Something new in West Fork Teton

The trees are finally coming back from the 2007 fires

Hard to beat the Rocky Mountain Front scenery

We marked up the hillside with our tele turns

 A little experimenting went a long way on our ski in the West Fork Teton country this week.

Normally we ski to the bottom on the road from the Teton Pass Ski Area, and then to the Bob Marshall Wilderness Boundary.

This time, instead of dropping to the bottom, we tried old logging roads in the 2007 burn.

While we had to dodge some downed trees, we found some room to get in some telemark skiing in fairly safe terrain.

It was an ice cold, but clear and windy day, but worthwhile for the exceptional scenery we had at the foot of Mount Wright.

The area could use another foot of snow to make this spectacular, but it was good enough to deliver its potent message that there's still plenty of territory we haven't covered there.

Our trip coincided with the opening of the ski area this season and we climbed one of the bunny runs to test the turns and found a skiff of snow on top packed powder that had been groomed and was icy.

We'll probably be a while before getting another ski in as ultra cold weather moves in during the week before Christmas, with temperatures going down to the minus 30 area.