Help Needed: Jackson hole for intermediate skiing

[RuthB]

There are daily free guided tours of the mountain which might be a good way to ease into things and get the lay of the land.

I can attest that the daily tours are great. They don't seem to have a "set corporate route". The best way I could describe it was a discussion, followed by a warm up run to calibrate ability to JH terrain and then an orientation tour to ski and/or point out things that you might enjoy - or that's what ours was like anyway. I got the impression that the tours were genuinely about helping you to enjoy the mountain and that they wouldn't force groups with different abilities together just to make up numbers.

 

[2bjenny]

Ditto what @veritasliberat wrote. There are more options than I think people realize for intermediate skiers.

 

[marzNC]

Interesting, JH has a webpage for Intermediates. Don't remember that before. Clearly working hard to become a destination resort for everyone, not just advanced/experts.

We have opened new "blue" terrain in the Casper area, updated old lifts to high speed quads, announced new lifts for easy access out of the base (new Gondola 2016) and increased the size of our grooming fleet. With more snow making capacity and increased grooming operations, not only does it make the blue slopes a consistent corduroy, it means slopes that used to be the territory of advanced skiers are now smooth and wide, increasing options for all.

 

[Megski]

Yikes, sorry, just now getting to the forum after a long summer absence. I can give you my opinion, which is only just that, but based on having skied with many students in the intermediate range.

Oh and a huge shout out to those of you who ask my to chime in. Makes my day to have some hopefully helpful information for fellow ski fanatics!

Do we have endless mellow blue terrain no. However, while probably a tad steeper than most, our blues and double blues are nice, long, almost all groomed and seldom too crowded. It is not true that the blues are cat tracks. However to get from the upper mountain (Tram - black only, and Sublette - one double blue) you will indeed have to traverse using cat tracks. Most of the blues and double blues however are off of Apres Vous, Casper, Kemmerer, and the Gondola, and there are definitely non cat track options for getting down to the base if double blues are ok for you.

While steeper than many resorts, in my fifteen years teaching, I have only really had two or three guests that would have been better served if we had had more gentle blues. Everyone else quickly improves and finds that with a lesson or two they become very comfortable managing their time on the mountain if they had any issues to begin with. If anything, I think that Jackson is a great place for riders/skiers to realize that they can enjoy more than they ever thought they would and suddenly they go from intermediate to thinking about off piste, trees, etc....

Let me know if there are any other questions I can answer for you. I hope you choose to come and don't regret the decision. I would be happy to provide you a list of my blue progression (which can vary based on conditions of course).

@snoWYmonkey : I am traveling to Jackson next week for the first time and am very excited about the upcoming trip. I've heeded the warning that JH blues may be more advanced than typically expected. Regardless, I'm looking forward to tackling the challenge. To get started, I would love if you could share your list of blue progressions you mentioned in an earlier post. I will be skiing 12/20-12/23 next week, and may possibly consider taking a lesson to acclimate myself to JH terrain.

It sounds like you have lots of knowledge to share about the mountain and I would be very appreciative of any tips. I ski New England mostly and have been out west twice (Utah and Steamboat). I would classify myself as an advanced skiier in New England; but perhaps only advanced intermediate for the Western mountains.

 

[marzNC]

@snoWYmonkey : I am traveling to Jackson next week for the first time and am very excited about the upcoming trip. I've heeded the warning that JH blues may be more advanced than typically expected. Regardless, I'm looking forward to tackling the challenge. To get started, I would love if you could share your list of blue progressions you mentioned in an earlier post. I will be skiing 12/20-12/23 next week, and may possibly consider taking a lesson to acclimate myself to JH terrain.

It sounds like you have lots of knowledge to share about the mountain and I would be very appreciative of any tips. I ski New England mostly and have been out west twice (Utah and Steamboat). I would classify myself as an advanced skiier in New England; but perhaps only advanced intermediate for the Western mountains.

Hello there! Where do you ski most often in New England? My guess is that you'll adapt to JH pretty quickly. Well worth considering a lesson. Even the group lessons for advanced skiers are taught by very experienced instructors.

 

[snoWYmonkey]

@Megski,

Here are some ideas for how to approach the mountain. Start off with a few warm ups on each side of Teewinot, our greenest lift. If you feel like it you can go up Eagle's rest, a slow, soon to be replaced, green run lift next to teewinot. At the top, traverse across and under the gondola, where skiers are mostly coming from the other direction and ski the skier's right side of a very short pitch of Sundance to get a feel for our intermediate pitches.

Then you can proceed to AV (Apres Vous) and go down Werner until almost the end where you can traverse over to Teewinot gully if the last pitch seems too steep. With an instructor we would show you a slightly more roundabout and less steep way, but if you mess up it is straight to steep double blue, so I hesitate to mention it here.

Another option is up to the top of the gondola and taking Gros Ventre only to lupine way then down to Amphitheater and lapping this by using the Marmot chair lift.

After this, taking the traverse over to Casper chair from either AV or the bottom of thunder chair/Marmot zone is a great bet. From the top of Casper Easy does it or campground are great options.

Hope that helps a little bit. I strongly recommend the guided tours with the hosts if you feel comfortable with blues/double blues. Chat with the person leading it to make sure it is appropriate and fun for you.

Enjoy and do holler if you see me out in my red coat working (my real name is Christina)