Skiing Grand Targhee... yet again

Saturday brought another beautiful day at Grand Targhee Ski Resort. I met up with Lowell, (friend of a friend) and we hit it off right away. While he's a much better skier, we have kindred spirits and, well, I'll let the pictures explain:
Practicing my 900 (that's 2.5 360's). Not really, that kid's probably half my age and my 900 was head-over-heels in a ball of snow.
These next two pictures are an attempt to describe "West" skiing. Notice the 1 groomed trail, all the people, the wide open terrain and 2000 feet of vertical to top it off.

Lowell in front of the Teton's
Lowell scoping out some summer hikes
Sorry - no handstands today. Standing on my feet proved to be the bigger challenge.
The year was 1832 and Lewis & Clark were leading an expedition over Teton Pass in search of ........ deep powder.














Lowell: "Joe, have you ever hiked that?"
Joe: "Nope, you?"
L: "No, but it looks pretty fun."
J: "Yeah, but isn't it hard to hike in ski boots? I've never hiked in ski boots, and walking to the car is hard enough."
L: "I think it's only about 15 minutes. I'm sure there will be steps." (Never trust somebodies guesstimate when it comes to hike times)
J: "It would be a really nice day to do that."
L: "Yeah, if we were to do it, today would be the day."
J: "Do you want to do it? If it looks too steep, we can always cut out, right?" (Cutting out early? That's like giving up - Joe should know he doesn't do that - reference "Scouting" post.)
L: "Yeah, may as well. If it tires us out, we can always call it a day."
J: "I'm game if you are."
L: "Let's do it."
Don't worry Mom - if you don't see my telltale ski-tumble-ski impressions, you know they aren't my tracks. This is what we didn't do.
The dashed line on the left is where we hiked up. "X" marks where I fell. OK, so the first one you can all relate to - just standing there minding your own business when "whoosh", down you go. It just happens. The others - well, it was steep, it was deep, and a lot of fun! Next time we'll have to go before everyone else makes tracks.
The trail follows the valley at the bottom. And yes, people we're skiing off the cliffs on the left. You may also notice some black shadowed marks on the left/middle of the picture. That's where they blast the side of the mountain to trigger avalanches before the skiers do!