The trees will steam in the hot mid-day sun, then it will cloud up and freeze again. It will not be crowded, and I will not wait in line, but I will pay with assumed risk and sweat the admission to these ski descents and climbs.
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Depending on the vagaries of the melt-freeze and spring snow cycles I might yet get something big done in the distant Tetons, but I will have to skin for it. This is not the time to huck sick cliffs in-bounds and send hard mixed routes in the ice climbing canyons. It is not the Jackson of Teton Gravity Research and Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. It is a tourist town taking a breath before the next wave of visitors. I say first our small Wyoming town before I say Jackson because that is what it has become, for one short month. The tourists and winter warriors are on their exodus back to points unknown – points not here. The resort in our small Wyoming town (of Jackson, no need to be vague) has shut down for the season. The road to Hyalite Canyon is closed and the mysterious hidden ice ribbons of Cody are melting. Signs flash warnings about their sudden ephemeral presence as we drive home. Hundreds of tan-butt elk in the midst of their migration to the high mountain slopes feed on the new grass at the road’s edge. The vast Gros Ventre mountains fold our crag and the road that leads to it into a wilderness stretching from the Red Desert to the Beartooths bordering I-90 a few hundred miles north. Our laughter is as copious as the meltwater in the river below as we relearn the dance of the rock and goof off with nobody around to hear our raunchy banter but the ravens and each other. We lay horse blankets over the lingering patches of snow and belay on top of them. Our arms, uncovered for the first time all winter, soak in the warm rays. Our finger tendons and tender finger pads creak and strain with the novel use of sport climbing. All day we crawl up the sharp rock of Hoback Shield with legs strong from skiing and upper arms strong from swinging tool into ice and pulling up onto tiny metal picks balanced on rock. The morning after I am packed and ready my friends and I crowd into our trucks and take advantage of the fine sunny weather. Nearing fourteen, she knows duffels mean an extended absence for the human that opens the can. Each time I have returned within a day or a week. Always I came in trailing a plume of cold air and wet gear. I have left with ice tools strapped to my pack and returned with healing face wounds and ripped pants. I have left with skis and returned covered in snow. All year she has seen my going and returning. My small calico cat looks on with nervous attention. Skiers wait at the bus stop down the street as tennis players in shorts dodge lingering snowdrifts in the court across from my house.
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Across the river gravel bike trails and million dollar homes of the valley I fill my living room with well used down gear and the finest rock and ice pro money can buy. Photo: Aili FarquharĬlosing-day skiers adorned in neon one-pieces and Mardi Gras beads (most probably under the influence of several blue-ribbon winning adult beverages) fly off jumps and stock makeshift slopeside bars carved in ice with cans from their backpacks. MSR Contributor Aili Farquhar shares her thoughts on the shoulder season.