riverECHO

Today is President’s Day…a day that most people have off. Although no day is ever really on or off around our office, today actually IS an official day off for Vertical Media. Of course, as you will see on down the road…its hard for us to tell when the week ends and another begins. We don’t really follow the normal working schedule of the rest of the world. We work hard…yet, we schedule it around our play. Its amazing how much more productive one can be when they are allowed the time to get outside and enjoy the day if the opportunity presents itself.

We started off the day as if it were any other Monday…straight into the computers! However, after a few hours of catching up on emails and organizing projects…it was off to Grand Targhee for a few hours of sunshine and snow. As it was the completion of a three day weekend, there were plenty of folks out there from the region soaking in the fun! We found some good snow on the North facing aspects and then decided to take the short hike up Mary’s Nipple (hey…I didn’t name it). It was a gorgeous day and we spent some time up there looking around and planning out a few adventures that we hope to share with you in the next few months. There are some great, and little known, stashes back there.

We then came home and have both been spending yet more time in front of the laptops. However, I did feel that it would be good if a few of you actually saw where we lived as we start this blogging thing. So, I snuck out of the house as the sun was going down just now and snapped a few pics. Yes, that is our back deck…piled up past the windows and no hope of getting out our back doors.

Now, please don’t think that this trend is going to continue. Although Tim and Mary Lynn have been a big part of the inspiration to get this thing going, we are in no way committing ourselves to the “everyday” theme. If you want to take a look into their lives on a daily basis…here it is. Many times you’ll likely catch us in their daily posts as we spend quite a bit of time with them.

BJ’s been skiing Jackson Hole Mountain Resort — the village — for 7 years. The last four years were spent skiing the village with me, helping me to convert from a knuckle-dragging snowboarder to a knee-dipping tree fairy — a.k.a. tele skier. This year we bought a 10-day ski pass at the village and have been hoarding them for the best of days — except that now we are left with 5 days to ski and only two weeks to use them before we head down the Grand Canyon for the entire month of March. We decided to use up one of our days on the busiest of weekends at the village – President’s Day! We arrived to lots of crowds, no familiar faces (everyone we know probably stayed home or sought out backcountry turns on the pass far far away from the tourists), and a beautiful sunny day with minimal clouds in the sky.

After making our way to the top of the mountain, BJ and I decided to quickly venture through the gates to Jackson’s backcountry terrain. An area south of the resort, called Four Pines, is accessible by two short boot-packs. We’ve skied this area tons of times, usually sticking to the east or northeast facing lines. But today, BJ wanted to show me a line called “Broken Branch” — cleverly named after the broken branch that you have to squeeze on by to get into the chute. At the top of the hike we met a paragliding friend of BJ’s named Shane who happened to be the ONLY other person near the Four Pines area that morning. He decided to join us, as he had never been down Broken Branch either. We surprisingly met up with him again later in the afternoon for my second “first” of the day.

Back to Broken Branch — A hairy entrance with lots of rocks and a BROKEN BRANCH; Steep chute with scattered rocks, but plenty of room to make turns; Beautiful views over the Jackson valley; Despite its southerly face the snow was much better than expected; A little crust layer underneath 3-5 inches of sweet whip-cream snow.

Since the northmost facing aspect of Broken Branch was so good, we decided to venture north of the resort into the all north facing couloirs and chutes of Granite Canyon. Our typical Granite route begins at the top of the resort, a descent down the back side (the poop chutes), then around below Ten Sleep and over to the A-B-C chutes. Today, however, my second first would be the ever-popular Endless and Milelong Couloirs. Back to the resort and up the Gondola. From the top of the Gondi, we began the Trail of Tears to the top of Casper Bowl then made our way over to Granite. Again, not a soul and despite a few tracks below us, we were psyched about our decision. A few crustier spots, but for the most part, we were skiing untracked pow on this busy sunny spring day. Thank goddesses for the backcountry on President’s Day weekend.

Last night we pointed our 4Runner North around 6:30pm and headed for my mom’s place in Ashton, Idaho. Ashton is a small, sleepy town about 40 miles away from our home in Victor. However, the road has been closed a good portion of this winter due to the incredible amounts of snow and wind that rip across the potato fields between here and there. It took a little while to get up there as we were going a bit slower than usual…but, when we arrived, a roasted chicken awaited us!

We fell asleep pretty early that night as I think we were all exhausted, both physically and emotionally. The next morning, we headed “downtown” after some eggs and bacon! This was the first time that I have actually seen living, breathing, moving people in town. There were probably about 300-400 folks down there and about 150 sled dogs. This was the 91st running of the annual event and it brought out a pretty good crowd.

We spent our time meandering through the crowd, with my mother introducing us to all of the “locs”. Let me tell you, there are quite some characters up there in little old Ashton…and this was an event to get out to for all of them! We then found ourselves down by the first turn after the start and ran into a TV Reporter who cornered my mom and had her deliver an interview for the weekend news.

We then headed back to her cabin and spent a few hours planning a trip that we hope to take this Fall to the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. My mother is booking her flights for October 2 into Cancun, of which we hope to get straight out of and into the historic Mayan peninsula. With all three of us diligently “googling” the region, we found some great little areas that we are excited to visit and spend some time in when we get down there.

We had then planned to head over to Grand Targhee in the early afternoon for a bit of skiing. Yet, it was simply too comfortable and we ended up lounging around all day long. After multiple re-runs of Sex in the City and Seinfeld…dinner was ready…What! Whoa, how the time flies by. So, after sitting down and enjoying some homemade chicken noodles and rolls, we loaded up the rig and pointed South…back to Victor. Time to rest up for another day at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort tomorrow.