Jackson Hole Backcountry Skiing - June 29, 2011

A little group of us did a great tour yesterday.  

Jackson Peak is a prominent peak on the east side of the Jackson Hole valley.  It's part of the Gros Ventre mountain range and the summit is 10,741 feet.  Jackson Peak is quite visible from most of the northern part of the Jackson Hole valley and the north-facing aspect of the peak hold snow pretty late in the season.

This photo is from "Adam" on Panaramio:  It shows the summit of Jackson Peak, as well as the old and second-growth forest we hiked through to get to the peak itself: 

I've never been to Jackson Peak and have wanted to ski the peak for a long time, so yesterday seemed like a good day to try.  We were able to drive up to the trailhead at around 8,000 feet.  From there, we walked on a logging road for about another 500 vertical until we ran into continuous snow.  From there, we skinned and bushwhacked through the forest until we finally came out at the base of the summit pitch.  From there, we booted a little over 1,000 vertical feet up to the summit.  It was a grunt.

Here are Jim and Peter booting the east couloir:

And then we trudge on up the summit ridge:

THe wind was absolutely howling on the summit and we quickly threw on clothes and jackets against the wind chill.  Dave is talking to a friend from down in the valley by the airport who is watching us with her telescope:

Incredibly beautiful surroundings:

We chose the center couloir off the north wall.  Peter headed valleyward:

And Jim with the Tetons in the far background:

Dave with a big smile on his face:

The little dots in the center of the photo are the rest of my party waiting for me:

Group shot at the bottom:

Crazy amount of snow for the end of June.

One of the other guys on the trip came up with this photo that shows the peak straight on.  I'll post a second copy a little later with our up and down routes marked.

Quote:

Originally Posted by qcanoe 

Kind of funny that you had never been to Jackson Peak before, while I, who have only spent about three days in the Jackson area in my entire life, and only a few weeks total west of the Appalachians, was up there last summer. Here is a photo from last July from about the same angle as your first one (though more zoomed in), showing how much less snow there was then.

 

 

That IS pretty interesting.  You beat me up there.  My wife has hiked it in the summer many times but I've just never gone along.  I've wanted to do it on skis for years and never gotten around to it.  

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bob Lee 

Nice!

It was.  Not nearly as ambitious as the project you and Russ tried a few weeks ago, but it was a really good tour.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tetonpwdrjunkie 

While you and Jim were having fun, I was staining Jims lawn furniture and wondering where he was.  Can't complain too much....  Gotta earn some money sometimes.  Jim came back looking whipped.  He said it was a grunt, but pretty good skiing.

Ha!  That's very ironic.  It was a grunt, for me anyway.  One cool thing about it is that we figured out the average age of our group is 63.5 years old.

I'm playing with the arrow feature on the computer, so here's the route...

Purple is skinning up.

Orange is booting up.

Blue is their route skiing down.

Blue to green is my route skiing down.

Black was the best-looking ski line, but that side of the bowl had been in full sun for a couple of hours and we didn't want to go over there out of concern for the snow stability.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tetonpwdrjunkie 

Bob....   Was Peter S. in that group?  He became a minor ski hero for me this winter when I overheard him say "I never dreamed I would be 60 (whatever) years old and wearing a helmet to work everyday".  I don't know him much, but see him and chat in the locker room and private line-ups.  On my way back to Jims house to stain more furniture.

Not Peter S.  He doesn't hike for turns (he's made that very clear over the years ).  It is really cool to see him in a SS uniform, though.  And I agree... a hero of mine as well.  It's really inspirational to see him arcing turns down AV in the afternoon.  Precise.

In a couple hours, I'm going to be sitting on Jim's furniture that you stained.  I'll toast you.