JACKSON HOLE...

I'm going to preface everything I'm about to say by saying that Jackson Hole was probably my favorite place so far... except for the weather.


If you haven't picked up on this so far, financially this trip has been way past a success. 50-some odd days since I moved out of Maine, and I've paid (with money) for exactly 8 hotel rooms - 4 at Jackson, 1 at Big Sky (which doesn't really count, because it was $99 right next to the mountain and I got a free lift ticket out of it...), and 3 at Taos. Other than that, I've either been fortunate enough to stay with friends, family, or have used Marriot points (courtesy of Chrysler Motors, LLC). I've paid full price for exactly 4/15 days of skiing - the rest have either been ski lesson (Taos, 2 days), half priced employee vouchers (3 days at Vail/Beaver Creek), wayyyy discounted employee vouchers (Taos, 1 day), sister-resort discounted pass (Big Sky, 2 days), or picked up a discount to random resorts (Winter Park, Steamboat, Copper)...

All that being said, it was pretty awesome to pick up 4 nights at the Ranch Inn in downtown Jackson for $50 - apparently it was a special running int he local paper and a guy I knew of in town had scoped it out for me, so I was more than ok with paying the 3 day pass price of $250 - 4 nights/3 days w/ 3 days of skiing in Jackson Hole for $455? Sign me the f### up for that. If you want to throw in the cost of driving from Denver, maybe an extra $40 bucks, success either way. Big Sky ended up being even better - 2 days of skiing and one night slopeside lodging for $139.


As for the conditions - Jackson Hole was pretty terrible. 45 F on Monday, 40F on Tuesday, and it finally cooled off to 30F on Wednesday - not the best weather for skiing - spring conditions/slush at the bottom and icy/windy/death cookies towards the summits. Oh well - still some awesome terrain. Life throws you some lemons, make some damn lemonade. The slopes were still pretty ridiculous, and the vertical definitely lives up to its billing.

Wednesday was my last night in town, and my plan was to wake up realllllly early and get to Yellowstone, hop on a snowmobile, and go see some of the goodness that Yellowstone has to offer. After setting my alarm for 5am, and waking up at 5am, I pretty much knew that the original plan was going to hit the ishtter really quickly. For some unknown reason, I decided to check the snow report for Big Sky, low and behold 18" had fallen overnight! That got me out of bed and on the road pretty damn quickly...