Earning my Turns

I got up this morning at 4:45 am to go skiing. It would've been a normal time to rise for a ski day if I was driving from Long Island to upstate New York or Vermont or from San Francisco to Lake Tahoe. Obviously, neither was true.

My plan was to go backcountry skiing on Teton Pass with my friend, Carl. Teton Pass is an impressive mountain pass that snakes through monstrous, steep peaks. I met Carl at the Stagecoach bar that's located at the bottom of the pass so that we could carpool to the pass parking lot. Carpooling is essential because "skiing the pass" is so popular that the pass' parking lot gets quickly full.

To my surprise, we weren't the first people to arrive in the parking lot at 6 am and were greeted by howling winds. The winds must've been between 30-40 mph with gusts up to 50-60 mph. Both of us wondered if hiking and fighting these winds for 60-minutes was a good idea for a less than 10-minute run of fresh powder. So, we decided to head back to our warm homes... Nooo, I'm just kidding. We buckled into our boots and headed up the bootpack of Ascent Ridge on Mount Glory at 6:15 am. A "bootpack" refers to a backcountry trail that was created by people hiking in their ski boots.

I won't lie. It was a brutal hike because of the strong winds, hiking solely by headlamp light at first, and sometimes breaking trail in knee-deep, wind blown powder. Although all of these elements were fighting against us, it was great watching the sun rise and the town of Jackson come to life as house lights were turned on in the early morning. After 60-minutes of hiking and approximately 1,500 feet of elevation gain, we decided that the summit of Mount Glory would have to be reached another (and less thrilling) day and to ski "First Turn", which is appropriately named for its location just above the first turn after the pass parking lot.

The snow was incredible at the top of our run. It was light, untouched and really fun to ski through. After making several turns-that-you-dream-about turns, we weaved our way through the trees until we reached an open bowl. Even though the avalanche danger was moderate, we skiied closely to the trees and not in the openness of the bowl. We eventually made our way to the bottom of the run, aka Teton Pass, and gave each other high-fives.

While walking back to the car, I had such a great feeling of accomplishment. With overcoming the elements, watching the world come to life, and getting another taste of the backcountry, I can't wait to start another day just like today.