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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.