Wimpy's

The morning started innocently enough. A 6:30 alarm. A 7:00 ride. A drive over to the Death Canyon TH in Jackson.


Unfortunately, we got caught in Jackson's morning rush hour traffic...

We left the car at 8:45 and set off under a light snow to begin the long 4,000ft ascent up to Wimpy's. Everyone around here agrees, this has been one of the most memorable snowpacks for late November the Tetons has seen in a while. Which is fine with me, really, because as a result of a number of logistics falling into place nicely, I have a wide open door to fully experience everything the Teton Backcountry has to offer this winter. And today, things were looking good if not great.

The skin track from the prior visitors was still clear for the most part up the majority of the lower portion of the ascent, but began to fade up higher as the wind and steadily falling snow filled it in. We made the top in a steady, but comfortable 3 1/2 hours, took in the magnitude of our foggy perch, and proceeded on to a three lap, 900ft circuit in some of the best November fluff the Tetons can produce.

After the first lap, we stood on top of Wimpy's pondering the plausibility of getting up Albright Peak and just as we had settled on at least traversing over to check out the snow stability over there, I saw the cloud...

The large cornice on the NE facing ridgetop had released sending a massive volume of snow and ice down the face directly in front of us. The cloud of snow was followed by a thunderous crash as the debris cascaded down the NE face onto the lower snowfield. That was enough for us. Negative on Albright. So we took two more laps on Wimpy's.

What a day. I'm quickly finding my ski legs both climbing and descending and feeling better each time I go out even with my heinously monsterous skis. I could use a pair half the weight, but at this point it's only making me stronger. And it's what I got. So that's that.

The final descent down was what one would expect of a continuous 4,000 powder run. Not much else to say about that. Keep it snowing.