A quiet morning here. Ivy has gone with Amanda into town to do some shopping before Amanda flies back to Seattle this afternoon. I'm taking the opportunity to rest up (I'm feeling a bit of a cold coming on) and get caught up on emails and news.

So: Jackson Hole. Quite a bit different from what I expected; it's not at all the same scale of resort as the ones I've been to in Europe, or Whistler in B.C. The town is a 20 minute drive from the slopes, but the condominium complex that we're staying in is only 5 minutes away and there's a free shuttle bus that runs every 45 minutes as well as the town busses that go past. The resort itself has some very impressive runs, an excellent vertical, and generally very good snow conditions, but it's much smaller than Whistler-Blackcomb, with only 10 lifts. Still, there's a good variety of difficulty and style, with a lot of enjoyably challenging runs as well as some daunting blacks that I'm not good enough to tackle yet. I'm planning to take some lessons in the next day or two, so hopefully I can work up to some of them.

After some clear weather for the first couple of days, it clouded over late on Saturday and yesterday it snowed lightly for much of the day before clearing again. The snow is very welcome, as the wind on Saturday had blown much of the soft snow off of the more exposed trails, leaving icy patches.

In addition to skiing, I'm hoping to join Ivy, Jeremy (Ivy's boyfriend, who arrives on Friday) and Eliza on a snowmobiling trek, snowshoeing, and/or hiking, over the next couple of weeks. There's a lot of outdoors to cover, and a lot of options!

Keep well, and please write!
posted by Tom at 1:07 PM | link |