I'd note that he got to ski that 15k of powder on the day he wasn't skiing powder next to you on a lift...
I'll take 15k of untouched powder skiing, than a few k of untouched and 20k of tracked out.
If you get the right day, catskiing at Targhee may be worth the extra cost. But picking the right day from far in advance, you also have to be lucky. You would want a day when lift-served gets skied out and cat skiing does not and has not been which may not be that often.
The guy catskiing probably over-estimated his vertical as 15K is hard to get on a day trip due to time lost with avy training. I estimated my powder vertical skiing the same day at 20-25K of my 32.5K vertical that day. If you look at the pictures posted in my trip report at FirstTracks and re-posted below, there aren't any lift-served with more than one person in the picture. Two of the first three posted below are of
@DanoT early in the day - my camera's time was not set correctly, but they are taken 55 minutes apart. The first one is a random skiing taken from an early lift.
The next picture is catskiers at Targhee on the same day. They are the only ones skiing next to each other. You also can see tracks from previous (or earlier in) day(s) and that new snow does not look as deep as the lift-served.
The next two pictures of me were taken later in the day by
@Matchstix somewhere in the Good, Bad and Ugly, which is some of Targhee's steeper terrain. While the powder is cutup, it is still highly quality than is easily found in CA.
And while I am very cost adverse, I've gone on 3-day cat skiing trip to remote lodge in Canada three of the last four seasons and am signed up for Feb 2019. Even there after about 100 cm/40" snow before we got there, some of higher elevation snow looked good, but was very difficult to ski as it had a wind crust.
The next two pictures were taken of me by
@TonyC in Feb 2018. Not only is the snow deep and dry in this area, there were quite a few runs like this where I had to work to keep breathing so I would not run out of wind before running out of untracked.
I could have this wrong but for an expert a day to Grand Targhee would be a waste - Jackson would be more suitable. I did have a day over the hill when I was at Jackson and I loved Targhee - but I'm by no means an expert.
I didn't see much steep terrain.
@sbooker and I skied together at Mammoth in January and I think that if he and his two children are not yet experts, they soon will be as they were skiing deep powder that got chopped-up fast from chair 23 which quickly develops expert skills (and requires them to avoid working too hard). Assuming decent visibility, I'd probably take a day of lower-angle powder that lasts most of the day at Targhee vs. having to make choice between 3-4-5 tram waits at Jackson or skiing après Vous to avoid crowds. Note I have not been back to JHMR since Crags chair went in which may have helped spread out the ever increasing crowds.
Skiing for a whole day in that kind of know is just a dream for most of us.
