In the sort-of-good-news department, the resort is upgrading its water supply pipes to much of its snowmaking domain. I wandered through the construction two weeks ago and these big pipes will handle more than quadruple the volume of the old pipes. So if you like skiing on manmade snow early in the season, it’s good news. If you like natural powder snow, there’s always Grand Targhee just about an hour away where top to bottom natural snow skiing usually is in place by mid- November

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The blog’s title says it all, Powder Blog. With little powder, there is little enthusiasm. How little? One of our local papers, Valley Citizen, has posted the bad news.
“According to the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS), only 1977 had less snow in the past 50 years, and you have to go as far back as 1931 to find the second worst water year. For this year, the snowpack is 58 percent of average above American Falls and 56 percent of average above Rexburg for the Henry’s Fork. Not any better in Wyoming, the Hoback Basin is the worst at 47 percent of average, not much better than the Snake above Jackson, which sits uncomfortably at 51 percent of average. “

I had been checking SNOTEL’s data lately and observing the same bleak story.

Worse, my skis and my friends skis are always visible when going down the mountains, there never being enough snow to cover them, so mostly they are visible in the garage awaiting a never arriving powder dump.

Maybe next winter will make up for this one.

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Good luck to Pete Swenson for creating this race and thanks for doing it.

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Luckily tomorrow’s New York Times Magazine steps up with an interesting article on the racer, Lindsey Vonn, the US Ski Team is pinning its hopes  (and future fund raising) on,  plus a good science video analyzing the double full full full freestyle aerial maneuver and items on Olympic sports other than skiing.

I’ve known Ms. Vonn is immensely talented and dedicated athlete. I hope she does well. I didn’t know how much she’s given up  (a normal childhood, friends, and even a father) to chase the gold and the glory. But so, in varying degrees, have her competitors. I wish them well too. I’ll be happy for whoever wins, but I’ll definitely not be envious. How many of us can name the gold medal winner of the woman’s giant slalom in 1984? (Debbie Armstrong, USA) Pretty fleeting fame for so many years of hard work and sacrifice.

Eight years ago on our way to watch the Woman’s Downhill at the Salt Lake City Olympics my wife found herself sharing a bus seat with the mother of one of the Swiss ski team’s girl racers. Upon learning that my wife had a very competitive young ski racer, the Swiss woman looked at her closely and said “You will regret it many times if your child continues to pursue ski racing. So much heartbreak, so much expense, so much pain.” Hardly what one would expect to hear from a woman whose daughter might be only hours away from winning an Olympic medal. (It turned out to be another day of heartbreak for her and her daughter.)

Speaking of fund raising. A friend related to me the story of a mutual friend’s fund raising efforts for the US Ski Team. It appears there is an enthusiastic ski team booster in New Jersey who held a fund raiser at his home and the price of admission was $250,000. Apparently it was well attended, raising a few million for the ski team. Yeah, in New Jersey, in this economy.

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24 Hour New Snowfall

SORT BY: Last 24 Hours Last 48 Hours Last 72 Hours

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I enjoyed seeing some old movies of Pepi skiing at Jackson the first year the resort was open, a year when the Tram had not been completed yet. Life must have been tough for Pepi and the other instructors and patrollers, nothing to do all day except ski powder since there were virtually no customers.

Pepi revealed that he was almost an accidental Olympian the year he won his first Olympic metal. A week before the race he wasn’t even on the Austrian ski team! The Austrians couldn’t seem to make up their minds about who would be the fourth and final member of their team. A group of enthusiastic supporters of Pepi from his  hometown of Lienz stepped in and did some fierce lobbying on Pepi’s behalf and managed to secure him the coveted fourth stop. He said the confidence these people showed in him inspired him and gave him the confidence he needed to ski well landing him on the podium.

In the twelve years since Tommy claimed Olympic Gold he’s grown to love Jackson and even Snow King, a hill that appeared so steep to him the first time he raced there as a thirteen year old boy from Montana that he found himself crying in the starting gate.

Tommy’s Dad was in the audience and Tommy drew a good laugh from everyone when he reminded his Dad that he had told Tommy he was nuts to pay whatever he paid for a lot to build a house on in the Stilson Ranches years ago.

Nobody asked and Pepi didn’t say anything about his daughter Resi and her hard luck with recurring serious injuries that have sidelined her promising racing career the last three years. I wonder if he is still as enthusiastic a supporter of ski racing as a career as he was before all of  Resi’s broken bones and torn ligaments?

Pepi did make the point that if you don’t finish on the podium, you are nothing in ski racing. He asked who remembers who came in fourth in any race? Even though a fourth place skier might have raced the best race of his or her life, and might have been only a couple of hundredths of a second behind, nobody cares- or remembers.

I know there are many parents harboring Olympic dreams for their young ski racers, considering what it costs to raise and nurture a ski racer these days, parents might want to consider spending that money in Vegas, the odds of getting a winning payback are probably better in Vegas. The number of broken bones and other body parts is considerably less too. Reminds me of an old Warren Miller quip about how much it costs to buy all the gear needed to be a ski racer compared to the cost of a tennis racket- and which pays off better when you become a champion.

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Every winter we all should obey ski patrol closures and heed all avalanche advisories posted by the local avalanche forecasters. This winter with the extremely dangerous snowpack we have to live with, we should be extra cautious no matter where we ski. Backcountry skiing should be done with extreme caution and even resort skiing should be assumed to be potentially dangerous once you leave a groomed trail in pursuit of  inviting powder. Wear a beacon!

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Because this race was a qualifier for the USSMA team heading for the world championships to be held in Andorra later this winter, the top three finishers who had not already qualified in the 2009 qualifying races became  automatic selections to the USSMA team heading to Andorra.

Aside from families and friends, there were not many spectators aware of the talent racing at Grand Targhee today. How often does the public get to mingle with and ski beside racers preparing to compete in a world championship event? The best racers in the U.S. were charging up and down Targhee’s mountains today. Perhaps as this tough sport grows in popularity and more people become aware of the abilities of these athletes, its fan base will grow too.

Grand Targhee’s Director of Special Events, Andy Williams, and his crew did a great job creating two challenging race courses. The shorter recreational course, with approximately 3000 vertical feet of climbing,  ascended the front face of Fred’s Mountain, ran down through Targhee’s chutes to the valley between Fred’s Mtn and Peaked Peaked, then up to Mary’s Nipple, down Fourth of July Bowl and out to the finish at the Targhee base area. The fasted men’s time was  one hour twenty-four minutes and the fastest women’s time was one hour thirty-five minutes.

The longer full-on race course with approximately 5000 vertical feet of climbing diverged from the rec. courses route at the saddle between Mary’s Nipple and Peaked Peak. Where the rec. racers turned down hill to make their final descent to the base area, the competitive racers ascended Peaked Peak, skied down the south side of Peaked on the Broadway trail, then climbed back up to the top of Peaked via Colter’s Run and then dropped back down to the saddle between Peaked and Mary’s to rejoin the rec. course where it descended Fourth of July Bowl and returned to the finish at the Targhee base. The winning time for the men’s race division was one hour thirty-seven minutes. The fastest woman was done in one hour fifty-four minutes.

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