Buck Mountain (Teton Range)

As I write this report, I'm still stoked from my summit of Buck Mountain in GTNP this past weekend.  I did the trip with Aaron Dahill of Exum Mountain Guides.  With 2011 being the great snow year that it was, I decided to try the 12 months of skiing thing.  Being from Jackson originally, I opted to use the Tetons as part of this quest.  I made fun trips to Teewinot, the Middle Teton Glacier from the Dike Pinnacle and the Cave Couloir.  I wasn't able to summit any of these, either because of conditions, or my equipment or my conditioning.  So, I tried Teewinot again the first of this month and didn't make the summit, due to deep snow - in May.   Here is a writeup on that venture, (http://hi-adventure.com/teewinot-quest/).

I had pretty much decided that I was done with the peaks for the year, but then Aaron emailed me and said he'd been up to Buck and it was skiing great.  That was all I needed.  We were on for the 19th.  (I do have an advantage over a lot of people in that Boise is only about a 6 hour drive from JH and my Aunt lives within 10 minutes of the park entrance).

We headed out at 4:00AM and hit the summit at 9:30.  Buck Mountain is the 7th highest Summit of the Tetons, and so now I'm on my way to climbing/skiing all 7.  (I should add here that I was right at my physical limits and so I have already upped my training and nutrition in preparation for next seasons attempts).  The skiing was fantastic and we got over 4,000 vertical of skiing!

At my age and relative inexperience in big mountain attempts, I have opted to use a guide service to do these climbs and ski descents.  (plus that is the only way my wife will let me do it).  For those of you out there who would like to try this but haven't got the experience, I would highly recommend this route.  I have been on 3 trips now with the Exum guides and I am very impressed with how much I learn and how much fun I'm having.  Oh, BTW I did get my 12 months of skiing in, but Bob Peters' record string of a gazillion years in a row is still intact!

For additional details and GPS data on this adventure, I have it posted here on my website: (http://hi-adventure.com/buck-mountain-ski-descent/).

Here is the video of the highlights of the descent:

thanks for the reply.   There are a couple of couloirs that come off Buck near the summit that go down into Avalanche Canyon.  They are steep and tight!

thanks for the compliments.  the upper steep skiing was fun, but i was definitely ok with the belay.  I know some people think that sounds to restictive, but i don't mind it at all.  Plus, not only is it super steep, but by the time i had climbed all the way up with my gear, my legs were at the edge physically.  if only i was younger! 

@ Bob, thanks for the compliments and i look forward to doing some Teton TRs

@ 4ster, This was my third time on belay, (second time with Aaron).  In my case I don't find that it constrains me at all in that kind of terrain.  For me, every turn is calculated at that level anyway, so its not like i'm charging hard like they do in the movies.  Plus they are giving me plenty of slack, i never actually feel the rope.  I know that if the skier isn't as strong, they keep the rope tight.  I've only had it affect me once, on my Teewinot trip when I didn't hear the guid holler "two more turns", and hit the end of the rope.  That brought me to a quick stop.