Jackson

After leaving Salt Lake, we headed north to Logan, UT to meet up with our friend Ryann.  Ryann is in vet school in Logan, and we were fortunate enough to have it snow while we were there!  We set off on a hike and by the time we were back, a nice blanket of fresh white was covering everything.  We hiked up to some awesome wind caves with Titan, Star, and Ryann's Dalmatian, Seth.

Then it was on to Jackson, WY.  Chelsea and I lived in Jackson two winters ago and we were so excited to get back and spend time in the Tetons and visit old friends, especially our old roommate, Josh.

We started off our time with a visit to Julie and her boyfriend, Alex, who live in an amazing cabin in Moose.  We had our coldest night of the trip yet, at -15 degrees and woke up to a jaw-dropping sunrise on the Tetons.  The next week was filled with lots of skate-skiing in GTNP, hiking, eating, and catching up.  We skied one day at JHMR with Josh.  We also started teaching the dogs to skijor, which was entertaining and a blast when they started to pick it up.

After a week, we headed over to the other side of the pass to visit my friend Kaybe.  We had an absolutely stellar weekend.  We went on our longest skate yet (8 miles) in Teton Canyon (and Titan kept up the whole way), went climbing at the new gym in Driggs, saw some live music, made french toast, and had our best day of skiing yet at Grand Targhee.  We took a slow morning and arrived at the mountain in time to see the very finals of the telemark races, which turned out to be way cooler than what we had imagined (we didn't imagine there were be people hucking cliffs!).  Then we hiked up Mary's and got some actual POWDER!  It was AMAZING.  That side of the Tetons has such a wonderful vibe, and we headed back over the pass on Sunday night with huge smiles on our faces.

Our next week in the Tetons featured more skating, a bit of skiing, and hiking.  On our second day of skiing at the resort, we woke up to 5 inches of fresh powder.  We got to the mountain as soon as we could, knowing from experience how fast it gets skied out.  I came out way too psyched and just completely ate it on my third turn of the day.  I lost a ski and let out an audible 'oof' once I stopped rolling and sliding down the mountain.  I definitely didn't feel quite right and after testing out a few easy groomers I decided I shouldn't ski any more and headed to the van to rest my knee.  On Friday, March 6, we got to celebrate Star's 6th birthday, which was awesome!  We went on a really long hike, which featured birthday hats, mud and snow, and lots of treats!

The Tetons are so insanely beautiful, and it felt incredibly nice to spend time there.  It was so different than when we lived there and worked so much that we didn't have very much time to actually enjoy where we were.  Our time there definitely has us thinking about moving back in the near future.