Taylor Mountain

Taylor Mountain from Mount Glory (photo from SummitPost)

 On occassion things don't live up to expectations. And sometimes it's the other way around. Today was one of those days.

I'm up in Jackson for a long weekend and I headed out with one of my Colorado friends, Jack Brauer, who has moved up here for the winter. Jack had warned me that there hadn't been much snow recently and the temperatures were warm so we figured the snowpack would be fried. In this popular backcountry locale anything decent was bound to be tracked up. We went out anyway - after all how can one be in Jackson and not ski?

After much debate about routes, weather, conditions and so on we settled on Taylor Mountain, north west of Teton Pass in the Teton Range, and a peak I had not yet skied. My excitement however was quickly quelled as we climbed the south ridge. The snow conditions were abysmal, the wind was really kicking and clouds were threatening to move in. Still the scenery and light were beautiful.

 We continued on, stopping to check out the south-east face of Taylor.

 The lines looked awesome but we knew the snow was windhammered, sun crusted or variable. Still we climbed but the winds really picked up. As we reached the summit the cloud bank previously stalled above Teton Pass finally rolled in. We couldn't see a thing.

Not feeling particularly inspired we decided we might as well ski the south-west face of Taylor figuring that the winds from the east may have deposited some snow on that aspect.

As we launched onto the face our expectations were completely dashed. The snow was far from abysmal.

For three thousand vertical feet we skied some fantastic terrain in really pretty good conditions and not another track in sight.

 The face funneled into a deep gully down which we rocketed back to the road where a round of high fives were in order. What a ride and way above expectations.

Check out Jack's blog for some really awesome photos (he's a pro).

I have since read the guide book for this line and discovered that it is called the Poop Chute! I think that might have something to do with the gully which 'poops' you out onto the road.