Just got back Friday from a few days out west and just want to toss this out for the archives:
Reference:
The original idea was 3 days at Grand Targhee and 1 at Jackson Hole.
The drive from Jackson Airport to Grand Targhee is a bit more than an hour at normal speeds. There really aren't too many places to really speed and its probably not advisable when going over Teton Pass!
Driggs Idaho is the nearest town to Grand Targhee (technically located in Alta, Wy). Not a whole lot happening in Driggs, there are a few restaurants and bars, locally oriented. They also have a nicely done outdoors/snowboard shop called Yostmark. Its about 10 miles from the traffic light in Driggs to Targhee and takes 15-20 mins depending on snow. When going up the winding section of road, heads up for deer.
Targhee does not look like it gets overly crowded just judging by the limited parking. The mountain itself does not have tremendous vertical, but is totally wide open. There are groomed 'runs' but if there is powder then you just go wherever. There are steeps, chutes and the like (as told me). Also there are 'inbounds' hikable terrain.
As I was told earlier - there is no 'night life' to speak of. Weekends they have a band in the one bar and it was pretty full until 930 or so. Weeknights..ghost town. Also very limited food choices. Steakhouse was good, but NY prices.
Trip:
The prior week was very warm but temps dropped down to near 0 the night we arrived. There had been no new snow for 12 days. Even so, conditions on the groomers were quite ok under sunny skies the next day. While they don't have the greatest vert, the runs are more down than outwards. 2nd day things were a bit more skiied off and firm. Locals were complaining it was icy, but I saw no shiney snow nor blue stuff.. must be east vs west coast thing
3rd day we decided to drive to Big Sky in Montana after hearing they had about 5" day before and Bridger got a foot. Ref: The drive takes about 3 hours in good/moderately good conditions (we had some snow near the end). About 160 miles each way and goes through part of Yellowstone.
Big Sky ended up being the highlight of the trip. From 1030 until we left at 430 it was snowing. About 10" at bottom, near 20 at the top. The snow was pretty dry too. Things never get crowded here and the runs are generally very long and it remains one of my (if not the) favorites.
The last full day we were torn between riding at Targee who got 5-8" and motivating to Jackson for 7-9". As this would be our only chance at Jackson Hole, we moved on. In retrospect, snow-wise it was the wrong move as the bottom runs were not quite corn, and further up the snow was kinda odd - I think blocky is best word - not sloppy wet just very clumpy. That and being beat I don't think we did the mountain justice.
Referene:
Jackson Hole looks like it can get crowded early in the day. The lines for the Cram and Gondola were tremendous the next morning when we left. I thought I had seen a lot of the beautiful people at Squaw last year, but have to say I've never seen as many cell phones in use on a mountain as I did at JH, including people stopping their runs. The talent level was very high Prices however weren't quite as brutal as I feared. Also, they have a large repair shop which will do a full tune including base grind on a stone for $48 (needed after Vermont, Montana and JH rocks this season). Board looks great.
Summary:
This trip should be done earlier in the year to ensure good snow conditions, my guess late Jan thru late Feb. If you absolutely must have vert, JH is a must. If you want a lot of open terrain with some accessable hiking terrain and smaller crowds I think Targhee would be a good choice for a couple of days. Big Sky is somewhere in between and well worth a look.
