Grand Targhee, WY 12/3/13

S

snowave

Member
After a week and a half of bluebird and every other day of riding nice PP groomers, we finally got the storm cycle going again. Although, we only got about 22" out of this storm (2-3 ft predicted)... it was still nice to get more base and obviously some powder.

Went up for a couple hours this afternoon. Didn't have the motivation to go out this morning when conditions were still kinda nasty.... only 7" reported overnight, on top of 13 yesterday... but it rode more like a foot or so of fresh... and I still found some really nice lightly tracked stuff. It was cold (2 degrees), but there was no wind, so it wasn't that bad. It was pretty flat light, but the visibility was overall was good. Crowds were more than I expected for a Tuesday, but that's all kinda relative really... there were maybe 100-150 cars in the lot...?

All was going well until I had a nasty crash and got whiplash/mild concussion.. I had just started a run, and was surfing rather slowly thru some pow, hit some hardpacky rockish stuff.. survived that OK, didn't even scrape the stick... but then unexpectantly dropped about 3 or 4 ft feet onto a hardpackish small traverse... that I never even saw... landed on my back, and my head snapped back and hit the snow... although, I think the whiplash was worse then my head hitting. I'm doing alright I think, back is sore and a dull headache... got in some decent hot tub time earlier, and that helped. Yeah, I wear a helmet.

My Iphone was cold and taking crappy pics... not to mention, it was crappy pic taking weather... I took a few shots, and put it away... then it went to sleep until I warmed it up later.

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thanks.. still quite sore this morning, with a lingering dull headache... but feeling a little better.

Off to socal tomorrow for a week, so I'll have time to rest up... and get a little break from the cold. -17 at the house this morning... -24 in Driggs. brrrrr.
 
snowave":w477vtc2 said:
not to mention, it was crappy pic taking weather
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You'll find that's the rule at Targhee. Not that you should complain with the powder you're going to get. :drool:
snowave":w477vtc2 said:
Off to socal tomorrow for a week
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Back to the land of sun. Your old haunt Mt. High got a foot of snow Nov. 21-22, opened the 24th with snowmaking asssistance, only held on until Thanksgiving Saturday before having to close. Cold temps the rest of this week should get the snowmaking back on line.

Crossing flat traverses/cat roads in bad light is tough. Garry Klassen fractured the top of his tibia that way at Kicking Horse in 2002.
 
snowave":2d9kvw6y said:
After a week and a half of bluebird and every other day of riding nice PP groomers, we finally got the storm cycle going again. Although, we only got about 22" out of this storm (2-3 ft predicted)... it was still nice to get more base and obviously some powder.

Went up for a couple hours this afternoon. Didn't have the motivation to go out this morning when conditions were still kinda nasty.... only 7" reported overnight, on top of 13 yesterday... but it rode more like a foot or so of fresh... and I still found some really nice lightly tracked stuff.
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Hate to be Tony and second guess from 1000 miles away, but why would you not get out early and ski 7 in of fresh on top of 13 inches? Did you ski the 13in the day before?
 
There's a few reasons why I wasn't on the hill for first chair yesterday...

First, I had a commitment at 10AM I couldn't break..2nd, it was near zero visibility, breezy and 0 degrees at 9AM on the mtn. My new ski buddy got up there at 10 and said it was brutal for the first couple hours.

Similar situation the day before when it was snowing all day up there.. except the snow level was 7,000+ ft at that point so it was kinda wet ... and winds were 30-50 mph on the mtn.. and again, zero vis. No thanks.

I'm fortunate that I can more or less go riding whenever I want, and being at the bottom of the mountain, it takes 15-20 min to get to the lift from the throne... so I'm in no hurry to get up there in those conditions, especially not knowing the mountain that well yet. That's probably the biggest thing. I know it's called Foghee for a reason, and I accept the I will be riding on plenty of storm days once I feel comfortable there... yesterday was a good practice.

btw, I guess I did hit that rock..I didn't see this when I was looking at it on the lift... but I guess it was mostly white on white. This is probably my second best core shot in 22 yrs of riding... best one was Mt. Baldy, 2005... board was useless after a log/rock combo I hit. #-o

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snowave":8xbkhc9x said:
best one was Mt. Baldy, 2005
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No surprise there. I couldn't resist skiing after a 3 foot dump there on May 14, 1998. It was a record year so the main area of Thunder still had a base. However I poked around the fringes of South Bowl looking for more fresh tracks and put a huge core shot into one of my Volant Chubbs.
 
Would like to have more updates, but I haven't been back on the hill. My "Crash" last month gave me a pretty nice concussion, and I'm still having some minor post concussion symptoms. It's been tempting to get back on the hill, but my doc says don't do it til the headaches are completely gone... so I've been obeying.

Granted, I was in Socal for 2 weeks laying on the beach, so that was nice.. but we got almost 2 ft here last week and woke up to bluebird skies the next morning. The wife had to tazer me a few times to keep me from running out the door.

Good news is I've been seeing a chiro, and overall the symptoms are now much less... and I'm really hoping to be back out next week. Now.. we just need the weather to cooperate. It's looking dry across most of the west for quite a while it appears.
 
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