The Jackson community showed up in force for the Kings and Queens of Corbet’s, despite windy and cold conditions. Photo: Red Bull
Jackson Hole, Wyoming is known as a powder factory. The resort’s motto is “steep and deep,” and the mountain lives up to it. However, when I was there last week for the Kings and Queens of Corbet’s, it was “low tide” with no fresh snow on the ground, in fact they hadn’t had any snowfall for the past 30 days. We did get a few inches before the comp ran, but it was by no means “deep.” That being said, even at low tide, Jackson is an incredible mountain. The terrain makes for insane powder skiing but is also an absolute blast to explore without fresh snow on the ground, and the vibes at this legendary resort are next-to-none.
Despite Jackson’s status as a tourist destination, there’s an undercurrent of locals and dedicated shredders that keeps the resort grounded. Shoulder-to-shoulder packed trams had old friends greeting one another with conversations about gear, the snow, and favorite backcountry lines. On every ride as the tram reaches the top, the operator pauses the music and recites the speech about expert terrain and backcountry access, ending with “and if you don’t know…” to which the entire tram responds: “don’t go!” At the bottom of most lifts an old ski hangs with the shafts of broken ski poles dangling underneath. “They’re for good luck, hit them!” a 30-something snowboarder said to a ski school student I was lining up for a chair with, before reaching up to send them into an aggressive clatter.
Chase Blackwell departs the Jackson Hole Tram on his way to Corbet’s Couloir. Photo: Red Bull.
The rad community of Jackson I’m sure has a lot to do with the buckets of powder that brought everyone there, but it goes beyond that, to a common sense of stoke and shared love of skiing and snowboarding that unites friends and strangers, locals and visitors like myself together at Jackson. So that got me to thinking, what makes a good mountain? What is it about Jackson and other “great resorts” that makes them such a great place to ski and snowboard even when the snow isn’t good?
After my low-tide trip, I got home to San Francisco only to find that the first real storm since early January was about to hammer Tahoe and drop ten-plus inches of snow on Palisades. So, low on underwear and with my arsenal of baselayers in desperate need of a wash, I grabbed a travel buddy, packed up the car and drove north into the teeth of the storm. Waking up in Truckee on Tuesday morning to snow-covered vehicles, we got to the mountain at seven thinking we’d be the first ones there. We weren’t. As we arrived skiers and snowboarders were already making their way to the lifts, and by 7:45 a.m. when we sleepily reached the legendary KT-22 lift, there was already over a hundred people in line and waiting for the lift to open at nine.
The first lines of the day begin to appear below KT-22 as we headed up the mountain. Photo: WS
Getting in line was like walking into a party. Old friends were greeting each other, groups were psyching each other up and trying to decide which lines through The Fingers were skiable, and I was just soaking it all in on my first powder day at the legendary resort. By 8:50 the line stretched to almost a football field in length. At nine when the first chair boarded, a cheer rose up from the liftline, accompanied by the clacking of ski poles. We got onto the lift in the first 30 chairs or so, and by the time we were halfway up the mountain the first lines were unfolding beneath us. Hoots exploded on the loaded chairs as a huge backie was sent through The Fingers, and even louder cheers as a similar send ended unsuccessfully in an explosion of powder.
The powder was light, fluffy, and everything I could ask for after a week of skiing hardpack in Jackson, and despite the initial queue for KT-22, I didn’t wait in a lift line for longer than five to ten minutes all day. But what’s stuck with me was the community that I was privy to while skiing KT-22 after it’d snowed. They say that there are no friends on a powder day, but at Palisades everyone was everyone else’s friend, cheering each other on and sharing in the stoke.
Skiing off of Monument Ridge in Palisades. Photo: Cory Diamond.
Both Palisades and Jackson are known as legendary resorts, and I think there’s something to that status that goes beyond the physical factors, something that has to do with the communities that exist in these places and the traditions they uphold. Without a doubt, it takes physical factors to bring these communities together, such as radical terrain, good lifts, and good snow, but I’d argue that it’s those sorts of communities that make a great mountain while those physical attributes elevate certain resorts’ status. It’s a mix. But you can find locals at any mountain, and that’s what I’m getting at, because neither Palisades nor Jackson are strictly “locals” mountains. Rather, they’re legendary resorts, destinations for skiers and snowboarders across the globe, and despite the label of “tourist destination” we so often slap on any desto that gets enough attention, it’s really the communities that create these iconic mountains. That’s what elevates a great resort.
