I just finished 6 days of skiing in Targhee with the family and despite the low snow season snowfall, conditions weren't bad. This is among their worse early season snowfall ever, and the first day, 1 of the 3 main lifts still hadn't opened for the season. The rest of the mountain was very thin, but I really couldn't see much of it due to the famous fog. Thankfully, it was also snowing, and the mountain ended up getting a reported 6 in that seemed closer to a foot in places. This wasn't enough to cover up many shrubs and rocks and I couldn't float on top of the light snow, but it at made for decent white- out conditions. There's nothing very steep at Targhee and it's not very rocky, so even though there were plenty of small bushes showing, most of the terrain was skiable.
The second day featured better visibility, but like every other day, was brutally cold. The skiing was pretty good, with lightly tracked snow on top of somewhat had chopped up crust. I got a nice surprise late in the day when they opened uptue sacajawea lift for the first time this year. After a wild scramble down a narrow cat track with a bunch if locals, I ended up on the 4th lift. The first run was beautiful 1-2 foot deep hero snow, but the obvious line was tracked out by my second trip up the lift. I decided to traverse out to a small bowl area that had no tracks, and this required taking a groomer and carrying enough speed to make it up a sizable hill. I didn't know how much speed I needed, but I really didn't want to hike, so I almost straightlined about 400 ft of groomer. Of course, they just had to put a cat track near the bottom of the run (trust me, it made absolutely no sense, it led to nowhere), and my goggles were fogged up, so I didn't see it. Thus, I hit a really sharp cat track at about 45 mph, flew at least 60 ft in the air, landed so hard on my back that I got the wind knocked out of me, the ragdolled a bit before sliding all the way up the hill I needed to get up. Luckily, my brother saw my skis and brough them to me, and the run was pretty good. I got some more powder runs in before the end of the day, and before I figured out how sore I really was.
The next day was rough with my general soreness, but mary's nipple opened around 2 and I was one ofthe first to hike up. It's really not much of a run for the 20 minute hike, but it was deep, steeper, and untracked. The next day, I hiked up mary's first thing in the morning, and due to the completely clear skies, I decided to drop my skis and climb up to the summit. I was treated to an absolutely beautiful view of the entire Teton range. I was completely alone up there, and I think I sat there for about 20 minutes just admiring the view. The run down was just as good as the previous day: deep and untracked. My family thought I was crazy, but I continued to hike Mary's almost every run that day, and I was rewarded with increasingly worse powder.
I went up mary's again the next day, but strangely, the snow was absolutely terrible. I was still too sore to handle bumps, so groomers were the norm. Targhee groomed a lot for the day after Christmas, but they barely did anything the following days. Clearly, Targhee isn't used to crowds or a lack of snow, and the snow preservation was terrible in critical places. The most important cat track was so rocky that I refused to take any runs that required it, and I was even more amazed that they didn't groom it or do anything to improve conditions for the next day. Conditions definitely startes to disintegrate the final day, and I didn't regret quitting a little bit early.
Overall, I was pleasantly surprised with the snow quality, but it's clear that Targhee is very powder dependent. I wasn't planning on spending the whole week at Targhee, but conditions at Jackson are apparently terrible and my $199 college season pass at Targhee made Jackson very expensive.
Sorry for any weird spelling mistakes, I did this whole thing on an iPod, while still sore and tired. I actually got a camera for Christmas, so I do have pictures this time that i'll figure out how to add later, but they are all of scenery, as I was skiing alone for most of the time.
The second day featured better visibility, but like every other day, was brutally cold. The skiing was pretty good, with lightly tracked snow on top of somewhat had chopped up crust. I got a nice surprise late in the day when they opened uptue sacajawea lift for the first time this year. After a wild scramble down a narrow cat track with a bunch if locals, I ended up on the 4th lift. The first run was beautiful 1-2 foot deep hero snow, but the obvious line was tracked out by my second trip up the lift. I decided to traverse out to a small bowl area that had no tracks, and this required taking a groomer and carrying enough speed to make it up a sizable hill. I didn't know how much speed I needed, but I really didn't want to hike, so I almost straightlined about 400 ft of groomer. Of course, they just had to put a cat track near the bottom of the run (trust me, it made absolutely no sense, it led to nowhere), and my goggles were fogged up, so I didn't see it. Thus, I hit a really sharp cat track at about 45 mph, flew at least 60 ft in the air, landed so hard on my back that I got the wind knocked out of me, the ragdolled a bit before sliding all the way up the hill I needed to get up. Luckily, my brother saw my skis and brough them to me, and the run was pretty good. I got some more powder runs in before the end of the day, and before I figured out how sore I really was.
The next day was rough with my general soreness, but mary's nipple opened around 2 and I was one ofthe first to hike up. It's really not much of a run for the 20 minute hike, but it was deep, steeper, and untracked. The next day, I hiked up mary's first thing in the morning, and due to the completely clear skies, I decided to drop my skis and climb up to the summit. I was treated to an absolutely beautiful view of the entire Teton range. I was completely alone up there, and I think I sat there for about 20 minutes just admiring the view. The run down was just as good as the previous day: deep and untracked. My family thought I was crazy, but I continued to hike Mary's almost every run that day, and I was rewarded with increasingly worse powder.
I went up mary's again the next day, but strangely, the snow was absolutely terrible. I was still too sore to handle bumps, so groomers were the norm. Targhee groomed a lot for the day after Christmas, but they barely did anything the following days. Clearly, Targhee isn't used to crowds or a lack of snow, and the snow preservation was terrible in critical places. The most important cat track was so rocky that I refused to take any runs that required it, and I was even more amazed that they didn't groom it or do anything to improve conditions for the next day. Conditions definitely startes to disintegrate the final day, and I didn't regret quitting a little bit early.
Overall, I was pleasantly surprised with the snow quality, but it's clear that Targhee is very powder dependent. I wasn't planning on spending the whole week at Targhee, but conditions at Jackson are apparently terrible and my $199 college season pass at Targhee made Jackson very expensive.
Sorry for any weird spelling mistakes, I did this whole thing on an iPod, while still sore and tired. I actually got a camera for Christmas, so I do have pictures this time that i'll figure out how to add later, but they are all of scenery, as I was skiing alone for most of the time.
