The weather has been really funky lately, lots of rain and warm temps. There is still a ton of snow in the mountains, but the snow has not been setting up great for spring skiing. A couple of my friends and I attempted to ski the Sliver a sweet couloir on Nez Perce. We did not start early enough or the snow did not freeze, because as soon as we started to skin up the ridge of Shadow Peak snow started piling up on our skins. We tried to stop and put some wax so hopefully the snow would not stick. It only worked for about 10 minutes at a time. I felt like I was walking on stilts that weighed a 100 pounds. We finally made it to the top of Shadow after about 4 hours of skinning. We still had not gotten to the bottom of the Sliver and were exhausted from the first part of our skin. We decided to turn around because it was already 1230 and temperatures were only getting warmer. The views from the top of Shadow were still pretty amazing on one side you had the Grand Teton and Teewinot and on the other you had Buck and Wister. We had some pretty decent skiing half way down and then it became rotten wet snow. Not getting to the tope of the Sliver is frustrating, but now I want to go back and get it hopefully soon.
Two days later my friend hannah and I decided to get up early and go for Wimpys which is just a small sub peak, but is a great long run with a good pitch. It kind of reminds me of the Hobacks at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. We timed it perfectly and had no problems with snow sticking to our skins. We reached the top around 9:40 am it was so calm and quiet and we had amazing views of the Grand, Buck and Static Peak. We just took some time to enjoy the warm sunny day! We then skied awesome corn snow. I hope I will be able to have some bigger days in the Tetons soon!