Skiing the slide

(Editor's note: this Excursions column appeared in the Jackson Hole News&Guide in March)

By Amy Schenck

What: Skiing the Gros Ventre Slide

Where: Off the Gros Ventre Road past Kelly

When: Late winter and early spring when there is a deep snowpack

What to take: Food, water, warm clothes, avalanche gear and a spirit of adventure

Elevation gain: About 2,000 feet

My alarm sounded obnoxious at 5:15 a.m. Didn’t it know I deserved at least a couple more hours of sleep?

Nonetheless, by 6:30 a.m. on Thursday, Karen Colclough and I were driving toward the Gros Ventre slide on a mission for some R&R (recreational reconnaissance).

Telemark skis and two overly amped dogs filled the backseat of Karen’s car. Pink hues reflected off overcast skies and the few inches of freshies that fell during the night.

On a scrap piece of yellow lined paper, I had written down directions obtained from a friend of a friend.

As we got our first good views of the slide from the car, I pulled out those directions, and Karen and I poured over them, trying to figure out the best route up – and down – the well-known landmark.

The directions, and our own logic, told us to hug the west side of the slide, following “fingers” or small gullies, and avoiding fields of car-sized boulders.

We had been warned: while the boulders themselves can be problematic, the hollows around the boulders are a big danger too.

The feature we were scheming up ways to ski is a geologic freak.

Information found on www.ultimatewyoming.com and attributed to the Forrest Service gives the following facts on the Gros Ventre slide:

On June 23, 1925, a slope on the north side of Sheep Mountain unraveled, sending 50 million cubic yards of rock and debris hurling down toward the Gros Ventre River. The slide rolled 300 feet up the opposite side of the valley, blocked the river and formed what today is known as Lower Slide Lake.

In 1927, part of the dam created by the slide collapsed, flooding Kelly and killing six people, along with hundreds of domestic animals. That disaster caused Kelly to lose the county seat; it went to Jackson instead.

Karen and I parked the car at a lookout point on Gros Ventre Road. The directions on the crumpled up yellow paper bid us to turn onto Taylor Ranch Road and park in a scrapped out area just before the bridge across the Gros Ventre River. But a plow hadn’t yet uncovered Taylor Ranch Road, and we decided we’d rather skin for an extra 15 minutes, rather than risk getting stuck.

We set out, totally unsure of how the day would unfold.

After a season of following established skin trails on Teton Pass and in Grand Teton National Park, it felt downright invigorating to find our own route.

We picked our way up a narrow gully at the mouth of the slide. The few inches of new snow made the going easy: enough to give us good grip, but not so much as to bog as down.

Dogs Zippy and Oscar had it a bit more “ruff.” Their paws sank until they were literally up to their ears in sugary snow. They swam through it, totally unfazed.

After about a half mile, the gully began to level out and split into threads.

We cut west. Then up. Then west.

For a couple of hours we continued this way, snaking through dense forests, avoiding boulders, and generally drifting west.

The slide rose up before us, like an amphitheater reverberating with a symphony of rocks, boulders, cliffs and young trees.

We paused, often, to take it in.

The slide had always felt impressive from a distance. But to be there, standing in it, struck us with a sort of giddy awe.

Eventually, we gained a ridge that leads to the top of the slide.

We would have liked to have followed that flank to the 1925 starting zone, but we were pressed for time. We pulled off our skins 30 minutes shy of the very top.

Throughout the day Karen and I had observed that ominous “whomphing” sound synonymous with avalanche danger. So we had no intention of putting our nose into the slide’s steepest sections. Instead we chose a relatively safe line that flirted between tight trees and open glades.

Unexpected light springy powder made our descent nothing short of a delight. We leapfrogged each other, pure elation in our smiles.

Toward the bottom, we did a good bit of ski shwacking (short for bushwacking). More than once, during the schwacking, I audibly thanked my helmet.

Ski schwacking may not sound like a lot of fun, but for some odd reason it was.

Before we knew it, the slide spit us out back at the Gros Ventre River … two happy people and two panting dogs, unscathed from a day in the giant.