Grand Targhee, WY: North America’s Secret Powder Stash

A good friend of mine and ski partner grew up skiing Grand Targhee and throughout our friendship over the past two years he always spoke of how consistently great and deep the snow was at the Wyoming resort. He told stories of epic powder stashes and this selectable cliff band that no other resort could offer. After all the talk we finally put together a trip and timing could not have been better, currently based on my research Wyoming has the deepest snow pack in the united states and thus offering the best resort skiing, the cascades are not too far behind either but the Tetons were the ticket.

We were lucky to have about 15in overnight fall before the day we arrived and with this everything in the resort was skiing great. I was lucky enough to have a local guide to show me around and take me to all the stashes.    

We started the day making laps off the dream catcher lift, skiing “the face” and “crazy horse” with nearly boot deep or better powder everywhere. It was storm day skiing so there was a bit of fog and low visibility but nothing that hindered the skiing at all.

After getting the legs warmed we made our way over the Sacajawea lift. This was the place to be, lots of powder in the trees, lips to roll off, rocks to jump off, and best of all the selectable cliff band that my friend always talked about. It truly lived up to his promotion, you literally get of the lift ski for 1 min and have a cliff band range to choose a huck from 4ft all the way to 30ft plus. We started small on the 7ft section and worked our way up to about 15ft, given the time of year this was about the most you would want to go and feel safe about airing out.

Feeling good about the snow and depth the next lap through the cliff band we went a little bigger and still found nearly bottomless powder landing.  I was told by late January the whole band fills in really nice and making for some awesome hucks. 

Being satisfied with the air and hucks we then made out way over the Blackfoot lift, and found even more powder stashes and great tree skiing. The Chief Joseph Bowl was super fast, deep and fun and everything off of the Black foot traverse was boot deep or better, thus making for epic skiing. 

The best part of the whole experience was that it was the Saturday before Christmas and there was little or no line at any of the lifts. This was a huge surprise for me, but a great one. This is the status quo most of the time at Grand Targhee from what I was told but many locals. 

As a final note my local guide had told me that the side country access off the resort was amazing and offered lots of steep and deep lines, but due to the potential avalanche danger we did not step outside the gates. Furthermore research should be done ahead of time in order to know the line you are skiing due to the large cliff bands scattered throughout.