Jeremy Jones

Jackson Hole gets Attacked by Avalanches

Published

on January 2, 2009

. 2 Comments

TETON VILLAGE, WY. Welcome to Xmas week in Jackson Hole. Mogul fields sliding to the ground, an in bounds avalanche death, the mid mountain lodge getting hit by an avi, 60 foot debris piles on the pass, a snow cat getting partially buried cutting a cat track, 10 foot crowns everywhere you look, the never ending echo of bombs exploding, extreme avalanche ratings and the mountain closed for days at a time.

In between all these avalanches the riding has been really good. Huge props to the ski patrol. They have been in the trenches. Twice this week my stomach dropped as I watched ski patrol panicking to the lift equipped with probe poles and avi rescue dogs running to save someones life. For the first time in my life I have had to treat terrain in bounds like the backcountry and found myself avoiding in bound lines because of slide danger.

The second story of the Bridger center

The avi dogs are gods in times like this

The problem layer. This ice is so thick that when cutting columns in a snow pit it is hard to get threw the ice with your saw.

Shroeder Baker enjoys the payoff

In ten years of checking avalanche forecasts I have never seen it rated as EXTREME. Source www.avalanche.org

G E N E R A L - A V A L A N C H E - H A Z A R D
High Elevations (9,000´-10,500´)	Morning EXTREME	Afternoon EXTREME
Mid Elevations (7,500´-9,000´)	Morning EXTREME	Afternoon EXTREME
Low Elevations (6,000´-7,500´)	Morning CONSIDERABLE	Afternoon CONSIDERABLE

Extreme: Wide spread areas of unstable snow exist and avalanches are certain on some slopes. Backcountry travel should be avoided.

High: Mostly unstable snow exists on a variety of aspects and slope angles. Natural avalanches are likely. Travel in avalanche terrain is not recommended.

Considerable: Dangerous unstable slabs exist on steep terrain on certain aspects. Human triggered avalanches probable. Natural avalanches possible.

Moderate: Areas of unstable snow exist. Human triggered avalanches are possible. Larger triggers may be necessary as the snowpack becomes more stable. Use caution.

Low: Mostly stable snow exists. Avalanches are unlikely except in isolated pockets.

Note. Avalanche conditions have greatly improved the last two days do to warm temps followed by cold temps. Jackson Hole recieved a foot of new snow and the whole mountain is open and the riding is world class.

Jackson Hole Opens New Tram

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admin-jeremyjones

on December 22, 2008

in Uncategorized

. 5 Comments

Teton Village, WY- Three days ago Jackson Hole rolled out their new tram. Since then it has been a bit of a blur. It is hard to image we were afraid they would not make the opening do to lack of snow. It has not stopped snowing since they unveiled the tram and the powder has been endless.

The tram was given the heroes welcome and now it is clear why. It has truly transformed the mountain into the ultimate lift serviced resort in North America. There is not a lift line to be found anywhere on the mountain and know one’s legs can keep up with te relentalace pace the Tram has set. It is one 4,100 foot run after another. The only rest is the 9 minute ride to the top. By the end of th day I find myself almost hoping I get stuck in line and am forced to wait for the next tram..

Each run has something for everyone. It starts with the wide open bowl, turns into tight trees, then goes to tech steeps, then rolling fields of pow, right into a groomer jump line and ending with a high speed straight run. The body wants to stop but the brain won’t let it. How can you pass 4,100 hundred feet of snowboard madness. Still dumping…..

The new tram in all its glory

20 below and dumping didn't deter 2,000 locals from welcoming back the towns biggest celebrity

20 below and dumping did not deter 2,000 locals from giving the tram a hero's welcome. pic. Todd Jones

iooiu

A national anthem, speach from the govenor and a broken bottle of Champaign opened the tram up.

A national anthem, speech from the governor and a broken bottle of Champagne officially opened the Tram up to riders.

The two year wait is almost over for Mark Carter, Brian Iguchi, and Rob Kingwell.

The big red heli reporting for service.

Travis Rice, Myself, Carter and Iguchi.

Shredding the Gnar

Published

admin-jeremyjones

on December 16, 2008

in Uncategorized

. 6 Comments

Low-Tide Tahoe GNAR

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admin-jeremyjones

on December 12, 2008

in Uncategorized

. 6 Comments

Every day I head out I am skeptical if I am going to find snow. As I drive around the lake looking up at bare peaks I wonder if I should have grabbed my bike, not my board. It is not until the very end of the drive, and I crest the mountain pass that I see some resemblance of snow. Even leaving the parking lot I still have doubts about the mission. It is not until I clear the tree’s and see the high peaks that I realize that I am not delusional.

The Sierra’ are crazy. Out of all the mountain ranges I have ridden none have such fluctuating terrain as the Sierra’s. On a big year 50 ft cliff’s will disappear and steep, featured mountains will turn into a mellow roller. Right now the mountains are holding a 10 to 25 inch Sierra insta-base that amazingly keeps us off the rocks., The mountains are much more intense and almost angry. Runs that I would normally take my wife down are turning in to “fall you die” gnar.

The snow is boot top at best and often changing but the chutes seem to be holding the better snow. Hiking up is some what gripping because of the stiffness of the snow. Each step requires 3 to 5 kicks and one slip would result in high speed pinballing down the winding chute. Pretty quickly I enter the no fall zone. By the top of the chute I was way off the deck on what I would consider a 5.6 level rock climbing route. If it wasn’t for my Black Diamond shovel handle acting as a make shift axe, I would have turned back long ago.

Being int he “No Fall Zone” your mind automatically sheds all outside thoughts and emotions. You enter into a world that time is irrelevant and every ounce of brain power is focused on the simple tasks of kicking steps. The crux is always turning around and getting your board on. Once strapped in some of the weight is off my shoulders. Dropping in I am amazed at the amount of snow I get moving and I have to be careful to not be taken out by my sluff. Exiting the chute is like going through a portal back to the real world. It is brighter out there, time is relivant and I have to talk to people again.

I am may tired at the end of a full day of hiking in the mountains but there is a noticable bounce to my step and a lift to my spirit. Spending a day on the “sharp end” makes me a better person. The every day stresses of life are not as stressfull and I carry a contentness around for a few days. Depending on the trip, or the day this will last awhile but eventually I need to get back out there and replenish my spirit.

Long dry approaches to high north faces to find snow have been the norm this year.

The first chute I rode is in the middle of the photo with the notch in the rock. The second one is to the right. (Shaped like a banana with a really tight pinch half way down.) Both exit threw the big rock walls in the lower right of the photo.

This is the portal door that takes me into my other world.

With ice under foot making kicking steps futile in spots, Edmunds listens to his gut instinct and decides he has reached his high point.

The snow got much better here and I got to take my first breather.

The best part, strapped and ready for action.

I opted to climb this one from the back after the last boot pack. This thing just kept rolling away and the crux was way tighter then I thought. This ended up being one of the gnarliest lines I have ridden in Tahoe and woke memories of billy goating down the Bec De Ross at the Verbier Extremes.

Thank God more snow is on the way. I am over hiking down at the end of the day.

Check back in a few days for some helmet cam footy of the chutes.

I am Thankful for…

Published

admin-jeremyjones

on December 10, 2008

in Uncategorized

. 11 Comments

…seeing the sun rise from my bedroom window every morning since my son was born.

I am thankful for my family…

and growing up on Cape Cod

I am thankful I get to ride the best mountains in the world with my brothers

and that TGR has kept the Dream alive.

I am thankful I live in Tahoe (pic. Tom Zikas)

and for not living here.

I am thankful for getting to see the world

and exotic mountains from 30,000 ft

and exotic waves.

I am thankful for KT-22 at Squaw Valley, (pic. Adam Clark)

and having empty surf four hours from home where the wind almost always blows off-shore.

I am thankful for every time it snows,

and the spines that get formed.

I am thankful for the mountains I have ridden,

and the people I ride them with.

I am thankful that there is lifetimes worth of mountains I have not ridden,

and every time I come home safely.

I am thankful I am a pro snowboarder.

Thanksgiving Gobble, Gobble, Grovel

Published

admin-jeremyjones

on December 4, 2008

in Uncategorized

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It is kind of a tradition for me to ride on Thanksgiving. It started back east riding what ever patch we could find. Moving west this tradition turned from “getting your legs back in shape,” to often times legit A-grade riding.

Recently this tradition has been a hard one to keep up with do to the late starts winter seems to get these days. This year it was looking like my snowboard was going to be traded in for a mountain bike but the day before Thanksgiving a low pressure came in and sat on us for the day. Steady rain turned to snow and I went to bed with visions of cold smoke.

It was far from cold smoke today and my “8 to 10 inches in spots” that I had predicted the night before, was more like 2 to 3 inches. Knowing conditions may be a little bit dismal I picked my riding partners accordingly. The first call was to Darren Rahlves, who despite living in ski boots 3 sizes too small for over twenty five years, loves to ski on anything. Scott, always stoked, Tenyike rounded out the crew.

Looking better then we thought.

The Lurch, Daaron, and Scotty giving thanks.

Daron is the fastest skier in the world. Check out www.daronrahlves.com for proof.

We had to hike down one section but amazingly we did not hit any rocks today even thought the base ranged from 3″ to 20″.

First Snow

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admin-jeremyjones

on November 21, 2008

in Uncategorized

. 12 Comments

My morning wake up call came an hour early. My daughter was bouncing on my bed like it was Xmas morning. “Daddy, Daddy, get up, get up, IT SNOWED last night!…lets make a snow man!” The clock said 4:45 AM, “its still dark out…go back to bed.” She would not let up. It is the first I have seen of the snow gene from her and although I had only slept five hours her enthusiasm and persistence paid off.

The five inches on the deck was a nice change from the endless summer but it was a little bit of a tease. Not enough to snowboard, but biking and climbing was now over for the year. After a snowman filled morning I got online and visited my old friends and checked the weather cams at The last few seasons I have not been the guy riding rocks early season but for whatever reason I have the itch this year. I will be the guy milking the patch for a few turns.

More snow fell through the day and someone I knew must have ridden. The first few calls were met with laughter. My wife looked at me like I ws crazy but I finally got Jim Zellers on the phone. “Its killer….no rocks…lets go tomorrow.” We were on it early the next morning. Expectations were low as we pulled into the trail head to our favorite low tide spot. Pretty quickly as we gained elevation skinning up we realized conditions were better then expected and our plans changed from a small grassy hill to a the summit.

Dropping in off the top Jim’s and Scotty’s screams, as well as there sprays confirmed there was POW to be had. AsI rolled of the top the weight of summer seemed to fall of me with each turn. I wiggled out as many turns as possible, got one face shot, hit two mini airs and hit zero rocks.

Tahoe instant base. It started snowing 30 minutes before this photo. It the only snow in the world where a 20 inch base is enough to ride in the backcountry and not hit a rock.

Waiting for the sun to come up to session the backyard.

Fall is still hanging on in some places.

4 snowman, three snow angles, a few laps on the sled in the bag by 7:30AM.

It was about here that we bailed on the low angle groomer and went for the peak.

We were mountain biking back here 3 days ago

Jim Zellers is fast in the mountains. Unless you have four legs you are probably not going to get in front of him.

Aagghhhhh!!!!

Scotty making good on a slash we spotted on the way up.

Ocean Beach goes MENTAL!

Published

Jeremy

on October 28, 2008

in Uncategorized

. 10 Comments

The call came the night before. “Get down here tomorrow…offshore…overhead…80 degrees….” said my buddy Steve who lives in San Francisco. It was a quick conversation and although I had a million things going on there was no way I was going to miss it.

It was going to be a classic Ocean Beach day. One of those days that you always here about siiting in your car with the heat blasting, looking out at a foggy mess of an ocean trying to talk yourself into paddling out. Forever this is what Ocean Beach meant to me. So many times I had made the 3 hour drive from Tahoe in the heat of the summer full of surf stoke as I fight my way threw the 100 degree heat with visions of perfect waves waiting for me. The closer you get to the beach, the more the anticipation builds. The moment of true is approaching fast but seemingly out of nowhere you run into a wall of fog, the temps go from 85 to 50 as you pull inot the parking lot.

There is no visible sign of life on the beach and just getting out of your car is scary. After a while you talk yourself into getting wet. This is Ocean Beach most of the time. People who call OB there home break are hard core. There is always surf, in fact it is often too big to surf. In the winter you watch the surf reports waiting for the surf to come down to a ridable size.

Four years ago I final caught one of the fabled OB days. I had been in Mexico for a month and had very low expectations when I came over the hill and saw a sea of perfectly formed feathering A frame peaks. It looked like Indo and it was three hours from my house.

I had seen the light. A couple of times a year OB holds some of the best surf on the planet. There are so many peaks and the swell is so consistent that every one gets waves. The comradery that is formed in the line up on those cold grey days shines threw on days like today. People are hooting and hollering for strangers as they stroke into a bomb.

This is one of the reasons I live in Tahoe. I went to Indo for the day and was back at home at 9:30 at night.

Thanks for the call Steve….I will return the favour this winter when Squaw is pumping.

There is always current at OB. You think you are in position for the lefts when a perfect right pops up.

The off shore winds kicked up as the swell built in the afternoon turning a good day into an epic one.

If you made the drop there was a good chance you were getting barreled.

Scotty is often my go to guy when I need a wing man for a surf or snow mission. He runs his own business and is super busy but he is not afraid to drop it all if nature calls.

It took one of these waves to make the drive worth while.

I would love to tell you how my last wave was one of these bombs but after a full day of surfing, OB felt my weakness and pounced on me. I got caught in a rip, eventualy made it back to the line up, missed my drop, took five on the head and washed up on the beach with hardly enough arm strenght to carry my board. Non the less the drive home that night was full of shock, awe and stoke. Coming over Donner and dropping into Truckee Scotty and started to wonder if it was all a dream or not.

Summer is too long.

Published

Jeremy

on October 18, 2008

in Uncategorized

. 22 Comments

Summer is tough. Winter is easy During winter I know exactly what I ‘m doing everyday: snowboarding. I might not know where, or when, or with whom, but no matter what I am going snowboarding.

Summertime leaves me with long sunny days that need to be filled with something. I resort to mountain biking, surfing, climbing, wake surfing and skating hills. The feeling of chasing my buddies down a rocky single track on my bike, catching a good wave surfing, bombing down mountain pass on my skateboard or leading a new climbing route are fun for awhile, but I would trade them all in for a day of snowboarding.

By the time September rolls around the novelty of all these sports has worn off. Pavement hurts to much, the waves are overcrowded, the bike trails are covered in a foot of dust, and the boat wake is too small.

I find myself daydreaming of snowboarding and standing on top of peaks looking down lines. My daydreams do not include long lift lines on a powder day, high avalanche danger, wind-scoured peaks, or countless days when I am holed-up in a cheap hotel room waiting for the weather to break.

It is the days like when these photos that get me threw the never ending summer months. Having your stomach knotted with fear, breathing through that fear, dropping in with total confidence, seeing nothing but the task at hand, flying out the bottom with uncontrollable joy and relief, and then looking back at your track and being totally content for a moment.

No matter how hard I try I can never totally duplicate these emotions in summer. So here is a little teaser to get you threw this last stretch. One month and counting until life gets easy again.

Bottomless pow. No exposure, stable snow and not a breath of wind. No warm up needed to rip these.

The view from the top. So many options, not enough time. First I need to get my glove.

The weather came in as we were getting set up to ride these lines. This face had me pacing the lodge for ten days hoping for a break in the weather that never came. It is beasts like this that get me adding an extra loop on my bike ride or an extra set at the gym.

The origin of snowboarding discovered

Published

Jeremy

on September 13, 2008

in Uncategorized

. 34 Comments

It is so hard to explain what happen today so I will just stick to the facts. We drove for three hours up a valley that culminated with 12 switchbacks carved into the side of a 70-degree mountain face. At the top of the gnarliest road I have ever driven on sits a small village that is surrounded by fields of upon fields of perfect powder.
Like most of the towns in Turkey, it is older than my country, but that is not why it is special. It is the first place people started standing sideways on boards and gliding down hills over 150 years ago.

Old man Snowboading, Celime, 62 years of riding and going strong.

90% of the town rides, no one has ever skied there and the equipment and the style has stayed true to its origins. We met up with the oldest rider in the village, Celime.

He is seventy years old, and started riding in 1946. He has been riding almost daily for 62 years and it shows. Gimpl and I dropped in next to him he took of effortlessly, standing tall and proud as we did all we could to hold on.

It took a little while but Gimpl and I started to get the hang of it.

The sport was started out of necessity to get around the village in deep snow. The boards are so perfect for the terrain and snow conditions that the equipment had hardly changed in 150 years.

We sessioned the local hill for awhile and then headed up to the mosque for some aprs tea around the fire. I couldnt get the questions out fast enough.

Are there any contest? Yes. Do you hit jumps? Yes? When was the first time you saw a modern snowboard? Three years ago. Do you have any desire to use new equipment? No.

Has anyone in the town ever skied? No.

What really overwhelmed me was how content they were. There seemed to be little desire to progress the equipment or their riding. They hit jumps but do not have specific tricks.

You never know what you will find when you travel. Once again, the bond of sharing a few powder turns breaks down language barriers and cultural differences. Big thanks to the locals for letting us into there lives for the day.

All photos Bernard Ritzer.

Jeremy Jones

Jackson Hole gets Attacked by Avalanches

G E N E R A L - A V A L A N C H E - H A Z A R D

Jackson Hole Opens New Tram

Shredding the Gnar

Low-Tide Tahoe GNAR

I am Thankful for…

Thanksgiving Gobble, Gobble, Grovel

First Snow

Ocean Beach goes MENTAL!

Summer is too long.

The origin of snowboarding discovered

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