Today Ann and I skinned up a 3,300 foot slope in Grand Teton National Park, and rode down an aesthetic cliff-walled couloir called the “Turkey Chute”. Though the center of the chute was pretty tracked up from previous skiers, the sides were full of untouched old powder which we happily sliced and diced. Just as sweet as the line itself was the spectacular scenery of Avalanche Canyon, with its surrounding ramparts of Buck Mountain (above), Mount Wister, the South Teton, and Nez Perce.

That’s me laying out a savory carve on a steep powdery wall. Photo by Ann Driggers.

Ann Driggers skis down the Turkey Chute, with Avalanche Canyon below.

Ann Driggers skis the powder with Buck Mountain looming overhead.

Special thanks to Ann for visiting this week and motivating me to get off my ass and into the mountains for some surprisingly good riding!

Another great day in the mountains today. After a quick 4,000 foot ascent courtesy of the Jackson Hole tram, we exited the backcountry gates and hiked south along the ridgelines past several peaks until we got to our destination: the so called “Martini Chutes”, named for their appearance of humungous martini glasses – triangular bowls narrowing into tight chutes.

Jason King rides into the big bowl. The warm weather today made for some great springlike snow conditions on this southeastern slope; the snow was pretty much just like spring corn – smooth and just soft enough to lay out some nice big carves.

Jason makes his way into the “stem” of the Martini chute – a narrow steep slot through the cliffs.

Skier: Ann Driggers.

Jason, pumped on the 4,000 foot descent into Jensen Canyon.

This morning I went out for a backcountry hike with my GJ ski buddy Ann Driggers, aka “The Annimal”, who is visiting Jackson with some friends for the weekend. Since it hasn’t really snowed much here in over three weeks, I had very low expectations for the snow quality today. Even so, I was still not enjoying the hike up the ridgeline on the crusty sun-baked old snow, with prospects of a terrible ride back down. The wind was cranking pretty hard out of the east, blowing the fresh 1 inch of snow over the ridgeline onto the western side of the mountain. With that in mind, we decided to drop in the unknown (to us) western face, to maybe get some semi-decent snow.

Much to our surprise and delight, the slope was smooth and powdery! The wind must have really worked its magic, blowing in maybe four or five inches of smooth firm powder. Not only that, but the line we dropped into turned out to be a great wide open 3,000 foot descent!

I was hooping and hollering like a little girl on the way down, so stoked to score such a sweet unexpected line. (That’s me; photo by Ann).

Me again, enjoying the powder carves.

Ann, with the endless Snake River Range in the background.

Here I am going fast.

Ann and our powder turns. What’s that? Preserve the powder? No way!

So, on a day that by any prediction should have been mediocre at best, we ended up scoring great snow and great descent. I tend to be such a powder snob that when it hasn’t snowed in a while I usually just forget about riding and work at the computer for days on end. Today made me realize that perhaps I should work a little less, and ride a bit more, regardless of my weather predictions!

Check out Ann’s blog for more photos and a better write-up.

I just dug this photo from the dusty depths of my hard drive. I took this sunset shot of Snow Peak (13,024 ft.) way back in March 2004. I was living in Denver at the time, and took advantage of an unseasonably warm spell in March to go winter camping up on this high ridge in the Gore Range, just east of Vail.

One of the great things about the Gore Range is that on the west side of the range there are numerous high points and ridges that are relatively safely accessible in the winter, offering awesome panoramic views of the main spine of the range. Better yet, the west side of the range gets great sunset alpenglow light since there are no large ranges directly to the west. From a photography point of view, sunset shooting is always a bit easier since you don’t have to wake up early, and you can spend the afternoon casually scoping out photo possibilities. On this evening, I had a really fun photo shoot; there were so many photo possibilities in every direction, and the wind-sculpted sastrugi snow formations on the ridge provided lots of interesting foreground possibilities. You can see some more photos from this evening here, here, and here.

An early morning photo of Abrams Mountain and Ouray taken during my trip there last week. The next morning I slept in and unfortunately a friend informed me that I had missed an incredible sunrise… d’oh! Such are the disappointments of a lazy photographer.

Mike Bryson carves into a beautiful untracked chute.

Matt Wade skis the pow.

Tom Kelly skis a line next to the trees. Notice the tantalizing, but insanely dangerous, San Juan terrain in the background!

Jay Godson enjoying the freshies.

Skinning up the ridge of my favorite mountain. That big crossloaded face in the center was virtually off-limits to sane people due to the avy danger; however, if you want to see a headcam video of me hauling ass down that face last year in more stable powder conditions, see here (the second descent in the video).

Tom Kelly slashes the powder.

Today I met up with some new snowboard buds to ride a heavy duty couloir off Jackson Hole ski area. The massive terrain had a few dicey sections in store for us, but we made it through alright and scored endless powder turns along the way. Rider: Patrick Grady.

The Jackson Hole snow report this morning posted 3″ of new snow overnight. I don’t know what kind of ruler they’re using – it felt like a great powder day up there!

Above: Jason King slashes down a chute through a rocky cliffband.

I just unearthed this photo taken back in February 2006. This is the view of Mt. Massive (center) and the Sawatch Range, as seen from the 14,440 foot summit of Mt. Elbert, the tallest mountain in Colorado.

I had hiked up Mount Elbert in the afternoon, knowing that the clear skies and full moon would provide plenty of light to make my way down at night. The evening turned out to be one of my most memorable summit experiences ever; the air was perfectly calm, I had warm clothes on, and I spent over three peaceful hours relaxing on the summit in the twilight and moonlight. During my time up there I also took what is perhaps my favorite photo to date, “Elbert’s Moonshadow”.

Both photos were taken with the 4×5 camera, with Provia film.

Hiking in the clouds.

Mike Bryson carves the powder midway down our pristine 3,000 foot descent.