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The Grand Teton has various elevations due to an active fault. Either way, it’s one beautiful piece of rock. PHOTO: Mark Smiley

Rising straight up from the sagebrush flats of Jackson Hole, the Tetons have an easy geologic explanation. Nine million years ago, a block fault deep within the earth thrust the mountains upward while simultaneously dropping the valley floor. Since it was all up and down movement, there was little to no buckling on the surface. This is why there are no foothills, giving our crew of three, on a crisp morning in mid-March, unobstructed views of the granite towers cutting a jagged horizon across the big Wyoming sky.

In the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) built much of the infrastructure you see today in America’s national parks. Here at CCC Camp No. 2, Ray Ickes and Ned Munn take in the grandeur of the Tetons along Jackson Lake. PHOTO: George A. Grant/National Park Service

The fault is still active, which has led to confusion as to how tall the Grand Teton truly is. The National Park Service lists it at 13,770 feet. Geologists in academia put it at 13,776. But for skiers, that doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that the Tetons receive around 40 feet of snow over the course of a winter. And that blessed lack of foothills allows superb access to exceptional ski terrain. Add in the wildness preserved through its protections within Grand Teton National Park and you have what amounts to the best backcountry skiing in the United States.

To enjoy all the incredible descents within the park, first you must climb and climb a lot. PHOTO: Mark Fisher

I first became acquainted with the Tetons as a child, when my parents would take my siblings and me to Jackson Hole for vacation. Since then, I’ve hiked nearly every trail, done solo backpacking missions, caught fish out of a high alpine lake with my bare hands (true story), and felt like I’d been touched by God in the peaceful aftermath of a vicious thunderstorm. I thought I knew the Tetons — until I went skiing in them.

Keep climbing. PHOTO: Mark Fisher
Greg Collins, one of a handful of notable skiers to make their mark in the Tetons, ogles the grand scale. PHOTO: Mark Fisher

Of all the 58 national parks in the United States, Grand Teton, established in 1929 and expanded in 1950, stands out for its skiing. Though it has attracted climbers for more than a century, and draws thousands each summer just to summit the Grand, skiing is arguably a more perfect mode of exploration. Taking advantage of the region’s prodigious snowfall and steep vertical, skiers can move easily across dynamic terrain that in summer requires several hours of climbing or hiking. Many of the best ski routes don’t even have hiking trails in the summer. Meaning accessing them without the snow requires strenuous bushwacking and scrambling over rock. When such obstacles are buried under several feet of snow, however, you just go wherever you please on skis.

Greg Collins notches another slot couloir. PHOTO: Mark Fisher

But this is a relatively recent phenomenon. Even after Bill Briggs made his famous first ski descent of the Grand on June 15, 1971, skiers didn’t frequent the upper reaches of the range until the 1990s. Even then, most of the skiing took place in the spring, when the snowpack consolidated. Today, the Tetons see skiers throughout the winter, as people seek out the untracked experience.

Most missions take place in the early morning, just as the sun is rising over the Gros Ventre Mountains, a much older, rounder range that flanks Jackson Hole to the east. Already, our small group of skiers is well on its way up the skin track from the Taggart-Bradley Lake Trailhead. Under the weight of heavy packs, our breath casts plumes of vapor into the cold Wyoming air. Bindings squeak and skins glide across the snow in a rhythmic metronome. One zigzag of the skin track after the other, we move up through the dense conifer forests of the lower mountain. The snow surface is marked by the feet of small critters scurrying to their winter dens, but occasionally the deep tracks of a moose and careful prints of a coyote reveal a more complex web of life. Right around 9 o’clock, when most people are just getting to work or taking their first chairlift ride, we leave behind the forest world and enter one dominated by rocky pinnacles and steep couloirs. Up above, the Grand, Middle, and South Tetons resemble something you’d see in Switzerland, although these peaks are not lost in a sea of mountains and gondolas. The range being just 40 miles long and seven miles wide, these mountains stand alone, each steep summit having its own unique personality.

Jackson local Max Hammer hangs on the Grand Teton. PHOTO: Mark Fisher
Exum guide Adam Fabrikant has made his fair share of ascents and descents in the park, adding to the park’s reputation as a have for talented ski mountaineers. PHOTO: Beau Fredlund
Arguably more than any other national park known for skiing, Grand Teton requires deft mountaineering skills as Andy Tankersley on belay demonstrates. PHOTO: Mark Fisher

At 10,000 feet, the air gets thin and much colder, yet in the Tetons, we’re still only about halfway to the Grand. It’s too far on this day (and all others, at least for me), and we settle for an objective at 11,400 feet. Wind moves across the mountains forming cornices the size of buses and deposits snow on leeward slopes. It’s a dangerous game up here, because these slopes happen to hold great skiing, all steep and intricate, requiring delicate maneuvers in tight rocky chutes before dumping into massive fans at the canyon bottom. It’s tempting to jump in, but avalanches are a real concern. For decades, skiers didn’t venture onto these slopes in midwinter for precisely that reason. Though avalanche forecasting has helped build awareness in the modern era, people still die every winter in the Tetons, and many more barely escape disaster.

After about four hours, we reach our objective, a small col cradled between two granite massifs. There’s only room for about four people, and each person gets ready for the descent. Skins come off and get stowed away. So do hats and sunglasses, replaced by helmets and goggles. Trail mix and antelope jerky, a true Wyoming treat, get passed around between swigs of water. My friend points to distant ski lines on Teewinot Mountain across the basin, making plans for future missions. I’d looked at that steep mountain my entire adult life, but never had I seen it from this perspective.

That ain’t corn; that’s pow! Dan Corn obliges. PHOTO: Mark Fisher

Finally, we’re ready. All focus turns to the immediate slope, and on the vital partnership of the group. A deliberate ski cut across the top of the couloir shows it’s good to go. Even then, you can never be too sure. Senses are heightened, eyes get big. One by one we drop in. It’s nearly as enjoyable to watch my friend get face shots of cold Wyoming powder as it is to take my own run. It’s 2,000 vertical feet to the bottom, an exhilarating ride through a vein of snow painted on a rocky face. It’s a line of a lifetime, and there’s no one else around. Just a group of friends in the middle of the wilderness, far from the hum of civilization.

Author Matt Hansen adds a few icicles to his push broom of a mustache. PHOTO: Mark Fisher

The resulting emotions can be hard to explain. But with all due respect to geology, that’s what will keep us coming back.

PHOTO: Mark Fisher

EDITOR’S NOTE: Be sure to check out the film Monumental: Skiing Our National Parks, premiering October 20 in Denver, CO, followed by a nationwide tour. The film will be available to purchase online, as well. Additionally, POWDER produced a 150-page coffee-style hardcover book of the Monumental project. Go here for film, book, tour, and ticket information.

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