Jackson Hole Underground

The robins are getting fat on drowned earthworms, and the fragrance of chokecherry and crabapple blossoms fills the air. On East Gros Ventre Butte, it’s as if someone spilled streaks of yellow paint down every nook and gully, the bunches of balsam root are so abundant.

Looking out the window in mid-June and seeing this view is more than one can bear. We’re only a week away from summer, and yet we never really had any spring.

This valley is about to explode — with wildflowers, runoff, and mosquitoes. A little sunshine, and the frenzy will be on for the longest days of the year.

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Today was January 126th up on Teton Pass, where nearly a foot of fresh powder triggered one last all-out frenzy.

I say “last,” but of course, given the weather lately, I’m tempting fate. We could be headed for powder days in May, June … July?

Today’s run on Glory will be my last.

Photographs by Andrew Wyatt © (roll cursor over images for captions)

What a fantastic, and quintessentially Jackson Hole, “rite of spring.”

The 33rd Pole Pedal Paddle will be remembered as the coldest in history. There were whiteouts on every leg, icicles hung from bicycles, and kayaks were blown upriver.

On a morning in which Jackson Hole crossed the 600-inch mark* for snowfall, we were blasted by yet another storm. Highways 22 and 390 were glazed with ice, and drifts covered the shoulders where competitors were supposed to ride.

PPP founder Harry Baxter, who started the event in 1975, called this year’s race “probably the toughest one ever.” Baxter, 78, usually watches the competition from the mountain, but this year he didn’t because “I wasn’t sure they were going to pull it off.”

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It’s almost April, and yet the snowstorms show no signs of abating. Nearly another foot of snow was measured in the Tetons today, and the forecast calls for 14 inches by tomorrow night, with still more on the way.

It’s been a winter of nearly continuous powder skiing. Naturally, after we eclipsed the 500-inch mark earlier this month, people began to wonder whether this season would set a new record for snowfall.

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Daily snowfall since last week’s post about the phenomenal skiing: 7 inches, 9 inches, 10 inches, 8 inches, 1 inch and, finally today, zero.

That makes 200 inches since Wednesday, Nov. 28, or an average of four inches a day for seven weeks. No wonder the parking lot atop Teton Pass was nearly empty this morning; everyone’s legs are shot.

It has snowed 42 out of the last 49 days in the mountains, and another four to six inches fell today after the Bridger-Teton avalanche forecast was issued.

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