First off, this is the only mountain I’ve ever lived at, so I can’t really speak to what it would be like to live in other places like Colorado, Utah, etc. I can say that beer in Utah is shitty though.

Jackson is interesting. “Jackson Hole” is the geographical area in which the town of Jackson, the airport, the mountain resort, and a few other random little towns reside. I always thought people were trying to be cool and abbreviate the name of where they live, but the town is actually just called Jackson. Also, the words “town” and “village” here are not synonymous – “Town” refers to the town of Jackson, and “Village” refers to Teton Village, which is the base area for Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. Just something to know beforehand to avoid any confusion.

JH Mountain Resort employs a few hundred people, but those jobs are pretty hard to come by — after about 2007-08, people at the resort started hanging onto those jobs for a lot longer because it’s kind of hard to find work doing anything else around here. Every year in August (I think) they have a job fair (you can check out the details on their website) that several hundred people attend, each hoping for one of the probably only 50-60 jobs that are actually available. Those range from front and back-of-the-house restaurant work to liftie jobs and everything in between, and experience always helps. Your other options are a) find a service industry position somewhere in town or the village (don’t bother trying to get a bartending gig, those are reserved for people who know people), or b) get lucky and find some random job other than working for the resort or in a restaurant. That’s the work situation.

Housing is pretty straightforward: get here at the end of the “off-season.” The off-season is the time between summer and winter when everybody moves away or leaves town to go do something cooler than sit here and watch it rain. At that time, housing is pretty easy to come by, but if you happen to show up anytime later than Nov 1, you’ll probably be living in a cheap motel for the winter – places get snapped up pretty quickly around here. Check out the Jackson Hole Radio Classifieds (online) or the Jackson Hole Daily classifieds (dunno if they’re online or not, but if they are it’s a good resource) for the going rates around here.

There are two other resorts around here where you could potentially work as well: Snow King and Grand Targhee. Snow King is a sad little hill that’s actually right on the edge of town. I say “sad” not because it’s only got a couple of little chairlifts, but because the word on the street is that if they don’t find an investor before next season, they’re declaring bankruptcy and shutting down. On the flip side, their hotel is pretty nice for how cheap the rates are, and that bit of their operation will undoubtedly stay open, regardless of what the resort does next year, so you working there is an option.

Targhee is the other option – it’s a ski resort in “Wydaho,” which means that while the resort is actually in Wyoming (just barely), you have to drive through Idaho to get there, and I’d guess 99% of the people who work there also live in Idaho. Their resort has a little bit more laid back feel to it compared to Jackson – there aren’t as many crazy “aggro” skiers over there – but the terrain is a bit of a let-down if you’ve started to take Jackson’s terrain for granted. Now that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with Targhee or Idaho, but the closest towns are (in order) Alta, Driggs, Tetonia, and Victor, and I’d estimate their combined population is still less than Jackson’s. Jackson is a small enough town as it is, so if you decide to live over on the other side in Idaho, you’re in for a little bit more of a rural lifestyle. Especially if you’re coming from Seattle (or any big city), I would probably not recommend this unless it’s something you know you’re into.

Other than that I’d just say to get ready, because everything you bought on a regular basis when you were living in Seattle is more expensive here, rent is usually more expensive, jobs pay a lot less, and things can get difficult. Also, if you *don’t* get a job at the mountain and you do want to ski/snowboard all winter, you’ll probably want to buy a season pass, which cost $1250 last year if you bought it in August, and $1500 normally.

So my pseudo-point with that introduction is that my life isn’t really awful at all, but once I compile a long enough list of things to complain about I make a blog post. Then again, this is the internet, which means I definitely don’t have to explain why I’m complaining about random things on my own blog.

1. Cold water. I guess this is a retarded thing to complain about, but the back story here is that Jackson is cold during the winter, therefore the pipes in the crawlspace that carry the water from place to place are a) almost always cold, and b) have to warm up to some kind of room-temperature-ish operating temp before they’re going to deliver anything resembling hot water to your tap/tub/whatever. That means your hot tap runs cold for probably a full 60 seconds before it even gets warm. Don’t think that sounds like a log time? Go count to 5,000. That’s how long it takes.*

(*this statement is false.)

2. Loud people on the bus. In the winter the bus here runs directly from town to the Village (that means from Jackson the town, to Jackson Hole Mountain Resort), and taking that is way easier than driving. It’s almost impossible to ever ride the bus anywhere without running into someone you know/know of/saw at a bar one time, so just in case it’s still too early and you don’t want to make forced conversation all the way to the resort, you’ll have your headphones in BEFORE you get on the bus. What boggles the mind is that some people are capable of talking so loudly that they cut straight through your headphone’s ability to cancel noise. I’ve always been under the impression that common courtesy dictates that people try to avoid talking on the phone, playing your headphones too loudly and above all, KEEP YOUR VOICE DOWN when you’re on the bus. However, this seems to be a highly inaccurate assumption.

3. Being forgetful. I can literally meet someone and instantly forget their name. I can know someone for months and still randomly forget their name. Of course everyone always says, “oh you should just repeat it to yourself, put it in a sentence for yourself immediately, try to think of someone else you know with the same name,” bla bla bla. I can’t think of one time any of those exercises have positively impacted my ability to remember anything. And while it’s not all that uncommon to casually mention that you’re “bad with names” while meeting someone for the first time, a more accurate statement would be, “there’s no fucking way I will remember your name after hearing it just once.” And that’s not the best way to make a first impression.

4. Leftovers. Dunno why, something about a heaping melange of free-form glop in a condensation-filled plastic container just doesn’t flip any switches for me. Plus have you ever had to eat leftover Kraft mac-n-cheese? If you didn’t know it was nuclear waste before, you will figure it out quickly.

5. The iPad. Yes, I do have one. I didn’t steal it, but I also didn’t pay for it, so I am free to be critical of it. And to me, it’s nothing more than an ostentatious way of telling people you can and do choose to buy titanically pointless electronic crap. I’ve seen some nice examples of it being used to help disabled kids communicate, so in the “accessibility” sense I can admit that it does have some merit. But for the rest of the people that bought one… wtf? This guy on a plane ride next to me had his out and was reading a book on it, and he was actually LICKING HIS FINGERS when he turned the pages. There was also the douche-bag that brought his out at a crowded bar on a Saturday night — these are the people that buy iPads. It’s not a segment of the population that you should want to identify with.

6. Repetitive TV Shows. I actually hate them BECAUSE I like them so much. This particular sub-heading could be a detailed look into why each of these shows is highly repetitive, but I’ll spare you. The point is though, if you are able to obtain (read: download) all of the available series(es?) and watch them in marathon-style sequential order, you’ll agree with me. Here’s the list:
- Top Gear. Highly predictable, yet highly entertaining British motoring show.
- Lie to Me. Kind of a crappy Fox drama, but it’s still entertaining.
- House. Sorry, it’s predictable as hell. But still entertaining.
…this brings me to something else…

7. Obvious Social Errors in Cinema. The MOST obvious of these is the way people interact during cell phone conversations; sometimes, it’s almost like the writers don’t think the people watching the screen have ever used a cell phone before. Don’t you usually go through the “hey what’s up” stage of the conversation for the first like, 5-10 seconds? And when you’re getting off the phone, don’t you usually have to say “bye,” or something, ANYTHING, that indicates that the conversation is coming to an end? I understand that certain measures are taken to keep the length of features down to a manageable level, but I wonder if it wouldn’t help the believability of the film to just have that extra five seconds of dialogue that will make the phone conversation sound more realistic.

8. Apartment Managers/Landlords. With a few notable exceptions, most of the landlords or managers I’ve interacted with have been totally inept. Think about it: the job of the apartment manager is just that — another job. It’s a little more attractive than most jobs, being that it potentially offers free or reduced rent rates, but with that benefit comes the RESPONSIBILITY to MANAGE your apartment building. One of our former apt managers had the unit above us, and it was the only hardwood-floored unit. And he wore heeled shoes at all times. I talked with him about it more than a few times, and he was always apologetic for the moment, but then would go right back to his closet full of cowboy boots or whatever the fuck he was wearing all the time. And landlords…? I wonder what percentage of landlords that own and operate properties ever actually wanted to be landlords. My guess is that it’s more something that you just end up doing because you have the opportunity, not because you give a shit about keeping your extra properties nice. It’s about the laziest way to make a living I can think of. Fuck, I need to be a landlord.

1. You’re a cheerleader? Statement of fact: the coolest thing about being a cheer guy is stunting (remember that). But in order to learn to stunt, you have to be in some way involved in a cheer team. While that’s not something that we’re embarrassed about (anymore), I happen to know that “hmm… should I tell anyone that I’m on cheer?” thought that presents early in the onset of becoming a guy cheerleader. Plenty of rednecks people still think all cheer guys, regardless of their sexual orientation, are totally gay. While this is just a demonstration of their own lack of understanding for what we do, it is a misperception we have to deal with nonetheless. The easiest way to butch yourself up is to change your facebook profile pic to a shot of you doing a cupie. It’s true — look through any cheer guy’s profile pictures and 100% of the time you will see pictures of one-armed stunts.

2. Hot Girls. No guy wants to look like an inept little bitch around a group of hot girls. But, especially when a guy is first learning to stunt (that is, before they’ve begun to fully understand the cheer relationship dynamic), they are much more inclined to think that failing to “get good” quickly is seen as weakness. And so when you’re dropping hands for two months, you probably feel pretty retarded. Almost as retarded as you’ll feel after you realize nobody cared that you sucked at first — it’s all part of learning.

3. Motions. Because the one place you learn to stunt is in the confines of a cheer team, you will more than likely be subject to the “motions” plague. Motions are a combination of arm movements that sync with the girls’ choreographed dances, which are intended to make the guys standing in the back look less retarded while the girls dance in front of them. It’s sort of like if you have a 2-year old nephew that you’re babysitting while you’ve got a few bros over at your house — you’d give him a wooden spoon and a pot to bang on while you three jam out on your guitars. The point is that he thinks he’s involved, even though absolutely no one is paying attention to him. And what’s worse is that even though no one is watching you hit the motions (except maybe your parents), if you’re out there and you DON’T do them, you’ll look even more retarded. Sweet.

4. Meg Motions. Surprisingly, just the action of waving your urethane cone (sounds dirty right?) around usually doesn’t warrant much attention. However, meg motions can be more interesting when they introduce the opportunity of causing physical harm to others/yourself if you/they screw up. It’s like this: you know full well that you never watch Nascar racing, but if if you flip to it and there’s a huge crash, you’ll probably wait to change the channel until you see the full extent of the carnage. Well, the dynamic is the same: everyone watches the girls dancing in front of the guys until someone in the back screws up and blasts Kris in the face (I felt bad even though it was his fault).

5. Dropping.

a) Just dropping alone is embarrassing enough. For the most part, coaches will restrict full squad stunting to the lowest common denominator, but even then there will be some people struggling to press out those extensions. What could be more demeaning than to have the WHOLE SQUAD restricted to toss extensions because of YOU, and then to have you drop your stunt when you’re out there in front of everyone. Yea… bummer.

b) You and your partner are just that: a team. You want to avoid inflicting physical pain on your teammate as much as possible. Who do you think is responsible for it if your girl falls from the top and hurts herself? YOU ARE. Regardless of who else is around, you are your primary spotter, and if she hurts herself that is solely on you. Protect this house, bitch.

6. Tossing. Yea alright this is a given, and I know you girls have to have some strong damn legs to do your part of the toss, but the fact is it’s called a “toss.” And we toss you.

7. Tumbling. If you look the through your cheer team’s roster, you’ll likely find that 80-90% of the girls on the team cheered in high school, which generally means they have some tumbling experience. The remainder of the girls on the team will be either ex dancers or gymnasts, or something that gives them an advantage when it comes to tumbling. On the other hand, while some cheer guys are fortunate enough to have a gymnastics background, the vast majority of guys recruited for cheer are just going to be your average Joe that was tricked into it by a hot chick. That means that most cheer guys are starting from square one in the tumbling department, and at age 20 that can be a challenging hill to climb.

8. Tossing Baskets. Consulting one’s own common sense should reveal that having four testosterone-fueled dudes propel a 102 lb girl as high as possible into the air is not a good idea. However, the rule of thumb for cheer guys is that if what’s being described sounds as unbelievably dangerous as it is awkward, then it’s probably something you’ll have to do. I know that flying a basket is probably the most nerve-wracking thing a cheer girl has to do, but have a quick think about what us guys are going through: any (even slight) miscalculation that the flier makes either during the toss or in the air has to be addressed in a few milliseconds and acted against by three dudes below that are uh… holding hands. If the worst should indeed happen, as many guys as are available will readily sacrifice their own bodies to keep the poor little flier from slamming to the mat from 20 feet up. Lets just say that crab-walking backwards 10 feet below a flier sucks.

9. Pyramids. I guess pyramids are only as sucky as we make them. I really dislike tossing shoulders, but two guys of equal height that are good at tossing shoulders do the trick in a pinch. Of course if the pitch is too low, say goodbye to your skin, because your middle layers are going to fight tooth and nail to muscle that top girl up, and that means grinding some sticky cheer shoes into your shoulders. But then if the pitch was too low, it’s more than likely the guys’ fault. …which means that’s the hardest part, saved for us, yet again.

If you have a look at all of the sub-titles above, you’ll see that I’ve hit on just about everything that’s even remotely involved with cheer. Girls are interested in being college cheerleaders because they were high school cheerleaders. Guys that become college cheerleaders do so because they’re tricked into it by girls who don’t tell them the whole truth! I hope this exposé gives you some perspective, dudes. Fuck doing motions!

Getting re-acquainted with Seattle was my first mistake. When Amy and I packed up our stuff and made the long drive back to the Emerald City, the last thing I expected was to arrive back in Jackson a week later with a full-fledged exit strategy. Up until this past week, I had thought of people who wanted to leave Jackson and move back to wherever they came from kind of like quitters — you tried it and realized it was a little tougher than you imagined, so now you’re running home with your tail between your legs. And living in Jackson is hard, I would grant them that. But it’s not impossible, and with a little luck and determination, you can survive out here just fine.

But it’s tough to come back to just “surviving” when you get served a heaping reminder of how much more life used to be.

The theoretical “limitless possibility” bubble that was my perception of Jackson, WY has popped. All that’s left now is a handful of friends, a busy winter season and a sad, boring job to see me through. I’m sure once I put a few more weeks distance between myself and the fun trip home that just ended, this melancholy tangent will seem less poignant, but the fact remains: Seattle is home. It couldn’t have been made more clear.

I wish I could have spent more time with my friends out there — one week is not really enough time to re-connect with everyone. But we’re moving back, summer/fall 2011. I am looking forward to it!

I USE MSPAINT ALOT.

(tribute to all ALOTs everywhere.)

Anyways, check the link! Make sure to click “show elevation,” too.

http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/wy/jackson/566127966993743023

Not knowing anyone who had been to this destination before, we resorted to following some directions downloaded from Trails.com, which turned out to be the biggest letdown of the entire trip. They did, however, get us to the parking circle without too much difficulty, and even there the views were gorgeous.

After gathering our stuff, we considered our options. According to our map and directions, the trail for this trip apparently meets again with the parking lot after a 12 mile loop, with Shoal Falls being at the furthest point from us. Given that information, “we” thought that it wouldn’t really matter which side of the loop we started from, so we picked what looked like the long side and started up the path. Now, the people that I’ve spoken to who are familiar with the trail network in the Gros Ventre Wilderness have all basically said the same thing: it’s a mess. Right off the bat, it was tough to decide which sign pointed where, as there were more trails than arrows and designated paths than were indicated on the sign. No worries though, we had our uber-accurate trails.com directions to help us out!

After some discussion, we settled on one path and started up it. Only a few minutes in, I noticed a birds nest just above eye level in a tree right off the trail. I couldn’t see inside of it, but I could reach my camera over the top to take a shot!

A few minutes further along, we spotted a small and rather naive buck along the side of the trail. He seemed pretty accustomed to human presence.

The trail winds through the forest along the side of Swift Creek — and in case anyone out there ever uses the trails.com directions, their map indicates that the trail is on the incorrect side of said creek. Just fyi.

After maybe a mile or so, the trail meets with the creek, and seems to just disappear. We blundered along the overgrown bank for a minute or two before coming to the conclusion that there’s no WAY this is still a trail. Arriving back where the trail and the creek met, I noticed some logs that before looked like they had just fallen across the stream — not so. Three 7″ diameter logs were the makeshift bridge. Happy to have found that the trail continued on the other side of the creek, we continued on. …until a few feet later, the trail hit an unsigned junction. Without any real clue which way to go, we gambled on the left side and kept walking.

At about that time, this trail gets tough. It pitches up pretty steeply and doesn’t quit until you’re up the entire valley and through a couple of snowy basins.

The first basin (above) was a welcome relief, because you get to walk along flat ground for the first time in hours. Amy made an off-handed quip about maybe just wanting to camp here instead of pushing on to our destination. Little did we know…

Above that basin, we entered a giant cirque that was still filled with snow. We had already been dealing with patches of it covering the trail in places, but here the trail became totally lost.

The upper basin area was absolutely vast — I imagine it was formed by glaciers many years ago, judging by its immense size. It’s hard to really understand the magnitude of these kinds of areas from pictures alone — they can’t really convey depth in a meaningful way, so I will say right now that the shot I’ve provided sucks. For a scale reference though (Washington folks), it was like standing in the bottom of the Columbia River Gorge.

By now, a few things were obvious: first, the trails.com trip distance estimation was totally incorrect. We had come in at least 4 miles, and judging by the provided map, were only 1/3 of the way through the trip to Shoal Falls (not even the whole loop). Second, it was completely impossible to know where the trail went – by now it was covered under several feet of snow with no indication that it even existed! Begrudgingly, we both agreed that we had been outmatched by the snow and let down by our directions, so the best idea would be to head back down to the basin we saw before. On our way back down the trail, we were treated to some views we hadn’t noticed on the way up!

All told, our “consolation prize” campsite wasn’t a bad spot at all. We set up the tent right next to the stream, and I built a fire pit out of some big loose rocks that had been washed downhill in the creek’s last flood cycle.

The sun started setting and soon our little valley was in the shadow of Antoinette Peak, but the sun illuminated Corner Peak behind us for a lot longer. Our tent and fire pit are visible in this picture if you look closely!

As we watched the sun retreat along Corner Peak, we built a fire in our new fire pit. Big trees here, I might add.

As it got dark, a myriad of photo opportunities presented themselves.

Our campfire and Antoinette Peak in the light of the moon.

We weren’t quite able to hold out until the moon rose over the Corner Mountain massif, but a few minutes after we crawled into our tent, the eerily bright glow washed over us. We turned in and had a relatively comfortable night sleep, considering that our tent was pitched on a pretty awful mixture of dirt, peat gravel and washed rock!

Since we did this trip as an overnight, we spent most of the morning hopping around the immediate area taking pictures before we packed up and headed back down the trail.

The trail back down to the truck was one giant descent down the steep, rocky trail we had climbed the day before. By our calculations, it took us only about half as long to make the journey – 4 hours up, 2 hours down. There was a falls we had noticed on the way up, but we knew it wasn’t our destination so we didn’t bother to stop and take photos. On the way back down though…

In all, the trip was a successful failure. I won’t ever bother with trail directions from trails.com again; this was too miserable a failure to overlook. I’ll also not expect the path to be visable on North-facing slopes above 9,000 ft. until later in the year — probably much later. We’ll also probably take the short way to our destination around any subsequent loop trails. But in all, we had a good trip and enjoyed some striking vistas. At the very least, it was a good way to be introduced to the Gros Ventres.

The trip starts with a 40 minute drive to the String/Leigh Lake trailhead. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised by the fact that the drive there was entirely on nicely paved roads, and ended in a [comparatively] giant parking lot. We lucked out getting a spot close to the TH and got all of our stuff together, making sure to keep the bear spray out and accessible.

First impressions of the trail were: road-like, flat, pounded to death, dusty, jammed with tourists. Pessimism… not a good start to the trip. Shift focus.

Further along, the trail downsized from a road to sidewalk, and people in pleated pants and penny loafers became less and less prolific. We stopped for a quick second to put on some bug repellent, and just by chance ended up standing in the midst of a Morel mushroom hot spot! It was the first time I had ever seen one.

We kept moving along the trail, passing along the East side of Leigh Lake. It’s not hard to see why this area is popular among park visitors – the trail is as flat as a pancake, and the landscape is beautiful.

Past the end of Leigh Lake, the trail pitches up sharply* and leads you through a burned area of the forest into an open meadow. It reminded me a little bit of Spider Meadow in Washington, and I couldn’t help but imagine that the foliage in that area would be waist-high or taller by the end of summer.

*for someone in penny loafers.

After you finish the walk through that meadow, you descend into a shallow little ravine created by a stream that feeds Bear Paw Lake, which is another less-hammered camping destination past Leigh Lake. The trail winds upwards to the Northwest, and opens up as you reach the small meadow around Trapper Lake. The campsite was about 50 yards off of the trail to the South.

The campsite was small but well built, with a fire pit and some logs set around it to provide some relatively comfortable seating. Surprisingly, the site is hidden from the lake by a little hill and a pile of rocks — rocks that were inhabited by a pair of marmots that were highly accustomed to human presence. They fear nothing.

We had arrived early in the afternoon, so we killed time by exploring the area and taking pictures.

Trapper Lake is pretty small when compared to the other lakes around it, and although it pales in comparison to the magnificence of Leigh Lake, it is still beautiful in it’s own right:

Some friends met up with us at our campsite just as the weather turned horrible, but eventually the clouds parted and we were treated to clear skies again. We built a fire and sat around chatting for the rest of the night.

The next day we got up and made plans for a day trip to Holly Lake — located high in a canyon on the other side of Leigh Lake, which we thought was closer than it actually was. During breakfast, our friend Danielle noticed movement on the far shore of the lake, and it turned out to be a moose with a baby! It was far away, so I apologize for the obvious crappy quality of this photo.

We watched that pair for a while, and I think the secret hope on everyone’s mind was that they would get all the way in the water. No Dice.

Once the moose encounter was at an end, we said goodbye to our friends (who were only there for one night) and headed out on our day trip. It took us back down most of the trail we had traveled along the day before, through the tourists-hiking-with-dress-shoes-on area, and up into a forest on the Southwest side of Leigh Lake. The incline on the trail could barely be considered moderate, but the drop in ambient tourist level indicated that the barrier of effort was in full effect. Two miles in, we arrived at a junction above the lake, where a sign indicated that Holly Lake was 4.4 miles further on. Once we were [an estimated] 2 miles past the sign, thunder started rolling in the distance, and everything indicated that the weather was about to go to hell. We decided to turn around before reaching the lake; however, we vowed to make it the destination of a trip later in the summer.

On the way back, the conversation turned to mushrooms for some reason (must have been Morel fever), and I spotted this random species in a nice patch of light. No idea what they are though.

We made the rest of the trek back to our campsite, thankful that it never rained. With sore feet, we ambled up to the site and rested for a while — for the first trip of the summer, it was clear that we had bitten off more than our feet could chew.

After a decent night’s sleep (I never sleep that well in the backcountry), we started in on the familiar task of packing up all our stuff in the site. Although it took a little longer than normal, I think it’s excusable for the first trip in almost a year, and the fact that a Moose accidentally sneaked (snuck isn’t a word) up on us and it freaked us out! Once it was about 40 feet away, it saw us, flipped out and ran off – obviously a little less accustomed to human presence than our neighbors the marmots.

On the way out I snapped this picture of a tree growing out of a teeny little rock island in Leigh Lake.

It was weird to only drive a few minutes a be at a trailhead, as opposed to the 2-3 hours required to really get into the wilderness in Washington. Once we were there, the sheer number of obvious tourists was surprising and almost overwhelming. At first, these things made me feel a little less like camping out where we did was an indication that we had accomplished something that most people wouldn’t do. But the moose encounters and the fact that the people dressed in their Sunday best didn’t venture much past the first mile on the trail went a long way to change my mind. And when you really get down to it, having fewer miles to drive once you get back to the car just means that regular food is closer than ever before!!

For these banners I start with a 700 x 175 pixel canvas in photoshop, pick out and re-size the manufacturer’s logo that I want from either their website, our supplier’s library of clip art, or just the internet, and then go to town. I don’t really have any templates that I’ve been following, I just kind of make it up as I go. For the most part I’m satisfied, although I think the Baker one kind of sucks.

If you fucks would just leave us alone, there would be peace in the galaxy. All season, I just listened quietly to the passive-aggressive quips and comments on bootpacks, in lift lines, and on tram boxes. It’s easy to just play it cool from behind my mirrored goggle lenses, but now I have the power and anonymity of the internet on my side, so I’m done putting up with that crap. You skiers that just can’t grow up and let it die — you’ve had it coming for a while now, so sit back and enjoy.

If you aren’t a snowboarder, you will more than likely be offended by this post. I make no apologies.

1. Early morning passholes: These are the people who own the cars that are already choking the Teton Pass parking lot at 5:30 am. On top of that, they have this elitist fuckwad attitude about anyone else who’s on the bootpack at the same time that isn’t charging up the hill as fast as they are. If you (a normal person) happen to be hiking up the bootpack in the pre-dawn light, you can easily identify these people when two events happen in rapid succession: 1) You turn around and look down the bootpack without seeing a soul behind you. Then, 2) 60 seconds later you are overwhelmed by the smell of unadulterated body odor, so you turn around and there’s a tele skier sighing loudly while goose-stepping on the back of your heels like flies on shit. Check that box, you found one. That’s right, you know who you are. You’re the ones that cut in the “giants only” bootpack steps on powder days. Go get bent. Then get some help.

2. Flunkie Pass Aggros: Almost as bad as “real” passholes, these are the guys that are clogging the parking lot after you’re done with your run, circling like vultures above the dead carcass that is your parking spot. They couldn’t be bothered to drag themselves out of bed even just an hour earlier so that they could get a place to park, but now it’s 10 o’clock or so, they’ve made it up to the pass, and you better believe it’s your job to give them what they want. After all, you should be pandering to their every pompous whim now that they’ve been waiting for 5 minutes for a spot. God fucking forbid that you would cause them to have to wait EVEN LONGER then 5 minutes as you take off your sweaty layers. A word to you jackasses: I was thinking about taking another lap, and now that I’m back at the parking lot, I’m definitely going to. HAAAAAhahaha.

3. Skiers wearing Burton AK stuff (or any snowboard brand): Seriously? Run your mouth about how snowboarding is gay, while supporting our industry? You simple-minded fucks. You all KNOW that snowboarding is the best thing that ever happened to skiing. Practically every breakthrough technology in the last ten years of so-called “skiing innovation” has been stolen directly from snowboarding tech. So show some respect and kiss the motherfucking ground when we walk by get your own clothing style.

4. Bro-Down Highschool Skiers: It’s bad enough that you’re wearing snowboarding clothes. Don’t even get me started on the tall-tee motherfuckers, they look like a circus side show. But the weekends and “school’s out!” breaks means you better brace yourself, because it’s gonna be a goddamn debacle at the Village. You swarm the runs like parasites, blatantly putting lives at risk, ignoring the existence of other people, not giving a rat’s ass about anyone whose neon jacket you don’t recognize. The worst is the powder days when your whole hoard attacks the upper mountain, testing your rubber bones off of anything you can find to flail off of. Please understand that no matter how big of a cliff you huck, it doesn’t amount to dick if you can’t do anything but ass-plant the landing. Just thought I’d clarify, because it seems like most of you are confused about that. Wow, that brings me to something else…

5. Ski Videos: Lets get one thing out in the open: skiers ass plant landings in videos over 50% of the time. It’s just a fact. That’s why people have even heard of butt-fucks like Jaime Pierre — they jump off of tall things and land on their asses on purpose. It might take balls to butt-drop off of something big, but it sure as shit doesn’t take talent. Check out this year’s crop of snowboarding videos: you’ll see riders landing big drops and riding away clean. You know why? If a snowboard doesn’t land his drop, the shot simply doesn’t make it into the film. Ever. It’s just a little thing called “competence” that snowboard pros tend to possess. I think the only skier I actually can watch without wanting to gouge my eyes out with rusty forks is Ian McIntosh. You know why? Because he actually lands his drops. If you didn’t land it, you can’t claim it. Going huge with the knowledge that you’re just going to ass-plant the is such a skier M.O. Total fail.

6. Old-Money JH Skiers: You’re like a virus that does it’s best to sap the stoke out of every snowboarder you come across. You’re not even overtly aggressive towards snowboarders; it’s actually the asinine little off-handed comments made in the lift line, or passive-aggressive shit that you say as you slowly pass a snowboarder on a traverse. Yea, you’re right, it is fucking slower to ride this traverse on a snowboard. Did you think up that witty little remark yourself? Of course you didn’t, because you’ve never thought up anything. Well, nothing except for, “Boy, it’s such a disgrace how times have changed.” And yea, I bet it used to be so great in the old days before “snowboarding happened.” When you see a snowboarder, the best thing you could do is to look the other way. I’d rather have you deny my existence then have you open your mouth and prove that you’re a moron. Nothing you have to say is worth hearing.

7. Broboarders. You bunch of ass clowns are the reason skiers fuck with us in the first place. Figure it out: there are ways to get down the mountain without inciting the wrath of the snowboard-hatred leviathan. I understand keeping speed to get through the flats, but lets keep the passing speed down around mach 1 if at all possible. You’re not going to impress the family of gapers on the traverse when you nuke by them, I promise. Get a life, get rid of the reservoir-tip beanie, pull up your fucking ragged-ass pants, and stop trying to act like you know about shit. You don’t.

Jackson is probably the worst place in the world to try and “fit in” to the Village ski scene as a snowboarder. It’s impossible to escape the reality that this is a skier’s town and a skier’s mountain. But you eventually learn to shut out the persistent bitching of the self-important skier fucks that feed the pointless animosity in the first place. Once in a while, though, it’s nice to retaliate.