Powder Week: the King, Icelantic and wings
Any pipe dreams that journalists were going to be wined and dined in style during Powder magazine’s ski week at Jackson Hole quickly were dispelled by the buffet at Monday night’s opening reception: chicken wings and egg rolls.
With grease oozing out of our pores, we left Teton Village as the skies cleared and moonlight shone on the peaks. It seemed the dump cycle of recent days was over.
Before my alarm sounded the next morning, I heard the plows on East Kelly. Lots of them. Ominous sounding. You’ve got to be kidding, I thought, as I lifted the blinds on my bedside window and discovered six-inch pillows on my neighbors’ rooftops. And the snow was coming down in a torrent. Just when I thought I had skied the most chokingly deep powder, I was going to have to ski more.
So wondrous to see town coated in snow. Didn’t winter used to be like this?
I was going to be late for Powder Week at the village. Had work to do in the morning, but managed to squeeze in a skin up Snow King with my friend Reba. I could have skated to the King, the roads were so plush with packed powder. The snow on the King was like air; you hardly knew it was there as you flew down over the crust.
Caught a ride to the Village in time to rendezvous with the crew from Icelantic, my assigned ski partners for the afternoon. Icelantic is a new ski company based in Evergreen, Colo., founded and run by a group of childhood friends.
These kids were ecstatic; they had skied powder on the upper mountain that morning and were hungry for more. Ben Anderson, the founder, and Anna Loevlie, the international sales manager, are barely old enough to remember skinny GS skis. They had bright smiles and bubbled with enthusiasm as they talked about their business; the day’s international stock market crash didn’t even register. I would serve as their guide.
They showed me their skis, which looked like something out of a fantasy novel. Fatter than anything I had ever been on, curvier than a swimsuit model, with a tip pointed like a mountain peak. Mystical sea creatures adorned the topsheet. The model I was to ski is called The Shaman.
“Fear not the ebb and flow of change. Fear not the new and fantastic and strange,” reads the Icelantic catalog. It would be my motto for the day.
Icelantic’s philosophy is fatter and shorter. The Shaman comes in three sizes: 173 cm, 161 and one forty-something. They handed me the long boards, 160 mm in the shovel, 110 underfoot and 130 in the tail.
I dragged them up the Headwall from the top of the gondola. Twice. We skied down the gut the first run, then Ambassador Ridge. The blown-in gullies were waist deep. The skiing blew their minds.
For such a fat ski, The Shaman is surprisingly easy to turn. I have long maintained that when the snow is great, it doesn’t matter what one puts on his or her feet; two slabs of wood would suffice in the best conditions. This was one of those days.
The Shaman was a little squirrelly; I did not expect it to turn so easily. But I wasn’t looking to turn much as I hurled myself into the untracked patches. The sun came out. It was cold, and the wind was blowing. A classic Jackson Hole day.
I tried to motion for Ben and Anna to stop so I could shoot some photos, but they were too wired. They carved up the bowl in a whirl, with cries of delight. These runs had made the trip, they told me.
We attacked the upper mountain from there: Grand Woods, Far Drift, Cheyenne Gully, James Bond Traverse, Pepi’s Ridge. The Shamans handled the bumps and tracked powder with aplomb. Ben traded boards with me and let me try the 161 size. Even better. It offered plenty of ski but more control.
I got my first ride up the East Ridge chairlift to the summit. Neat view of Rendezvous Bowl; gives you perspective on just how wide the bowl is. The icy wind at the top made us grateful for the shelter of Corbet’s Cabin.
We were the last people loaded on Sublette chair. By the time we reached the bottom portion of Sublette Ridge, my legs felt like rubber. I may not ski at the Jackson Hole resort much anymore, but it still kicks my ass.
The Shamans were a bit awkward at first; I felt like a duck-billed platypus when I put them on, and I clanged my tips at times, unused to the wide shovel. But they made it easy to tame the mountain and were particularly smooth on the cut-up crud at the bottom. The Shaman would be a good choice for the backcountry; the pointed tip allows for secure holding of skins.
Icelantic is in its third year of making skis, all of which come with a two-year warranty. The wood-core boards are made at the Never Summer snowboard factory in Colorado, about a half-hour drive from the Icelantic offices. That allows for hands-on quality control, a priority for the company, Ben explained.
Icelantic made about 700 pairs this year but plans to expand to 2,000 for next winter. Teton Mountaineering is the local dealer.
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Expectations were running high for the evening reception hosted by Jackson Hole Mountain Resort at the restaurant Vertical. But when the covers to the buffet pans were opened, there were more chicken wings. Pans and pans of them.
“Do they have anything else?” a woman, ostensibly a vegetarian, asked me. “Yeah,” I replied. “Celery and bleu cheese.”
In all fairness, these were good wings. But as Powder editor Matt Hansen explained, recalling a difficult episode on Teton Pass, wings, hiking and skiing sometimes don’t mix.
No matter. There was plenty of beer and wine, the conversation was lively, and after all, we had feasted that day on powder.
The young kids from Icelantic had gotten an insider’s tour of the mountain. And the old-timer had learned a lesson for the week: Fear not the new and strange.
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