It is the only mountain I have ever skied, anywhere, where large red and yellow signs on the lifts proclaim ” Welcome…..This mountain is not like any other you have ever skied. You may become lost, injured or stranded. There are dangerous cliff and other unmarked hazards. Avalanches and weather conditions may change abruptly or occur suddenly and without warning. Failure to use caution could result in your death.”
Jackson Hole consists of miles of the rugged face of the Tetons. If you have the cohones, you are most welcome to point the sticks downhill just about anywhere along those rocky cloud clinging spires. But one morning last January was a first, even for one who has hunted,ridden and worked in extreme winter conditions.
Rhett and I were up early to catch the foot of new freshies. The gondola surged into boiling clouds and the 3″ per hour snow fall. The run down to Thunder lift from the gondola had been through thigh deep powder tugging, pulling, whispering exhilaration at the seams of our snow trousers. The snow laden trees were silent white sentinels guarding trackless openings down through the steeps. The mountain was almost empty. Visibility, at best, was an icy misty 50 yards. It was all pretty damn grand.
Then we were onto Thunder, just a gentle breeze sifting the thickly falling snow. Rhett had caught his chair, several behind mine. My ride up was shared by a ski instructor and two young children who could not have been more than seven or eight. We were just at the second tower, when from nowhere came 90 plus mph winds, and a tornadic whiteout so intense, that I literally could not see the skis on my feet. The lift slowed and then lurched to a stop. We hung there swaying wildly, fortunately still in the trees. With a grinding protest of cables and pulley wheels, we inched up the steep face, stopping for minutes at a time, squeaking forward, the chairs straining at their anchors, swinging out of control. It was apparent that the attendants at top and bottom, separated by a mile and half of wilderness, were trying desperately to insure the chairs did not derail. Frozen particles of ice slammed us like darts from a million sadistic nail guns.
The ski instructor, his voice stressed, was doing his best to calm his very frightened charges. I was giving serious consideration to jumping, fearful the chairs would derail, tossing us all into the air with less than satisfactory results. I was wondering how Rhett was doing, several chairs behind, and if he was toying with the same considerations. I knew the high, fully open and exposed ridge just before the off load station was going to be even more hellatious than this relatively sheltered full blown tempest in the trees.
The ride up Thunder usually takes about 9 minutes. Almost an hour after embarking, we were stuck, the chair virtually vertical rather than horizontal, right at the ridge. The world was upside down. I had taken off the thick fleece I always carry around my waist for an extra layer in an emergency, and had draped it over my head. My hands were buried under the fleece, below my hunched chin. If I was to jump, it would have to be now, but there was no way to open the bar without endangering the instructor and young children. Then, with another sickening shudder we were inching toward the off load ramp about 100 yards ahead. We struggled to disembark, the wind pinning the kids to the chair.
The instructor grabbed one child, and I grasped the second, and together we hoisted them off the chair and skied unsteadily down the ramp. The summit was a tumultuous jumble of furious vertigo and wind screeches, a natural holocaust. Bitter tentacles of howling gusts toppling 70 foot fir trees, their great trunks snapping with reports like gunshots. Balance was almost impossible with the force of the air, and total lack of depth perception.
Despite the danger of the situation, and giddy to be off the potential open air coffin of the chair, I realized I was smiling through the ice clinging and drippin from my face. Feeling the adrenaline, I relished the fury of nature, once again punctuating the insignificance of human kind.
I hunched behind the shack housing the white faced, wide eyed lift attendant. Rhett’s chair, the last one with persons on board, hit the ramp. I was relieved to see he was OK. We had to scream to make ourselves heard, even inches apart. I realized we were both stage one hypothermic. We inched our way down the ledges where curls of snow enveloped any topographical features, winds tearing at our fragile forms without mercy.
We headed for the north slope, and the timber, hoping for some shelter to break the incredible might of the gale, and afford us even a modicum of visibility. A number of times I thought I was upright, only to realize that I could not move either of my arms because I was actually horizontal on the surface of the snow. Close to an hour later, We wound up at the small emergency warming hut at the bottom of Sublette lift, still 3000 feet above and several miles south of the village. We were astounded to find the hut overflowing with expert skiers, ski patrol, instructors with their classes, and avalanche equipped powder hounds like ourselves, all immobilized completely by the still building tempest rocking the hut. The jet engine roar of the ongoing micro-burst tore round the crevasses of the mountain, unforgiving, wild and untamed, wonderful in it’s unbridled power.
Twice a group of about ten of us attempted to find the cat track we knew was just a 100 or so yards away. And twice we retreated before the onslaught of the storm. The ski patrol with us had radios. They reported the entire mountain had been closed, and that many trails were completely blocked by fallen trees. They also apprised that those at base would not dare to dispatch snow cats to the aid of the 50 or so persons shoulder to shoulder in the hut.
Finally, with just the slightest of abatement, twenty or so of us, ski patrol, instructors and ski hounds formed a line, and forsaking trying to ski, hiked from the cabin to the cat track. Shoulders pointed into the wind, necks sunken into parkas, some tied together with avalanche cords, we struggled our way down to a semblance (but only in context) of manageable weather. In all, it took four hours down the track, normally a twenty minute screaming, yelling and smiling powder run down the face of the Hoback.
I’m spending time there now. Rhett is planning on joining me. Jordan might come on down, too. And I can’t wait.