Shane and Stormy's Adventures

travels, photos, and family

Exum Backcountry Ski Week

Two of my goals for this 60th orbit were to get to know the Teton backcountry better and ski Jackson Hole Resort’s side country. A few months ago I found out that Exum Mountain Guides offered a perfect opportunity to do this. They offer a backcountry ski week. It consists of three days of exploring the Teton backcountry, a day in the side country at Jackson Hole, and a day with an Exum guide at Snow King. This sounded great so I signed up. It was exactly what I wanted and I met some great skiing companions I hope to ski with again in the near future.



We worked with three guides, Mike Poborsky, Brenton Reagan, and Jeff Witt.

Day one found us hiking up Maverick Buttress just east of Buck Mountain.

BC ski runs in the Buck Mountain area

BC ski runs in the Buck Mountain area

Brent and Mark enjoying the 'up'

Brent and Mark enjoying the ‘up’

Day two we headed up Wimpy’s Knob just south of Maverick. It’s not Wimpy though—about 3,500 ft of vertical and over ten mile round trip. Great skiing on top though.

On our way up Wimpy's. You gotta like the up!

On our way up Wimpy’s. You gotta like the up!

On top of Wimpy's looking North. The Grand is obscured by clouds.

On top of Wimpy’s looking North. The Grand is obscured by clouds.

Albright Peak

Albright Peak from Wimpy’s Knob

Kim descending Wimpy's

The down was fun too!

The next day Brenton and Jeff gave us a lesson in skiing the steeps at Snow King. The following day was our last day in the backcountry. We headed up 25-Short for a look at the Turkey Chute. A gully that descends into Avalanche Canyon from the top of 25-Short. I wasn’t optimistic about the prospect. It was raining in Jackson as we headed for the Park, but by the time we reached the parking-lot the rain had turned to snow. We slogged to the top of 25-Short in about three hours. Brenton and Mike went to look at the Chute.

Brenton looking at Turkey Chute

Brenton staring into the Turkey Chute. Not today!

After a few minutes Brenton came back and said something like “If we skied it, we would die.” The avi danger was too extreme so we went powder skiing instead. Not a bad day.

Shane skiing 25-Short

Powder skiing on 25-Short

The final day of the week was a day in the Jackson Hole side country. One advantage was loading via the express line to the tram at 8:30 AM. First tracks for sure.

Brenton in the JH side country

Brenton at the top of Green River Bowl

Tram line

In the ‘express lane’

JHMR

A sunny day at Jackson Hole.

Mike posted some photos he took on Flickr. He made everyone look good. I posted a bunch of photos on our gallery too. Thanks to Mark, Kim, Björn, Mike, Brent, Jon, and Denny for contributing photos.

2 Comments on “Exum Backcountry Ski Week

  1. Jan Cox Ford Ahern
    April 1, 2014

    Wish I had taken better care of my physical health during my 50th loop so I could have more times like these during my 62nd loop! 🙂 What fun

  2. Brent Edwards
    April 7, 2014

    Thank you Shane for the photos and the re-cap!

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This entry was posted on March 31, 2014 by and tagged , , , , , .