Opening Day of Jackson Hole

Opening Day fun. Photo by Tristan Grezko.

Opening day is an interesting phenomenon here in Jackson Hole. I actually had my first day of work with Elevation Imaging (yay!). I hopped on the bus at 7:45 am and arrived at the Village around 8:10. The only people around were employees. There were no people waiting in line, no tourists. It was hard to even tell that the chairs would be running. After grabbing my photo gear and getting started in the shop, I could see the local color trickling onto the Teewinot chairlift.

First chair of the season! Photo by Tristan Grezko.

The only two lifts open today were Teewinot (the beginner chair) and Apres Vous (AV). AV is usually a pretty awesome chair. It accesses Saratoga bowl and the northern part of the Crags. It also provides backcountry access to Granite Canyon. Today's ride up AV was over rocks. I even saw a deer frolicking through the brush. Rumors told me that there was a moose hanging around as well. It felt like spring. Luckily, the mountain has been making snow all week, so what the locals call "The Ribbon of Death" was perfectly groomed up for some early season turns. They even had a jump, a box, and a rail. But veer from that one run and you'd be tumbling through rocks and dirt. To give you some perspective, check out the grooming map below.

That dark black line represents the runs that are open. Ha!

Onto my experience. My job consists of taking action photographs of people while they're skiing and also taking their portraits in front of some of the beautiful backdrops that Jackson Hole provides. Since there are only two lifts open, there are definitely limited options to choose from. I'm talking about people. Today was no special day for tourists (I mean, why the hell would you come to Jackson for the amount of terrain that they offered today??). Tourists tend to be the main source of clients that my company gets...and there were none. Let's just say that it was a little bit tough to get the crowds to stop and take a snapshot. Luckily I got moved down to take some action shots midway through the day. That was fun, and I didn't feel like I was pestering people so much.

Oh well. Like I said, opening day was really nothing special here. No 60" base, no powder, just a sunny day with one groomed run and a lot of familiar faces. Give it two weeks though, and this place will be a totally different scene...