Our early-season was unbelievable--I rode shin-deep powder with Bodie-the-dog on Peaked Mountain on October 7th.

After a dry November, the holidays brought fat powder back to the Tetons. Matt Lloyd goes deep near Teton Pass.

Laying our lines with nary a soul around. I spent 2 weeks in the Tetons in January with 5 NOLS instructors on snowboards, watching our tracks fill in every night as we received 1.5 meters of snowfall.

Dinnertime! Working the stoves by lamplight, turning out high backcountry cuisine.

My Winterstick Swallowtail made epic powder riding effortless.

The results of hip-checking on limestone...

Rappelling into the entrance of the Pinnochio Couloir on the Middle Teton. We had hoped to climb the North Ridge and make turns from the summit, but ended up riding this sweet line instead.

Digging the sun with Mark after a long, cold climb and descent on the north side of the Middle Teton.

Climbing out of The Handle of the Skillet Glacier on Mt. Moran. Evan Horn breaking trail.

Beautiful, firm powder riding on the Skillet Glacier with Jackson Lake below.

Summit photo with Jaime Musnicki on the Grand Teton. We took advantage of a short window of good weather and great conditions to make this 2-day trip up and down the Grand in late-March.

Approaching the anchors at the bottom of the Ford Couloir/top of the Chevy Couloir on the Grand. Thousands of feet of air beyond the edge to my right.

Rappelling past the ice bulges in the Chevy Couloir.

Zahan Billimoria leads Stephen Koch up the Chouinard Couloir on a blustery day in April. Middle Teton.

Zahan digs the chalky powder on our descent of the Chouinard Couloir.

Escaping a bit of mud-season with my wife in Belize.

There are always lines that I wish I had ridden in a given season, possibilities that never came to fruition, but overall it was a good season.  And it’s not so bad having dreams to fulfill next season.  For now, I’m moving on to mountain biking and trail running until the snow flies again.  My sincere thanks go to Wagner Custom for supporting my drive to climb and ride with the best backcountry/alpine snowboarding tools imaginable.

The Skillet pours down from the summit of Mt. Moran (12,605′) on the northeast face, providing almost 6000′ of steep, perfect fall-line.  I had tried to get up it for a snowboard descent twice before, getting turned back by a storm 5 years ago, and by an insidious weak layer of graupel last winter.  Our unseasonably warm temperatures in the last couple of weeks here have pretty well gotten rid of this season’s long-lived weak layers, so we figured that conditions were prime for a successful descent, barring any large unanticipated snowfall.  Dozing off after a hot meal, my confidence was shaken by the flakes coming down outside.  But waking to starry skies, we were ecstatic to see a couple of inches of new, well-bonded powder on the ground.

We skinned out of camp just as dawn broke over the Gros Ventres and lit up the day’s enormous climb ahead.  Last night’s gift of powder also meant deeper trailbreaking on the uphill leg of the day.  With a light wind over the summit, 2 inches down low translated to 6 or 8 inches up high.

Taking a break just before starting the bootpack, warm in the sun.

We were able to skin the first 2000′ or so, but pretty shortly traded skis for crampons and put in a bootpack for the remaining 3500′ of the climb.  Kick, breathe, step.  Kick, breathe, step.  Repeat.  Endlessly.  Rotating through the lead to keep relatively fresh legs up front, we didn’t set any speed records on this climb but it was somehow enjoyable to feel the honest work of it and breathe the fresh, thin air as we gained elevation.

Holy crap, this thing just keeps on going! AJ sucking wind as we close in on the top.

And as we got higher, the wicked brutal heat that beset us midway up dissipated and a cool breeze blew down the couloir at the top of the glacier, otherwise known as The Handle.

The pitch got steeper for the final 1500′ up The Handle, culminating in a 10′ section of 55- to 60-degree climbing to crest the summit.

Cranking through the final steep pitch, with the summit rocks in view.

Wind plumes ripped off the rocks protecting the top of The Handle but we stood in a silent eddy in the sun, looking back down at nearly 6000′ of track that we had just laid-in.  Which would now be 6000′ of chalky powder turns–sick.  We rock-hopped over to the actual summit, a broad plateau with view of the North Face of the Grand to the south, Thor Peak and the Idaho Teton Valley to the west, Bivouac Peak to the north, and Jackson Lake and the rest of the Jackson valley to the east.  Just gorgeous.

AJ on the summit, with the Grand Teton in the background.

And Evan on the summit.

To think that we fell asleep in a snowstorm but climbed this gorgeous route under bluebird skies.

I dropped in first, giving a few bounces as I side-slipped the entrance to try and clean off some of the sluff, but nothing moved.

AJ about to drop in, contemplating how to manage it.

...And here we go!

The powder proved to be beautifully firm, solid edging and the 1500′ down The Handle flew by until I found a protected zone to tuck into and wait for Evan and Ben to arrive.

Ben skis out of The Handle.

Once we were all together again, I led out for a 2000′ pitch of lovely softness down to our gear cache midway down the route.

AJ, stoked for the next powder pitch.

The sluff started getting pretty big and pushy, but with such favorable riding conditions it felt good to open it up and outrun the cascade behind me.  Laying over big carves, the rock walls became a blur as I focused on getting the most out of these sweet turns.

Carving sweet turns, AJ builds momentum to race his sluff down the Skillet.

The lower glacier started to get pretty sticky with the sun’s heat adding moisture to the upper snowpack, and we found that subtle changes in slope aspect to slightly shady gullies made all the difference in keeping the snow dry and fast.  Then right above camp it all turned to mush.  We relaxed a bit in the sun as we packed up the tents, listening to kiddy-pop on Ben’s AM-FM radio and downing quart after quart of water before the long slog back across the lake.

Ahh, the long crossing...

It took us 3 hours to get from our camp to the east side of the lake, longer than the previous afternoon but not bad considering how slushy the snow was over the lake ice.  (The lake was frozen rock-hard, it was just the snow that was slushy.)

AJ and Ben take a break midway across the lake, with the Skillet Glacier on Mt. Moran in the background. The Handle is the perfect couloir cutting through the upper face to the summit.

Arriving back at the truck in the late afternoon, cold Budweiser and leftover pizza never tasted so good.  Especially having changed from wet ski boots into luscious flip-flops.  Mmm.

Skinning under a full moon is cool.  With headlamps off, shadows are so long and the muted glow reflecting off the snow provides a surreal lighting for travel through the lowland approach to the high peaks.  Partners are merely black silhouettes and the skin track is an ill-defined line across the crusty re-frozen snow surface.  Traveling across Bradley Lake and through the forest, we spent the pre-dawn hours quietly skinning through this dreamscape into Garnet Canyon.

As morning approached, the moon set and we were forced to turn on our headlamps for the last hour before sunrise, climbing up out of the forest and into the glacial basin of the Meadows in the canyon.  We stopped for a morning snack in the Meadows as the sun barely lit the eastern horizon and then bared our teeth for the icy, slick-as-snot-on-a-marble climb from the Meadows up into the North Fork.  The slope between the Meadows and the North Fork is about 35 degrees and faces south, so it bakes all day and then freezes overnight.  Skin tracks that get put in during the heat of the day get burnished to a high gloss with the water content in the surface snow and then freeze like glass.  Having forgotten to bring the ski crampons, we alternated between skinning and bootpacking as the snow conditions demanded on the climb up.  Skis on feet, skis on packs, skis on feet, skis on packs.

Mark below the North Ridge and the NW Couloir. Looks pretty thin. Anybody need to check their email?

The sun rose as we cruised through the moraines in the North Fork and we were able to make good time getting to the Lower Saddle.  We could see the BIG red duffel bag with Exum’s high camp in it as we scrambled up the scree towards the base of the North Ridge of the Middle.  Surmounting a series of benches, we soon gained a view of the route and quickly ascertained that it wasn’t going to happen on this day.  There wasn’t a shred of snow on the ridge, and the access to the NW Couloir was dry as well.  Standing in the shadow of the Middle with a chill wind cranking over the ridge and no harnesses or rock gear in our packs, none of us felt inclined to tackle 2000′ of 5th-class rock.  So we punted and decided to seek out the Pinnochio Couloir, a 1000′ line from the base of the North Ridge down to the glacier below.

With a narrow entrance that goes at ~55 degrees, the Pinnochio is a super aesthetic line that we got a good look at while skinning through the moraines an hour earlier.

Maybe this route will work?

Finding the top proved to be harder than we expected; after scrambling up and then downclimbing a few short pitches of slabby rock on misguided routes, we finally crested the Pinnochio Pinnacle and gazed down into the couloir.  My 25-meter strand of rope barely reached down to the notch at the top of the couloir, but with a brief body-wrap rappel we each made our way down to the entrance.

Mark sits back onto the day's first rappel, with the Grand Teton in the background.

Evan raps off the Pinnochio Pinnacle.

I cleaned off the cornice at the top while Mark and Evan found a rock horn to sling the rope around for our second rappel of the day, getting beyond a rocky pinch and into the couloir proper.  Going first, I found chalky powder in the couloir with excellent edging, which felt good in what seemed a bit like an elevator shaft.  55-degrees and barely wider than the length of my board, the Pinnochio Couloir was pretty sporty!

Snowboarding on rappel--not as easy or fun as it might look. But on a side note, this was my first day in the alpine with my new Wagner Custom board. Totally amazing--it's so lively, and with a bit more sidecut it makes tight turns in this kind of terrain feel easy. Awesome. Thanks guys!

After passing a particularly narrow pinch a hundred feet down, things opened up and I found really fun riding down to the mid-couloir rockband.  I pulled off to the side and yelled up for Mark to ski down to me.

Mark skis the upper pitch of the Pinnochio Couloir.

We poked around a bit for a route to downclimb while Evan made his descent to us, ultimately deciding to pull the rope out again for one last rappel past the 15′ band of rock that blocked our path.  Mark slung  another horn, we rapped past the rock, and then ripped dreamy turns out of the fan of the couloir and down the glacier to the moraines below.  The sun felt pretty damn good after spending a couple of hours in the shadow of the Middle, so we took the opportunity to eat a big lunch before exiting the mountains.

Evan skis across the glacier to the moraines after exiting the Pinnochio Couloir. Pretty skinny up top!

AJ and Mark soaking up the sun on the moraines.

More challenges awaited us on the way out, mostly in the variable and shallow snow conditions that we have this winter at mid- and low-elevations in the Tetons, but we eventually made it back down to the lake and cranked out the last two miles to the parking lot.  Though it was disappointing to get turned back from summiting the Middle, getting to ride the Pinnochio was pretty sweet and it was a fantastic day to be in the mountains with good friends.  Ultimately, the most disappointing part of the day was arriving back at the parking lot to find that somebody had taken the beers we stashed under the car to keep them cold!  So lame!

And so, we wrapped up the day with the standard trip to Dornan’s for a pitcher and some quesadillas while gazing back up at the Range through the gigantic bay windows behind the bar.  Another decent consolation prize.

It occurred to me as we moved to high camp.  I was guiding a climb of Denali’s West Buttress; we were carrying huge packs, moving REALLY slowly up the ridge in sub-zero temperatures.  “Wouldn’t it be nice to move fast with a light pack?  I’ll bet the Tetons are gorgeous right now.  The trail into Garnet might even be clear.”

A dry initial approach

So, 2 days after I got home Jake and I left my dog with a friend and headed up into the Park. We figured the Grand Teton would still have plenty of snow on it for a late-season descent, but weren’t totally sure about the approach—should we bring skins?  Should I bring my approach skis?  Lupine Meadows was dry and hot when we pulled in, the smell of sage strong in the air, and snow line looked way up there.  Jake convinced me that I should bring my approach skis anyway, just in case.

Walking in sneakers with light packs we flew up the trail into Garnet Canyon, finally changing to boots and skis for the last half-mile to the Meadows. It made for a quick half-mile, though. While I shoveled a platform and pitched the tent, Jake dug down a few feet to find the creek.

Going to bed.

We ate hoagie sandwiches as the stars started to appear and slid into our sleeping bags on a lovely, warm night.

The climb up to the Grand from the Meadows was smooth, with the exception of a brief route-finding snafu.

Jake on the Teepe Glacier at sunrise.

AJ climbs to the base of the Stettner Couloir. (Just around the corner...)

Firm snow made for fast boot-packing and we were at the bottom of the Stettner Couloir just after sunrise.  Unlike earlier this year, the Stettner was one big, icy runnel peppered with rocks—great climbing but unlikely skiing.

Climbing super firm snow and ice in the lower Stettner Couloir.

We climbed the Stettner unroped, and pitched-out the ice in the Chevy traverse to the base of the Ford Couloir.

Jake leads the first pitch of the Chevy Couloir.

Another hour of firm step-kicking brought us to the summit and endless views into Idaho, Wyoming and Montana.

The last step to the summit!

The view from the top of the Grand is unbelievable; everything else is SO FAR below!  Under bluebird skies, we sat in the sun for a bit, soaking it all in and recharging for the descent while the snow finished corning up. I dropped in first, making a few test turns before opening it up down the southeast ridge to the top of the Ford.

Warm-up turns above the Ford Couloir. The Glacier Route/East Face of the Middle Teton in the background.

The entrance to the Ford is pretty steep—close to 50 degrees—but with it full of sweet corn we made big, fast turns, outrunning our sluff, leapfrogging our way down to the top of the Chevy.

AJ drops in to the top of the Ford Couloir.

Jake enjoys sweet corn in the Ford Couloir.

And that was the end of the riding up high on the mountain—the Chevy is unrideable and the Stettner would be awful turning, so after 4 pitches of rappelling we arrived at the bottom of our line and traversed around to the Teepe Glacier for another 2500’ of fun turns in the sun back to camp.

The first of four pitches of rappelling off the Grand.

What a sweet outing!  The descent was almost more rappelling than riding but the climbing was fun, the weather was perfect, and it felt so good to move fast.  We strolled the rest of the way down the trail into the forest and early-blooming wildflowers, chatting about what to ski next weekend and the massive amounts of food we would consume when we got back to Victor.

AJ Linnell breaking trail on Treasure Mountain using Wagner Custom approach skis

AJ Incoming

AJ scopes the entrance

The Boy Scout Couloir is so named because it is the only clean line through the 400′ limestone cliff above the Treasure Mountain boy scout camp. Steep, narrow, and perfectly plumb, the couloir is a deep and beautiful cleft through towering rock walls. Ultimately, the reason that I hadn’t ridden it before was because of the long access and the difficulty of finding it from above. But with us camped on the summit of Treasure Mountain, we were perfectly set up for a descent and didn’t even know it. It would mean a long skin back to camp, but what better way to wrap up this trip?

AJ exits Boy Scout Couloir

What a ride

Skinning home