Tabernacle
Earlier on Christmas week, our gaze turned to the southern Promised Land for the second time to find fresh snow that had once again left the Tetons in the middle of a rancid air sammich.
We are a proactive lot, so we view the current weather pattern as an opportunity to road trip to some exciting places whenever possible. In this case, part of the ambience was experiencing the stunning menagerie of apocalyptic Christmas lights on the I-15 corridor that elicited about 2 hours worth of ‘WTF?’ exclamations between Idaho Falls and Ogden. Wish we had some pics of this slice of Americana, but next time.
We aimed for Snowbird on 12/23 and were slightly bummed to learn via 5″ snow report that the forecasted 12-24″ had swung further south. However, this turned out to be one of the best 5″ days ever. Most shots off the Cirque were open, offering buff semi-technical early season shredding with a surprisingly high quantity of face shots. Seven tram laps, countless high fives, and zero broken bones later, we got back into the car to return to JH.
With variable coverage and still sketchy avy conditions in the Tetons, we opted to continue keeping it inbounds over Christmas. Though much mellower than the Bird, Targhee somehow received a random 6-8″ on Christmas Eve which made for a lovely Christmas in the mountains.
Happy Holidays from Ungrounded – here’s to a great rest of the winter!
Road trip music: System of a Down, Wu-Tang, Metallica.
Road Trip High Point: I-15 holiday lights. Low Point: I-15 N traffic jam caused by drivers slowing to look at car being towed in frontage road.
