Report from February 5, 2025

Up at 5:30 am.

On the road by 6.

Park City, UT, to Jackson Hole, WY, is a lovely drive – if you know which way to go.

You wanna go through Kemmerer, Big Piney, Daniel.

All Daniel really has is a gas station that has great, clean, one-person bathrooms, and they sell breakfast burritos for $8 that hit the spot.

Their gas is cheaper than Jackson by about $0.20/gallon so you gotta fill up here, too.

By the time I left Daniel, it was about 9 am.

Hoback Canyon was friendly due to 37ºF temps.

I popped out at Hoback Junction unscathed and powered on directly to the ski resort.

About 11 am I’d met up with Aaron Fox & Owen Leeper, 2 of my favorite ski buddies and we were off.

The tram ride was uneventful until we stepped out of the box.

Wham!

The wind was howling.

It felt insane that lifts were open and I had on brand new skis and I had to pull over the bump my binding DINs up from 11 to 14.

Terrible timing…

The delirious wind twisted and wrenched my skis making screwdriver work nearly impossible.

One of my skis even blew away and was about to pitch itself into Corbets Couloir when Fox skied it down and saved it for me.

That woulda really ruined my day…

After finally getting my DINs dialed in threw ourselves headlong into the abyss.

After a little searching, we found ourselves atop a completely untouched run with winds like you wouldn’t believe…

Fox went rogue and found his own powdery paradise.

Owen and I skied down together slashing and hooting and laughing all the way.

The bottom got sketchy with refrozen, rained-on-snow that wanted to twist a knee in revenge.

Back at the chair, the liftie said all the upper mountain lifts were closed including the tram.

The general rule here is the tram closes if the winds surpass 70mph.

Checking the Jackson Hole summit weather station I’m seeing that at 12:15 pm today, the wind gusted to 72mph.

The tram and upper mountain stayed closed the rest of the day as the wind had its way with the mountain.

We held a quick pow-wow and decided to call it a day and be back for more tomorrow.

I had a terrific podcast with the CEO of Protect Our Winters, Erin Sprague, took a nap, got some work done, and hit the Sidewinder for dinner with Fox.

The nachos were delectable.

I didn’t come here at all last year so it feels extra special to be back right now.

I’m in love with this place.

Thanks, Wyoming!

Snow Numbers

Forecast

Photos