackson Hole
was suggested by you guessed it, Caveman Joe!
The only experience any of us
have had with Jackson Hole was Schpoo who had skiied there over
20 years ago. As most of you know, Schpoo is by far the most
accomplished skier amongst the Hogs. It was his opinion that
Jackson Hole would tax the ability of just about every one of
us. He tempered his assessment by stating that Jackson
Hole was his first foray out West, and at the time he was easily
impressed. However, from his recollection, Jackson Hole would
challenge us severely.
We all had a sense of foreboding
about this, but what the heck, we decided to go somewhere where
we haven't been before. Jackson Hole it was. Since we had
decided fairly early in the game, it would allow all of us to
get into tip top physical condition for the grueling trip ahead
of us. We each had 5 months to get ready.
Guess what? Nothing happened in
the preparation end of things. A big mistake. A real big
mistake! More on that later.
Not only would the mountain be a
challenge on this trip, but the weather would be as well. When
Philster and I left from Chicago, we had no idea that we would
be holed up in Denver Airport for six hours. The reason was that
visibility was almost zero in Jackson Hole, and if conditions
didn't improve, our flight would be cancelled. As it stood now,
we were scheduled to leave Denver at 7:30pm, over 6 hours later
than expected.
So, Phil and I decided to while
away the time by watching the St. Louis Rams dismantle the Green
Bay Packers. Oh darn! It was fun watching Favre choke YET AGAIN!
In the meantime, my resolve to quit smoking before the trip had
failed. I was down to two cigarettes a day, but sitting in this
bar with beer flowing, football on the tube and wild kinky
broads lighting up super thin cigarettes, got me in the mood to
light up. Oh well.
Our 737 was having a hell of a
time navigating its way into the airport. The wind was buffeting
us pretty good. Lucky for us, we're seasoned flyers,
but a couple of less experienced folks had to reach for the barf
bags.
We deplaned right on the tarmac.
God what a tiny airport! Plus it was in the middle of nowhere!
There was snow blowing all around us and it was pitch black.
Caveman had a rental set up at National for us, but there was no
National counter in the airport, and no National Shuttle picking
anyone up. We called their office, but they must close after
9pm. Philster and I decided to set up a rental with Hertz. While
he was setting things up, I went outside for a smoke. What a
foreboding looking evening. There was a hanging sign with a bus
schedule that was swinging wildly in the wind as snow was
whipping all around me.
We had to dig out our Ford
Taurus. Lucky for us, the goofs had washed the car before they
parked it outside so all of the doors were pretty much frozen
shut. The windshield wipers were almost useless despite the fact
that the car only had 500 miles on it.
Philster did his best to navigate
his way out of the airport. With the barely functional wipers,
the blowing snow, the dark road and the poor condition of the
road itself, it was a major challenge to drive back into town.
It took us 50 minutes to drive 10 miles into Jackson. Things got
better in town as we picked up supplies (Beer). We then searched
and found the rental office for the Ten Sleep Condo that we had
reserved.
It was another 10 miles up the
road to Jackson Hole. This is where the trip got really hairy.
The wipers had all but given up and the snow was freezing on the
windshield. A couple of times Philster was off the road. We kept
creeping along until finally we hit the village. Luckily, we
were able to find our Condo. Unfortunately for us, it was a
complete dump. The furniture was a joke and it was pretty
filthy. It did have two bedrooms with two queen beds.
Doug and Joe were supposed to
have been here before us. We found out that they were trying
desperately get into Jackson from Dallas. They were in Salt Lake
City, but American was preparing to fly them back home. When
they got back home, Doug and Joe booked a flight out to Denver
and somehow conned American into paying for their lodging. Why
they wouldn't allow them to stay over in Salt Lake had something
to do with airline "policy". Doug and Joe figured
their chances of getting into Jackson from Denver were better
than from Dallas since American stupidly flied 757s in from
Dallas (they fly their stupid MD80s everywhere else!) which
severely limits their chances of landing at the tiny Jackson
airport.
After blowing a whole day waiting
for Doug and Joe to arrive, we got the pay off when they finally
did arrive on a United Express flight. From the looks of things
that would be the last plane to land as the weather turned ugly
once again. Sure enough, American's flight from Dallas never
arrived that day. Instead, they flew to Salt Lake. Only this
time, they let people off instead of flying back. Go figure. As
a side note, this was Monday. The Dallas flight finally got
there on Wednesday.
We also took the opportunity to
dump our Ford Taurus for a Subaru Outback. It was an upgrade
that we really needed with the weather being the way it was and
pretty much stayed for the whole trip.
That evening we decided to dine
at the Mangy Moose, the only reliable restaurant in the village
which also served as a fairly decent Apres Skiing watering hole
too! We found the restaurant overpriced and mediocre, although
the locals swear by it! Walking out to the car we realized it
had snowed another six inches while we were dining. Groan!
POWDER! Great stuff for the locals, but us flatlanders don't
care to hear the rejoicing phrase "Powder DUDE" on the
slopes. While we were wiping off the Outback, Philster
accidentally locked the keys in the car with the motor running.
Great! After calling the rental company only to find that the
local office was what else? CLOSED, we realized the car actually
originated from Idaho. It was doubtful the local office had a
spare set anyway. Hertz sent out a local lock smith and with
that I lit up what turned out to be my LAST cigarette (hopefully
forever). Surprisingly, the lock smith dude showed up within a
half hour (Teton Village is in the middle of NOWHERE) and had
the car open for business.
Day One: POWDER DUDE!!!
We had actually planned four full
days of skiing, but now we had lost one full day waiting for the
Dallas contingent. Another foot of white stuff had fallen during
the night. Oh joy! Our neighbors were loading up their vehicle
for the drive back to the airport, hopeful that their flight
would be cancelled. "This would be the most awesome day to
ski. Yesterday we were waist deep, I can only imagine what it
would be like up there today. We really envy you guys".
This from the poor sot who was wiping the last of the snow off
of his rental. "We can hardly wait" I replied
unconvincingly.
We bravely purchased the three
out of four day pass since we were going to save a couple of
bucks this way. It was 162 dollars for three days of skiing
which saved us 6 whole dollars.
We were looking for groomed runs
but, it was pretty apparent that today even the blues on
Teewinot Face wouldn't even be touched by mankind. It was a
tough, grueling day as we basically stuck with Upper Werner and
all of the blues on this side of the mountain.
I was really bemoaning the fact
that we had forsaken our commitment to physical fitness. My legs
were burning and I was gassed pretty much the whole day. A
totally pitiful performance.
Day Two: POWDER DUDE!!!
Ok, well, it wasn't as bad as day
one, but us idiots actually sought out the powder this time. To
our delight, Werner, Moran, Symmetry and all of the wonderful
blues on Teewinot were groomed nicely. We were actually getting
a good half day skiing in. I hadn't been on skis in 2 years
since I had missed last year's ski trip. So I thought that I
shouldn't be too hard on myself. My legs were tired though, and
I was huffing and puffing and making plenty of stops.
After lunch we decided to take
the Gondola up to Gondola Summit. I wasn't too enthusiastic
about our decision as I was perfectly comfortable skiing Werner
and Moran. I got separated from the boys and sat in with a bunch
of 18-21 year old snowboarders from what appeared to be New
Zealand or Australia. A sense of foreboding came over me as I
noticed that the young chaps were covered head to toe in snow.
For the first 5 minutes of our journey they were busily removing
chunks of snow from their hats, goggles, gloves, ears and
nostrils. After that they decided to banter back and forth about
how awesome this trip has been. I meekly suggested that this was
my first trip up the Bridger Gondola. What might I find up here?
"Steep! Deep!"
Fuckin' Joe. Fuckin' Doug. I'm
gonna kill 'em when I see 'em. I get off the Gondola and Doug is
busy studying the map. "Steep and Deep boys", that's
the report I got from the Gondola. Put the damn map away Doug,
we're screwed. By this time I noticed that wind was whipping
around here pretty horror show. Whatever signage there was was
pretty difficult to make out.
"Where do you guys wanna
go?" Joe asked bravely. I asked an older gentleman who was
probably in his 60's "Would you know of any groomed runs we
could ski down?" "Try Sun Valley" he laughed. Oh
great. Just then Doug said "Gros Ventre" just like its
spelled. "Gros Ventre, let's try that one". The old
man laughed at us flatlanders: "Grow Vahn. The BIG
Indian". He laughed again as he skied off into the whirling
snow only to disappear within seconds.
"Powder Dude" Joe
exclaimed in his best gnarly California surfer dude imitation.
The Big Indian is one big run, except we missed it somehow with
the confusion of white out conditions and we took a fairly meek
ungroomed blue called "Lupine Way". It should have
been renamed "Supine Way", but that's another story.
We struggled our way down the run, but surprisingly we were
skiing better in the crud. It was just that the weather was
making it tough, and I realized that my goggles had busted and
were allowing all kinds of wonderful piercing precipitation onto
my face and eye balls. We meandered our way down a run called
Amphitheatre and wound up at the bottom of the Thunder Quad
Chair.
There appeared to be nowhere to
go. Nothing but God awful steep ungroomed chutes. "Powder
Dude" Joe exclaimed again annoyingly. "Let's take this
chair lift" Joe proclaimed. "How about looking
at a map first?" I asked. "Oh who cares about
maps" Joe chided. Well after some of Schpoo's stories about
Jackson Hole, I decided that I was going to make my down
somehow. Forget the Thunder Quad.
Somehow we found a traverse
called South Pass Traverse which hooked up with a nice little
steep slow skiing blue which lead me back to safety.
"Powder Dude" Joe said.
"I'm heading to the Moose for beer, I'm done".
That evening we headed into town
and ate at Bubba's Barbecue. A very laid back, tasty affair that
was extremely affordable. It comes highly recommended.
Day Three: POWDER DUDE!!!
Of all of us, Doug, the oldest
Hog, was skiing the best. He genuinely felt that he could master
this "powder thing" once and for all. He just needed
the right equipment. It didn't take long for him to buy up a new
pair of "Shaped Skis". And boy, was it noticeable!
Doug said he felt more confident and felt that he was using less
effort with the new skis. It was pretty obvious to us. So when
we headed down, the rest of us decided to rent these skis and
try them out for the day.
The young buck behind the counter
was explaining to us the difference between the skis. He felt we
were making the right decision to rent them first since he felt
some people just aren't cut out for them. For example his uncle
swears by his "straight sticks" and wouldn't trade
them in for anything. We found out, that there is a little bit
of an adjustment, but that it wasn't noticeable until you
switched BACK to your straight sticks. Then, you seemed to
notice some unsteadiness.
I also bought a decent pair of
goggles for the first time in my life. All of my goggles have
been throw ins, or have been found. This time, I took advantage
of the "new technology" (sometimes I think they just
change something, whether its for the good or bad, just change
something and call it "new technology". A good example
are rear entry boots). These new "parabolic" goggles
offered clearer and more peripheral vision. I felt confidence
surging in my blood. I had new goggles, shaped skis and a new
attitude.
Lets go after that Big Indian.
As the day wore on we all became
much more proficient at this powder skiing. I still enjoy
shooting down a totally groomed run at 50 miles an hour (or what
ever), but we were all starting to get the hang of it.
The one thing I swore to myself
was take better care of myself. I want to keep skiing until well
into my 70s, so I can tell some flatlander that the nearest
groomed run is in Sun Valley as I ski down Gros Ventre laughing
my ass off. Our CTEs were coming up after the Super Bowl. Mine
was, no smoking, drinking and no more fast food. I was also
going to get into shape for next year, and hopefully if I got a
head start, I could apply some gains to our next trip in a
couple of months.
We'll see, but until then, I'm
still dreaming of the day when I hit the slope and happily
exclaim: "POWDER DUDE!!!"
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