Opening day...

Last night we stayed up late preparing for a long awaited date, opening day at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. We put in some hard tuning work, waxing and sharpening, making sure our gear was in tip-top condition. Nothing makes your skis feel better on the snow than a hand done hot wax and tune with a little extra TLC.


This morning, we woke up early and headed towards town to pick up our fried Ryan, who will be working with me on Casper lift. We all headed to the resort eager to start what could very well be the best season of our lives. The resort had lift access open to the peak of Apres Vous mountain, with over 2000 vertical feet of skiable terrain... not too shabby for opening day! A lot of locals made it out, showing that they too could not wait for the powder we are all longing for. Its funny when there are a lot of good skiers all blasting down blue runs, dodging each other at high speeds and launching off of hillside kickers in a race to the bottom, all just to get in another lap.










On the slopes, we rode on the chair in front of the commander of the JHAF, definetly cool to see him in person, and see several JHAF skiers out shredding the blue runs in the early season. Even the best skiers need their early season fix. The environment was really chill, JHMR was grilling out burgers and hot dogs on the snow, and everyone stopped to hang out and listen to the live music at the bottom of the slopes.


We really felt like ski town locals today. We hit the slopes in the morning, and next thing we knew we were on our way to work the daily grind. Its cool when even on a work day you can get in a couple hours of good skiing. Its almost odd when taking a trip to the slopes is convenient and hassle free...a lot different from what we are used to in Kentucky, that's for sure. There's also something about skiing for free that makes it that much sweeter. This is definitely something I am going to enjoy getting used to...

A new kind of Thanksgiving...

Today was one for the books. Is it even Thanksgiving? Sure doesn't feel like it. So yeah, not being around your family on the holidays sure does suck, but we decided to try to make the best of it.

I sat around on the couch while Laura went to work. It was nice because this is the first time in a LOOONNGG time I got to be a lazy bum. I got to talk to my family on the phone for about half an hour and watch the Macy's Parade, so I guess I can't complain. At 2pm Laura got off work then we headed downtown for our Thanksgiving dinner!


We decided we would go to a nice dinner at the historic Wort Hotel in downtown Jackson. This way we could be around other people's familys (sad isn't it? haha), and we wouldn't have to cook or clean. The food was DELICIOUS. Prime rib, pork tenderloin, tom turkey, fresh salmon, alaskan crab, mashed potatoes, fresh green beans, cesar salad, cheese and more!! The menu doesn't get much better than that! (See the next pics for proof :P) Here are some pics from our dinner experience, the quality isn't too great because I took them on my iPhone, but you get the idea!

Before.

After. Mmm.

It wasn't the best or worst Thanksgiving ever, but Laura and I definitely would have traded it all to have spent this day with our families instead. You realize how empty and meaningless holidays are when your family isn't around. So, for those of you who were able to spend today with your families, you better not take it for granted, and appreciate being around your family no matter how annoying and rude they might be!

Some things I am thankful for right now:

• My family, always there for me even when they are thousands of miles away
• My friends who are there to talk to and know how to have a good time
  
• Brandon cowan for giving me a pirated version of Final Cut Pro for my new Laptop
• Good Health, and a beautiful surrounding area to exercise in
• The view out the window when I wake up in the morning
  
• Having the courage and will to have moved out to Jackson, and go into the unknown for the sake of chance, adventure and something I love (skiing :D)
• A job and financial stability, a lot of people are having hards times with the present state of the economy
• Laura, to have a friend here in this new place, makes a world of difference, it would be very hard to have made this move alone
• A semi-white Thanksgiving! AND the fact that weather.com says its going to snow 8 of the next 10 days...woohoo!

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, make sure you all take the time to think about what you are thankful for...nothing lasts forever and we all need to appreciate the great things in life that we are blessed to have.

We've been orientated...

The last two days Laura and I have been on the grind, pushing through two long and somewhat entertaining days of JHMR (Jackson Hole Mountain Resort) orientation. We survived, and are now officially Jackson Hole employees! Check out our sweet IDs below, see what happens when you ask if you have to smile and they say no? :P


With our passes, we can now ride the city bus to the resort for free, ski for free at JHMR/Snow King/Grand Targhee, and get discounts all around town. Being a resort employee definitely has its perks!

Although the orientation was somewhat grueling and extensive, Laura and I see this as a good thing. Most of the companies we have previously worked for have lower expectations for their business than we had for our work there. Its great to work for people who really care about the quality of their product, love what they do, and have made many sacrifices to be where they are. They made it clear to us right away that if we couldn't deliver, we would be replaced in a heartbeat. This year they said it was VERY competitive, and a lot of people were not offered jobs. They said if we didn't show that we wanted these jobs, they had the applications of 40 outstanding prospects sitting on their desks that would love to take our jobs off our hands.

We met the top figures from all the departments from sales to food to dispatch and ski school. Today we even got a speech from the president of the entire resort. We were graced with information, insight and media of the new tram and the process the resort has been going through. The new tram cost 31 million dollars, and is the most expensive lift ever to be built in North America!

At the end of the orientation, we were given our lift assignments for the season. Laura got Thunder lift, and I got Casper Lift. Its good that we arent on the same lifts, because if we werent we could never be off on the same days. We also wouldnt be able to go to big sky with the snowcats because we would both be gone for a week at the same time, so its a bittersweet scenario. You can see which lifts we are working on the the trail map below, I marked it for your convenience! (Click on the image to view the full size)


We went into this orientation with no idea what to expect, but now we think we are going to be really happy with our employment. All the bosses and coworkers are very relaxed and easy to get along with!

The JHMR opens this saturday, and we will definitely be hitting the slopes! Because Laura and I work on the upper mountain lifts, we won't start working until mid December. So until then, we get to enjoy the snow!

Ski Giddy...

I am SO excited right now. Ski joy is in the air. You can feel it around town, you can hear it in the way people are starting to talk, and despite already getting a ski day in this season, I feel like things are really starting to get rolling!

Some friends from the University of Kentucky Snowcats are planning their trip out to visit Laura and I in January, and we are all getting giddy. They are coming out in late December from a week of JH Skiing followed by a week of skiing in Big Sky Montana. Its a righteous ski fest that we are all dreaming about more hours of the day than we are sleeping. Add in the fact that I got my new ski boots and Poles yesterday, picked up new my carbon fiber custom footbeds and custom liners this morning...oh, AND its SNOWING RIGHT NOW...I think my head just might explode!

I'm also just really excited about my new gear for this season. My boots are the epitome of a custom fit. The footbeds are molded exactly to the shape of my foot, and elimiate any need for arch support or canting fixes, providing a literally PERFECT fit. Combine these with my new custom intuition liners, and we talking about a knee down exact fit. I can't wait to see how it improves my performance, given my old boots were way too big on me. Consenquently, these new boots will be a lot safer as well. I'm definitely going for the retro, neon ski bum look this year...here are some picture to prove it just in case you were curious :D

The new boots.

New outfit and poles...straight up retro baby.

A wise friend of mine once said, "Skiing is 80% style, and 20% skill." Haha


On another note, a couple days ago on our day off, Laura and I decided to take a little relaxing trip up to Teton National Park in the afternoon to catch the sunset. Like always it was BEAUTIFUL, here are some of the pictures I took. Comment and let me know what you think.








This place still continues to blow my mind. I just can't believe I can be sitting in my living room with nothing to do, and ten minutes later be looking at sights like you see above. Its so easy to just sit around or watch tv, and take for granted that we are surrounded by such amazing things.

Thats about all thats going on right now. Coming up, we have our orientation for our JH mountain resort jobs on Monday, and we can't wait for them to start! Grand Targhee, a ski resort about 45 mins away, opened for the season today. I'm sure we will be heading that way sometime in the next week or so. They have been rated in the top 5 for best resort snow quality for the past 11 years, so we can't wait to check it out!

Ski time...

The past couple weeks haven't been the most fun. Don't get me wrong they haven't been bad at all, but Laura and I have both worked a lot. Spending 40 hours a week in a store can get old fast, especially when all you can think about the entire day is the snow and the season to come.

After a few weeks of hard work and saving money, things began to take a turn for the better. On November 7th, Laura and I went to the ski movie premier of 600", a ski movie filmed entirely in Jackson Hole last season. We honestly weren't excepting the movie to be that great or for there to be that many people at the premier, but we were so wrong...the place was PACKED and the movie was AWESOME. To make things even better, Laura won a $200 Cloudveil jacket in a raffle and she only spent $2 on her tickets! This night started a domino effect for us, and caused us to become obsessed with the impending season!




Later that week at work, I found out that my job does have some extra little perks. One day I was talking to this nice lady while making her coffee, and she was telling me about how her land lord had just given her some fresh venison. I told her I had vension once and it was soooooo good. She then replied, "Oh? I'll bring you some then!" I didn't take her very seriously, but to my surprise she showed up about 10 mins later with the meat! It was awesome! And delicous :)

A couple of days later, being the ski geek that I am, I was starstruck by some of the visitors to the coffee shop. I had two members of the Jackson Hole Air Force come and get coffee from me! The Jackson Hole Air Force is a group of skiers that came about in the 80s who basically invented freestyle skiing. They were the first to venture out into the backcountry when it was actually illegal to do so. They were the first to think it was okay to ski off 50 foot cliffs and do double backflips 30 feet in the air. These guys are legends to me, and after reading and hearing about them for years, seeing them in person blew my mind! You can tell who they are because they have jackets with skull patches on them, with ski poles crossed behind the skull. Their motto is imprinted around it...Swift. Silent. Deep. Seeing them made my excitement go out of control, and I decided that I couldn't wait until the resort opened to go skiing anymore! You can watch the trailer of a movie they are making about the JHAF by clicking on the image below.


I quickly convinced Laura that we needed to hit up the backcountry, which had recently been pounded with about 3 feet of snow. This backcountry is at the Teton Pass, where highway 22 runs through the Tetons from Wyoming to Idaho. For the next day or two, I probed locals for information while at work, and after going to the resort to talk to some of the employees we had all the information we needed to make this idea a reality.

This morning Laura and I woke up and headed straight up to the pass to claim our first ski day of the season. We hiked up from the parking lot at the top of the pass, and skied the Tele Bowl. We were very surprised to be greeted with almost two feet of fresh snow! If you have never hiked for your turns before, it's hard to understand the feelings that accompany such an investment. Working up the mountain on foot truly gives you a whole new appreciation for skiing. This was definitely the best first ski day conditions and terrain I have ever had. We had a great time, and I'm sure we will be back up there on our next day off! The season is now officially under way! Here are some pictures from the excursion.

View of the valley from the top of the pass.

The parking lot on the side of highway 22 at the top of the pass. The hike starts here!

Laura gearing up and strapping her board to her pack.

This sign is the only guidance skiers of Teton Pass get, and its not much!


The snow was knee deep and we weren't even touching the ground!

The hiking begins...

...and continues.

Laura coming up to the peak of Tele Bowl.

The view from the top, almost a white out!

Water break before the descent.

Laura laying down some first tracks.

Me CLAIMing it from the top.

Buck wild.

Laura ended up with her feet uphill :P

For now we can just cross our fingers and hope for more snow! Grand Targhee, a ski resort about 45 mins away, opens on November 22...and you better believe we are counting down the days!