Get Out: Skiing under stars (and lights)

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

By Brigid Mander

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-The lower lot at Snow King Resort was half-full as we drove up in the fading light of day.  The blue sky was on its last legs, but at Snow King that doesn’t mean the ski day is over.  It goes on, into the dark hours of the night (OK, until 7 p.m., Tuesday-Saturday). 

The one thing about skiing Snow King is, it is cold.  And it is really cold after dark. My two friends and I prepared by picking boards with sharp edges, and while that would prove only semi-successful, we knew we would at least be warm. Eric sported a huge Everest-ready puffy; I had on primaloft and wool layers under my softshell and Sarah was decked in down, under a hardshell. 

The Cougar lift is open for night skiing, and only certain runs on the lower half of the mountain are lighted, including the terrain park at the base and a smaller one up high. 

We struck out to explore all skiable nighttime terrain, from the brightly lit groomers to anything else the lights even slightly penetrated, which resulted in some less than fluid runs.

Snow King has awesome groomers, and speeding down its steep, rolling runs while town glitters below is a pretty cool view.  A key part of nightskiing is to take a moment and check out the sights: lighted lines of cars snake in and out of town, the town sparkles, and landmark neon signs like the Virginian and the Cowboy Bar give perspective. 

You can do a lot of laps in a night ski session.  To switch it up, the soft bumps found under the chairlift, half-shaded from the lights are a pretty good exercise for your reflexes, and hey, a pretty good time too. 

With stripes of light penetrating through, the trees are even more ridiculous fun and have some pretty interesting visual qualities.  After multiple speedy laps on the groomers, we went on a hunt for a few fresh turns in said trees. 

When our little trio stopped and looked at itself, it was something like this:  I was standing on a small fallen log on my skis, surrounded by stumps, Eric was peering around trying to find an unobstructed straight-line out, and Sarah was laughing so hard she couldn’t really see anything at all, which wasn’t that safe either.  But we extricated ourselves, and came back on the next run, too.

A few more laps of flopping about and laughing in the terrain park, where we tried to teach Sarah how to get air and Eric checked things out on skis after over a decade on a snowboard, and we were ready to declare it the best night ski session ever.   And then, we were thwarted by an orange “closed” sign on the chairlift, a buzz kill alleviated only by a jaunt across the street to 43 North, for some cheap PBRs and reliving our adventure. JHW

photo by brigid mander
Eric Whitehouse and Sara Stephan enjoy a night-ski session.


PERMALINK:
Get Out: Skiing under stars (and lights) | Planet JH News Article: Sports & Recreation

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