Happy St. Patty’s Day, Everyone!

I hope, like me, you celebrate all things Irish today and revel in this great day by having at least one pint of your favorite Irish beer, e.g. Guinness, Murphy’s, Harp or Smithwick’s, with at least one small taste of your favorite Irish whiskey, e.g. Jameson, Powers, Paddys or Bushmills, while listening to your favorite Irish music, e.g. Irish trad (aka Irish traditional), U2, The Pogues or Van Morrison. While in the moment, win your friends over with this cheerful Irish saying:

“Here's to a long life and a merry one; A quick death and an easy one; A pretty girl and an honest one; A cold beer -- and another one!”

I have to give a birthday shout out to my favorite (and only) sister, Eileen. E- I hope you and your friends find your way into an Irish pub and cause a little trouble. I’ll make sure that we celebrate your birthday during your visit, which is now less than two weeks away! With 36 inches of new snow in the past 72 hours, get ready for some killer snowmobiling. -J

For those of you that won’t find yourselves holding a pint in an Irish pub, you can enjoy this holiday by making traditional Irish soda bread. The recipe is:

Prep Time: 30 minutes Cook Time: 1 hour Yield: 2 loaves 5 cups sifted all-purpose unbleached flour 3/4 cup sugar 2 teaspoons baking powder 1 1/2 teaspoons salt 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/4 pound (1 stick) butter 2 1/2 cups mixed light and dark raisins, soaked in water for 15 to 20 minutes and drained 3 tablespoons caraway seeds 2 1/2 cups buttermilk 1 large egg, slightly beaten Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Generously butter 2 (9 by 5-inch) bread pans. Stir together the sifted flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Cut in the butter and mix very thoroughly with your hands until it gets grainy. Stir in raisins and caraway seeds. Add the buttermilk and egg to the flour mixture. Stir until well moistened. Shape dough into 2 loaves and place in the pans. Bake for 1 hour. Test with a toothpick for doneness. Cool in the pans for 3 to 5 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

You can thank my Mom for this recipe.

Slainte (Irish to English translation: Cheers),
John Patrick
 

The Best Ski Day of the Season... Hands Down.

What an unbelievable day! Now, I'm really starting to feel like a broken record. 22 inches of new snow made for the best ski day of the season. Hands down.

Justin and I headed out early with all of the other powder hounds. It's truly amazing to see everyone's determination to get up and get out early and reap the benefits of Mother Nature. Thankfully, the temperature has been cold in the past 36 hours, so the snow had a low water content and was light. Actually, it was the perfect consistency. It wasn't too light or too heavy. It was just right because it was easy to control your speed.

Instead of following everyone else up the Sublette chair, we headed to the Lower Faces and skiied Rawlins Bowl. For some reason, this slope was untouched; it was a beautiful sight.

As we made turns in the knee deep powder, plumes of snow traveled over our heads and engulfed us in our own little white worlds. Literally, every turn was a face shot (aka a skier's dream) and felt effortless and weightless. It was like we were traveling through another world... It was an other worldly, outer body experience. I'm getting the chills just reliving it.

There was one particular moment that will probably stand out as the best moment of my season. As most of you know, I don't loosely throw around these terms and do mean them. We were heading into a gully section that got increasingly narrower, like an hour glass. I was in seventh heaven, as I was weightlessly skiing through this cold smoke. It was all coming together. Turn after turn. Face shot after face shot. It got too much after the n-teenth face shot and mouth full of snow that I had to stop, clear my mouth and regain my breath because the snow had choked me.

It was a defining moment. I've always heard stories about this kind of ski experience. To have experienced it, I'm now more hooked than ever on skiing.

The icing on the cake was the charging female moose and her calf that were less than 10 feet from me at the end of this run. (Yes, I did write charging.) Because two skiers had gone before me around a blind turn, the mother was on the defensive and ready for blood. Thankfully, I was carrying enough speed around this turn and got to enjoy several more mind blowing runs in the Lower Faces.

18"!!!

I can't believe my eyes. You wouldn't either if you read today's snow report, at: http://jacksonhole.com/weather.snow.report.asp. As we all know, it's mid-march. AND, we just received 18 brand spanking new inches of snow. I'm in denial... and incredibly thrilled to be heading out right now for an epic ski day.

Even the reporter wrote, "In the 7 years I've been reporting the snowfall here at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, I've never reported more snow in a 24 hour period than I did today - EIGHTEEN inches! Some of the locals may have given up on winter and resigned themselves to corn snow and spring sunshine..." With the recent warm temps and bluebird days that have turned the snow into bulletproof, crusty snow, many of us have been waiting weeks for this snowstorm and the resultant revival of the mountain. Today's going to be unbelievable!!!

Have a great weekend. I know I will.

Zero G to Four Pines

To

Today was a big day out-of-bounds. Justin and I took five lifts to the top of mountain and headed out of the highest gate. This gate accesses an unbelievable amount of terrain, as you could hike to three different peaks (Cody Peak, No Name Peak and Rendezvous Peak), five different canyons (Rock Springs, Green River, Pinedale, No Name and Jensen), and over 2500 skiable acres, or the equivalent in size to the inbound terrain of the resort. It's also full of incredibly tall cliff bands, wide open powder fields, and endless sets of trees.

Once out the gate, we made our way to the mouth of the hour glass shaped chute Zero G. It was an impressive chute to stand above with its rock walls and obscured exit. Not being able to see the end of this steep chute and knowing that there were rocks in this section made me a little anxious. I knew that I could ski the chute. I just didn't want to make any mistakes and find myself falling down the steep slope and off a rock.

After testing the snow stability, we headed down the slope one at a time. When Justin got down safely, I made a few cautious turns, while further testing the snow stability and realizing that it was thin and icy in some sections because of the wind. I quickly got into a rhythm and just nailed the entire chute from top to bottom until I skiied into my slough. Slough is snow that's lifted into the air after a ski turn and makes its way down a steep slope almost as fast as you ski. The problem with slough, especially a large amount of it, is it can knock you off your feet and take you for a ride down a slope. Thankfully, my slough wasn't big enough to take me out when I skiied into it. But, it did shake me.

Once down the slope, we traversed through an open canyon and clicked out of our bindings so that we could start hiking up a bootpack, or a snow covered hiking trail up a slope that has already been broken by other skiers. As we were hiking, I was utterly speechless because of the beautiful scenery and the endless ski opportunities. I was also in awe of a pack of skiers that were jumping off of a fifty-foot cliff. The skiers out here are the real deal and are unbelievably strong and confident in their pursuit. It's inspiring to see these types of athletes going after it, just like I do but on a higher level. If you look closely at the photo below, you can see where they landing.

After hiking for 45-minutes, we found ourselves on the top of Four Pines, which is a great backcountry section because it's relatively wide open, has several tree patches that are spaced well, and has a good pitch. We took our skis off of the back of our packs, clicked into our bindings and found ourselves cutting fresh tracks in some spots and having a ball all the way.

For every time that I go out-of-bounds, I feel more confident and more safe in this arena. But, I never forget the real risks and hazards at hand. Whether they'd be huge cliffs or avalanches, this activity should never be taken lightly, especially in the playground that we call Jackson Hole.

My next project is No Name peak:

Note: This photo was taken at the top of Four Pines looking up at No Name, which is the open face to the left.

Day 60... What a Beauty!

I can't believe today was my 60th ski day of the season. It's unbelievable to think that we're this far into the season. Also, it's unreal for me to reach this mark because I've never done it before or even come close to in another season. Before this season, I think the most ski days that I ever had in a season was 38, which was eclipsed a month ago with over a month to go!

Today was a beauty. We received seven inches of snow over night and roughly two more inches throughout the day. The weather has been warm recently, so it was also nice to have a colder high temperature (around 25°F) for the day. This colder temp mixed in with cloudy skies is key because the snow is lighter due to less water content and doesn't form a top crust layer due to not baking in the sun.

I skied all day by myself and found myself laughing and giving myself high fives. It was nice to be out there on a Tuesday with no lift lines and be able to ski hard without any worries. Lately, I've been focusing on skiing fast and occasionally scaring myself by skiing narrow, steep chutes that are lined by either trees or rocks and have open exiting areas. These types of scares feel invigorating because they make me feel uncomfortable and under control at the same time. They also allow me to improve my bag of tricks by making me commit to straight lining it, which means I can't make a turn or shave my speed in any way until I'm in the exit area that's usually 20-40 feet below the entry point.

118 inches in February!

This season keeps on giving. 118 inches of new snow was the final count for the month of February. Even though this total didn't break any records, there were plenty of great powder days mixed in with several refreshing bluebird, sunny days. I couldn't agree more with one of the resort's forecasters, who said "we've been utterly spoiled this winter." With more than two feet in the forecast for the week, it looks like the snow gods will keep blessing us.