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Our final full day in Jackson was Saturday, Jan. 10.  Because we were staying in condos that were walking distance to the little Snow King resort, Mike, George, and I decided to save some money and hit that hill up since we had two great days in Jackson Hole.  After the breakfast of champions of bloody mary’s, that is!

Our lift tickets were only $22 because we were staying in the Snow King resort/condo complex.  What a bargain compared to the $87 in JHole.  But I’m not complaining about that!  It was worth it for the great riding.

The Snow King resort is one of the oldest ski resorts in the US.  Being used to the newer, high-speed chairs at most of the snowboarding and skiing resorts I visit, I was not that impressed with Snow King!  There are only 4 chairs here and the vertical rise is just 1571′, compared to over 4000′ for Jackson Hole.

Still, for $22 it’s a bargain and you can just get some more runs in without a lot of other people out. When we went it was basically deserted!

When you’re heading up in the chairlifts it’s pretty cool to turn and look around at the town of Jackson.

The runs were steep but unfortunately iced over because the day before was a little bit warmer here in the lower elevations closer to town.  I personally ended up just staying out for I think only 4 runs, and was feeling really tired and not enjoying the conditions, so I called it a day. Everyone else stayed out for the rest of the day (Mike and George at Snow King, and Jessie, Leila and Leland had gone to Jackson Hole again.)

After an afternoon of resting, we headed out that evening to catch the football game at the Sidewinders Tavern.  Jessie and I got bored (not that into football) and went to play shooting games and air hockey in the game room.

Following the game, we wandered around the town of Jackson for more photo opps and some shopping… the highlight was the crazy taxidermy store!  You too could own a stuffed Polar Bear for just $34,000… !!!!

 After our shopping in town (lots of deals on hoodies and tee shirts for us!) we got cleaned up at the condo and went back out for our final night on the town in Jackson.  We went to the 43 North bar where there was a DJ and we danced all night.  It was a fun end to a good visit (except for the getting-there nightmares!)  Here was my final pic of the sketchy runway in the Jackson airport…

(read the Day 1-2 Recap here)

Mikey and George arrived late on Thursday evening and had actually met us out the night before at the Town Square Tavern.  The next day, the two of them and I took the shuttle over to Jackson Hole again and enjoyed the most amazing day!  As noted, it was a little snowy the night before and the temperatures kept the snow at the perfect consistency, so we tracked some amazing powder!  There was about 6 fresh inches from the previous night.

Jackson Hole apparently doesn’t really get crowded, so even though we didn’t get on the mountain till around 10:30, we still got some fresh tracks in areas.  This day’s weather turned out even better than the day before - there was no wind and the sun peeked out for most of the day.  Absolutely perfect conditions.

We started the day going up the gondola and doing a few runs over to Thunder chair again.  From there we branched out and hit a lot more of the mountain today.  Lots of great snow under the tram, and hit some tree runs around the edges of Lander Bowl.  After 2 hours of exhausting powder riding, stopped for a quick lunch at “Cowboy Cafe” at the base of the mountain then we boarded the tram.

The tram is a brand new feature - it opened on Dec. 20, 2008.  It holds 100 people and takes you all the way up to the summit at 10,450′.  And believe me, they really pack you in and fill that car to capacity.  I couldn’t move my arms to put my camera away after taking this pic!

From the summit, you can hit the insane well-known run called Corbet’s Couloir  - a 55-degree drop with rocks on either side!  I think I will pass!  We opted for the easier route down, via Rendezvous Bowl.  It was a little bit icy up here due to the colder temps and blowing wind, so it wasn’t as enjoyable as the rest of the mountain.  But Rendezvous starts off black and ends up blue, so it’s not bad.  From here we dumped back into Lander Bowl then cruised over to the gondola again.  Best choice of the day - dipping into the run directly under the gondola.

We found the best, deepest powder back here.  You can pop into tree runs all along the edge of the trail.  It’s wide and just steep enough to give you some decent speed to push through the deep powder.  At one point I did fall into powder that was probably up up to my mid-thigh, so I had to dig a bit and unstrap the board to get out.

We managed to head over to the Apres Vous side of the mountain today also, but the conditions weren’t as good as the whole gondola area was.  A little bit crunchy and icy, and not quite as deep of powder as we had earlier in the day.   All in all though, a great day, and some of the best riding in powder I have ever had!  We called it a day to get back on the shuttle about 3:45pm and luckily beat some of the crowds.

After a nap to refresh, we went to dinner at the Snake River Brewery.  Great local brew house with large food portions.  We all tried pretty much all the beers they brew since we each shared Leila’s beer sampler.  The shock of the night was the “Ned Flanders” brew, which we though tasted like crap - this weird, sour, vinegary taste - but once we read the description it made sense because it was called a SOUR ale and was made with 50 lbs. of cherries!

Jess and I shared a yummy heart-attack-maker of a sandwich called The Roper, which was a half-pound of brisket topped with some applewood bacon and cheddar cheese and horseradish cream sauce.  MMMMM it was good though!

Being exhausted from our days (I forgot to mention, Jess, Leila, and Leland did a sled-dog tour all day long - we need a write up of that!) we called it a night and were pretty much all sleeping by 11pm.

We spent so much of our time riding while on the hill that I am ashamed to admit we didn’t meet any new hotties on the hill when we were on the mountain.  However, unsurprisingly, we did find some cuties when we ventured out for dinner or drinks each night.  Here are a handful of the folks we met whose full info I did not get but are certainly worthy of our hotties label!

Leila and me with an honest-to-god bullriding cowboy from Texas

 Jay from Minnesota

Elvis is NOT dead - he’s living in JHole riding skis with his own picture on them

me and Andrey from Russia

and… my personal favorite…

SASQUATCH!!!

(3 votes, average: 4 out of 5)

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(Taking a break and having a chill day this Saturday.  My own pics to come… I didn’t bring my camera cord to download pics!)

Everyone else had arrived (or attempted to arrive) in Jackson on Monday 1/5.  As for me, I flew in on Wed. 1/7.  There had been a huge snowstorm on Mon/Tue and so Jess, Leila, and Leland’s flights were diverted.  Long story short, their travel ordeal involved a 12-hour wait at the Denver airport while the Jackson airport authorities decided whether or not it was safe to land a plane there.  They ended up renting a car and driving 9+ hours from Denver to Jackson in the middle of the still-blowing snowstorm!  Needless to say, not an auspicious start to the vacation.

The good news is everyone eventually arrived safe and sound.  I finally got there at about 4:30pm on Wed. after my flight too was diverted and I had to be bussed in from Idaho Falls.  What an experience!

We are staying in amazing condos that are part of the Snow King resort - it’s called Love Ridge Lodge.  our place has 2 bedrooms, a den, and 3 1/2 bathrooms.  It’s about 2000 square feet and very well-appointed with beautiful tile flooring and granite countertops.  And it was cheap!  (for what we are used to paying in say Mammoth & Vail…)  So after arriving, didn’t do much of anything my first night except head down to the “Shady Lady” saloon that was part of our resort.  I had a burger and a beer and ended up meeting these fun English guys who had an even longer travel ordeal than my friends.   We had some drinks and fun conversation which involved exchanging local slang - I learned that the word for a hot English guy or girl is called a “top tottie.”  I might have to use that one!

After an early-ish night we got up on Thursday, made breakfast, and headed over to Jackson Hole.  It’s about a 20-min drive from our condos to the actual mountain.  We were lucky to have a fairly sunny day - it became more overcast by the end of the afternoon though.  We did not attempt to make it up the tram that first day, as the wind and cloudy conditions would have made it hard to see and enjoy.

Due to warmer temperatures, they also closed a lot of the chairlifts because the melting heavy snow created higher avalanche danger.  So we started off the day with a few runs on the Teewinot chairlift to warm up then hit the gondola.  Because so many of the chairs were closed, we mostly stayed around the gondola and on the Thunder Quad chair area.  We did a lot of runs and stayed out til the mountain closed but still did not get to see as much of the mountain as I would have liked.

That night after cleaning up we headed to the Gun Barrel restaurant.  Real old-west style food - they served all sorts of local game and definitely strayed from the “usual” restaurant fare of beef and chicken.  The menu offered such meats as bison, buffalo (um, wait, are those the same?), venison, wild boar, and elk.  Gracie, Leila, and I split the sampler platter which had buffalo prime rib, elk chops, and some venison bratwurst.  Delicious!  We pigged out on all those meats and had some wine and fresh baked bread.

After that we headed to the Town Square Tavern, which was pretty fun and picked up after a while.  The dj played some reggae/dub to warm up and as more folks started coming in he picked up the tempo with more r&b, hip hop, and classic dance favorites such as “Groove is in the Heart.”  We were having so much fun that we ended up staying out much longer than planned and did not get home till after 1.  Drank lots of water to prepare ourselves for the next day!