With a huge amount of appreciation, we’d like to thank Black Mountain Ski Area in Jackson for allowing us to use their mountain to conduct glacier skills and mountaineering skills courses, the first of the season having taken place yesterday. This isn’t uncommon and has been the norm for us for several years — for which we’ve always been grateful — but this one was different. Black Mountain, now owned by Indy Pass, is usually closed at this time of year. This year, however, we’re told they plan to stay open quite a while longer (like through the end of the month), but are still allowing us to use their snow in areas closed to skiers. This is awesome because Valley-accessible snow makes these trainings possible. Otherwise we’d spend hours hiking to usable training grounds. This class, led by Redline Guide Will Murphy, is the first of at least two glacier skills training days. Here are a few photos.
