Stephanie and I finally had something in our lives exciting enough (outside of work) to blog about, and of course it’s only taken me 6 weeks to finally blog about it. Last month we had a joint vacation and were able to hit the slopes at Jackson Hole, a ski resort just outside of Jackson, Wyoming.
Stephanie and I both love airports. Which is odd considering how much drama we’ve had in them. It rarely seems to go smoothly. I was meeting Stephanie in Jackson who was flying in from Houston. Of course the day I fly out of Memphis is the day it decides to start snowing. After de-icer truck failures and FIVE total de-icing attempts I was airborne to Chicago an hour and a half later. While traversing the length of O’Hare, I here “last call for boarding” of my flight. Needless to say, residency and The MED food has made me sloth like, not to mention running with ten pound snow boots on might as well be an exercise off of P90X. Another airport close call.
The town of Jackson is just the way we like it. A somewhat small, quaint ski village with lots of character. The first day we spent getting our legs back and hitting some cruisers. The resort lived up to it’s reputation with a wide variety of terrain. My description of it would be the elevation change of the Alps, the bowls of Vail and the trees of Wolf Creek. Our favorite place to ski previously had been the back bowls and blue sky basin of Vail. But I think Jackson Hole might have taken the lead in all time favorite places to ski. Along this theme here’s my list of top five places to ski in the US.
1. Jackson Hole
2. Vail
3. Wolf Creek
4. Crested Butte
5. Steamboat Springs
We were blessed with some gorgeous powder the second day of skiing and took full advantage. We also enjoyed to newly rebuilt ‘Big Red’ which travels 4,000 feet of elevation in 9 minutes. Stephanie was all proud because the recording on the gondola gives a long warning about being “expert terrain only” before you get off.
We decided it would probably be a while before returning to Jackson and that we should take full advantage of being only a few miles from Yellowstone. However, we soon found out that it is inaccessible to standard vehicles during the winter. So, we made due and hopped aboard a snowmobile instead.
It was truly one of the funnest things we’ve ever experienced. Yellowstone was beautiful even in the winter, and who wouldn’t enjoy seeing it while going 55 mph on a snowmobile.
Even more pics below and on the Pics page
