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Jackson Hole Steep and Deep camp

KevinF

Gathermeister-New England
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I was attending Jackson Hole's "Steep and Deep" camp last week. I thought some would appreciate a write-up. Unfortunately the mountain was pretty socked in so I didn't take many pictures.

Basics (more below)

  • S&D is a four-day camp, running Tuesday through Friday.
  • Campers are treated to part guided tour and part instruction
  • One morning is spent in the backcountry.
  • Days start with an 8:30 (at the latest) tram ride to the top.
  • There were 67 campers (apparently the cut-off is 75) divided into groups of five or six campers each. Groups are divided based on ability level and aggression level (those who know me, you can stop laughing now).

Day Zero:
I had gotten out to Jackson a day early, so I took some time getting the lay-of-the-land. @mdf (who had attended S&D before) had told me where the ski-off slope was, so I got some practice in Cheyenne Bowl and found it was skiing sweet. Nice round soft bumps.

Day One:
At tram base you're grouped up with an instructor for herding down to the ski-off. Nothing very formal; just "we need six people to go with XXXXX". It's an 8:20 ride up, so you're sitting in Corbet's Cabin up top for a half-hour. The nervousness in that room is palpable. Once patrol opens the mountain (9:00), you head out with your initial group (and everybody else). Rendezvous Bowl was totally socked in by clouds, so it was sort of interesting getting down. Visibility was about to your ski tips, so it was a challenging "warm up". Two skiers drop in at a time under the watchful eye of the JH ski instructors who are waiting at the bottom. I was expecting a repeat of "day zero"'s "send it" bumps, but found they were now frozen up. I had something of a wild ride down :rolleyes:. As you ski down to the instructors, they shout a number (i..e, your group rating) and point you to a group. I was rated a four with the fives being the very few who actually made it look good. Out of the 67 students, I saw exactly one who truly looked "good" (as in Weems' rating scale of "beginner, intermediate, advanced, expert, good", as in "wow, he's good").

This is Cheyenne Bowl. Ski-off is down the trees on the left.
CheyenneBowl.JPG


They do a little interviewing (can you ski non-stop down Rendezvous / Cheyenne Bowl, etc) and create "your" group from there. There's a bunch of standing around as it takes a while to get through everybody. A lot of griping from everybody saying how badly they skied, but if everybody is skiing badly... I guess the sorting works out.

At any rate, I was grouped with Will (our instructor) and Al, Bill, Paul and Drew. We called ourselves the "Old Farts" group -- I was the baby at 49. Will inquired as to what we wanted to get out of camp, or what we were interested in skiing. I mentioned I was most interested in "good snow" than "famous terrain" and was looking for an immersive four days of off-piste skiing.

We did do some actual warm-ups on groomers and Will introduced us to his teaching concepts for the week -- get balanced over the new outside ski early and what he called "finding time" (i.e., femurs rotating in hip sockets). He talked some about edge angle; there is a time and place to get energy out of the turn and trees and bumps aren't necessarily that place. That description to me sounded a lot like pivot slips were going to be on the menu, and Will immediately proved my guess correct. I pivot-slipped my way down to him and his first comment was "ummm, you've done those before... really nice". Thanks @Bob Barnes for coaching me to do pivot slips every day. :ogbiggrin:

I take monthly-or-so lessons with @Erik Timmerman ; I was happy to see that Will and Erik both had the same ideas as to what needs fixing in my skiing.

We sort of alternated between groomers (arcing them and "Jackson Drift"-ing them) and seeing if we could replicate those concepts in ungroomed terrain as well. I definitely lose the counter and early edge / balance change as the bumps get bigger and steeper, but I knew that going in and figured some intensive practice wouldn't hurt. We spent a good portion of the day (and every day) in the lower faces -- Hobacks, Moran Face and the Sublette Ridge area. They're all low enough with enough trees that you could see something. (Yes @Tony S , I skied trees...). I could very easily spend the rest of my skiing life in Jackson's Lower Faces and never get bored. To me, that terrain is perfection.

Note that we didn't hit a single double-black all week. Some groups did; ours didn't. Will kept repeating that camp is four days and there's no point in killing your legs by getting "after it" right from the start. My home mountain in Stowe, Vermont. I found Stowe single-blacks and Jackson single-blacks to be roughly comparable in steepness (I'm thinking Hayride in particular for those familiar with Stowe), with the snow being a whole lot better in Jackson. Steep enough that you're paying attention, but not so steep that you're gripped.

Day Two:
Our second day started with another 8:30 tram ride, another zero-vis Rendezvous Bowl run and down to the Thunder Chair area for some video. Avalanche guns had been booming, so I was anticipating some 100% awesomeness, but it was only three or four inches. Still didn't suck. We did a couple video runs, starting with some double-fall line bumps . I wiped out on the third turn :nono: and pretty much wanted to burn the video. Again, a rough way to start the morning -- get right after it with no warmup. (I felt better when Will wiped out in spectacular fashion on those same bumps...). We did some more videos on easier bumps and on a groomer. Hello! Jackson groomers are about 10x wider than anything I'm used to in New England, so I had the throttle open wide (by my standards). Unfortunately, some random person cut me off so I had to shut it down in a big hurry as well. Oh well.

Then it was down to the base to watch said video. Not super detailed MA, but its always helpful to see yourself. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I still looked reasonably competent even though it felt absolutely awful. The adjective "smooth" was applied to my skiing by everybody; that seems to be most observer's first adjective. I guess there are worse descriptors.

Lunch (we got lunch vouchers or lunch was catered every day, so that's nice). Each S&D group has a reserved lunch time / place with tables roped off for us, so finding seating was never a worry.

Afternoon was spent on up-and-over drills and -- yep! More trees and bumps over in Moran Face and other areas. Once again, once I had a decent warm-up run in, I could actually ski.

Day Three:
Yep. 8:30 tram ride, except this time we were headed out the gates. Pure gravity fed, so no hiking / skinning. (For those who know Jackson, we went out the Why Not gate around the Rock Springs buttress). Our guide gave us some transceiver and avalanche rescue basics, along with some rules, etc. Rendezvous Bowl was -- once again -- completely socked in which finally prompted me to ask if you can ever see ANYTHING up here, to which our guide responded "not very often". Sweet. Anyway, out the gate and our guide (Jacob) casually mentioned the 1,000 foot cliff over to our right and "don't go right of my tracks". Ok. Heights and me don't get along to begin with; I didn't need to hear the "1000 foot cliff" part. There were about a dozen turns of "THIS IS F---ING AMAZING" snow -- pure float. And then a couple hundred of sun-baked crusty crappiness. Last stretch was a luge-line through the trees which is not necessarily my strong point. Fun experience. Came back into the Hobacks which frankly had better snow. Another tram ride, another Lower Faces lap (there is a god) and then into lunch.

There was an evening program each evening. I usually didn't stick around because I was staying in Jackson, which is a thirty minute bus ride away. I like a post-skiing shower. But day three, they were showing the "Swift. Silent. Deep" movie about the Jackson Hole Air Force with Captain Benny Wilson and Dave the Wave (original Air Force'ers) stopping by as well. I wasn't missing that. If you haven't seen the movie -- yeah. Stop reading PugSki and go find the movie. Absolutely awesome.

Did some stuff off of Sublette and Thunder chairs in the afternoon.

Day Four:
Another 8:30 tram ride and -- OH MY GOD. I won't say that you could see Rendezvous Bowl, but it was easily the best visibility we had. Rendezvous Bowl isn't "easy", but it sure becomes easier when you can see. We took a peek into Corbet's which -- oh darn -- was closed.

IMG_0265 - Copy.JPG


Will basically was giving us a tour of what we wanted to hit. I wanted to get into Saratoga Bowl which is like Stowe's Goat -- 100% unadulterated awesomeness. He did warn us to ski "conservatively" as you could very easily send it off a very large rock in there, but -- hoo yeah. Lower Faces, some stuff off the Teton lift, etc.

The last dinner is catered and they take all the video and compile it into a highlight reel set to music, etc. It's really, really fun. Lots of crashes. (There was one camper on crutches and one camper limping... make no mistake, Jackson is the Real Deal). I'm no expert in MA, but it looked like most campers were probably getting coached in the same topics we were (i.e., upper / lower body separation, etc). I saw lots of what I would classify as "athleticism" vs. "skis working for your benefit". *shrug*.

Summary:
It was definitely fun. I'd do it again. I think my group worked out well; I was probably the best technically speaking in my group, but others had spent more time in "wild" terrain of the variety that Jackson specializes in, so it all worked out. The lack of a warm-up run had me struggling a bit in the mornings, but once I got my legs under me, I was fine. Again, we didn't really ramp it up in terms of terrain; obviously Jackson has a pretty high "top end". However, I'd much rather ski something on the edge of my ability to ski "well" vs. "Hey, I got to 'ski' Alta One!".

We did do a few Corbet Simulators -- steep drop, big right, quick left. Same thing as the Corbet's entrance without the consequences. I pulled it off once and was really happy I wasn't in Corbet's the other time.

I skied everything on my Stockli Stormrider 95's. Seemed pretty perfect to me. I had brought real powder skis along in case it nuked, but it was never close to that deep.

For anybody wondering, this is me (not posting for MA, just for anyone interested in attending who wants a visual of what "Level 4" skiing looks like). This is off of Thunder Chair somewhere:

Any questions? Ping away. Hope you enjoyed the writeup.
 

PNWRod

Getting off the lift
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Wow! Great write up. Thanks for the class tour. I was visualizing in my mind the conditions and terrain you were skiing while reading through it.
 

James

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Nice write up!
Get anything new for skiing in low or no visibility?
 

ScottB

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I have been to Jackson Hole twice. On the second trip I checked out Corbets and it looked exactly like your picture. Only it was open when I was there. I was skiing alone that day, so had to decide if I was going to "drop in" or not. I watched a group of 5 guys drop in. They seemed similar to my ability. 3 of them did it cleanly, and two of them ran up on the rocks on skiers right. I told myself this was the 2nd day of my week and I didn't want to risk running my skis into the rocks. I would come back on the last day and drop in. Some how I manged to forget about making it back there and I lived to ski another 20 years so far. Probably one of my better decisions of that time period. Now if I had James and MDF with me that day, things might have turned out differently. :ogbiggrin:

Great write up, thanks.
 

E221b

New Yorker Dreaming of the Mountains
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I don’t think I’ve ever skied Rendezvous bowl with good visibility :rolleyes:
Once maybe in adequate visibility lol...
 

Chef23

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I remember my first time at Jackson and there was no visibility in Rendezvous Bowl. I loved the place and that camp sounds awesome. I may have to put it on my bucket list with a buddy.
 

Kyle

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Great report–thanks. I totally agree with you on the lower faces—they are my single favorite part of Jackson Hole. They are not the most dependable when it comes to snow conditions however so late January to early February is probably prime time for them (at least in my experience). Again, this is only my experience but I have had quite a few more decent to good visibility days in Rendezvous Bowl than not. It is quite disorienting when socked in for sure.
 
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KevinF

KevinF

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Great report–thanks. I totally agree with you on the lower faces—they are my single favorite part of Jackson Hole. They are not the most dependable when it comes to snow conditions however so late January to early February is probably prime time for them (at least in my experience). Again, this is only my experience but I have had quite a few more decent to good visibility days in Rendezvous Bowl than not. It is quite disorienting when socked in for sure.

Lower Faces were definitely a little thin on the very bottom stretches... mostly small branches sticking above the snow pack. 80% of them you could ski right over... the others probably wouldn’t feel so good.

Timing at JH seems to be tricky; the primary orientation of SE leads to some early baking of the snow for sure, but you want to go late enough for the obstacles to be covered.

They had a record setting January (in terms of snowfall); we still found out in a hurry when we hit the sun-baked aspects. Crunchy snow city. For the most part though the snow was sweet; not necessarily deep but soft.

Groomers were a little firm especially as the day wore on. Pretty typical. Will (our coach) called them icy. :roflmao:
 

TheArchitect

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Great write up, Kevin. Glad you had a great time! Nice video, too. I didn't make it over to the lower faces but I'll put it on my list for next trip.
 

chilehed

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Thanks for the great write up. A buddy of mine goes to the S&D camp every year, says it's worth every penny. Someday...
 

Scruffy

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I’m at JH now. Vis sucked today. Fog all the way down to lower mountain. We skied trees all day. Way warmer than it should be for this time of year.
 

Prosper

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I did S&D about 15 years ago and it sounds pretty much the same now as it was then. It was a really fun camp and I’d do it again in a heartbeat if I thought my now bad knee would allow me to ski hard 4 days in a row. Glad to hear you had a good camp.
 

Erik Timmerman

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Lower Faces were definitely a little thin on the very bottom stretches... mostly small branches sticking above the snow pack. 80% of them you could ski right over... the others probably wouldn’t feel so good.

Timing at JH seems to be tricky; the primary orientation of SE leads to some early baking of the snow for sure, but you want to go late enough for the obstacles to be covered.

They had a record setting January (in terms of snowfall); we still found out in a hurry when we hit the sun-baked aspects. Crunchy snow city. For the most part though the snow was sweet; not necessarily deep but soft.

Groomers were a little firm especially as the day wore on. Pretty typical. Will (our coach) called them icy. :roflmao:

I was gonna say their bad snow is probably pretty good, right? Then I saw the last line. :cool:
 

Philpug

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We were just recently talking to @Bob Barnes on how pivot slips are the foundation for skiing almost any terrain.
 
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KevinF

KevinF

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We were just recently talking to @Bob Barnes on how pivot slips are the foundation for skiing almost any terrain.

During the long-ago ESA's, Bob told me many things, but two of them were:
  1. Don't believe anything I say
  2. Pivot slips are the foundation for skiing almost any terrain.
At the time I was incapable of doing pivot slips, so I chose not to believe that they are a foundational move. :rolleyes: I have grudgingly chosen to realize that I should have believed him.

Twain.png
 

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