Howie Henderson, co-founder of the Jackson Hole Air Force, died suddenly at the age of 53. From my few days at Powder Week last year, all I could tell was that Howie was big, loud, and fast. I hoped I didn’t have to ski with him because I would never want to get smoked by a bigger, stronger, more haul-ass version of my dad. Howie summed up what has kept him crushing it in Jackson for so long:

“(It’s) what I love about skiing – you gotta go for it!.. All the time when you ski – I just love that. It’s so pure how you just gotta rip all the time.”

TGR put together a nice tribute including Howie’s above quote – perhaps the greatest and truest line in action sports since Spicoli’s infamous “cool buds and tasty waves” line in 1983. While Howie leaves behind family and a host of friends, it is a better, appreciably more bad-ass version of skiing that he leaves us with. May he rest in peace.

I took a wrong turn at Stratton.

At first glance, I seemed like an especially ill-suited candidate for the ski testing gig: the whole ordeal limited my strongest ski skill – writing – by limiting my alliteration, jabs, and unresearched claims to a mere 80-100 words per ski while bringing to light my complete lack of knowledge about ski technology or feel and stressing the weakest part of my game – skiing. After spending the season noodling around 300-foot shots in the Vermont woods thinking I was getting into shape, I was quickly dragged into the Jackson Hole ski experience, which is a special kind of hell combining crossfit, traversing, side-stepping, and, when you actually get to the skiing, getting your ass whooped by girls and old men. For some reason, every tester seemed to want to bring me, a weak East Coast weekend warrior, into Granite Canyon on Jackson’s north side. Any hope of having enough energy to make a turn after lunch was swiftly beaten in the ass by the mandatory ten-minute hike to twenty-minute sidestep/traverse to the top of the line, all which were bigger than any resort I’d ridden this year, which were then rewarded by a half-hour sidestep/traverse out of the Canyon that left my right ass, gluts, hamstring, quad, and lower back crying. I suppose they needed to test the skis from the perspective of being perpetually too exhausted to maintain better form than a grom with a dragon helmet cover and the little rubber piece connecting the ski tips. My ski partners, all better skiers and older or with more estrogen than testosterone in their innards, worked to assure me that I wasn’t as bad as I was, but they were no match for my endless self-effacing sarcasm that bordered on depression.

…and hiking, and hiking.

Luckily, the runs were so long, slow, and exhausting that most people only had to see three or four laps of my skis crossing each other or me collapsing on the side of a groomer before the lifts closed. And, as I’d been anxious to see in my first full-bore industry outing, the hierarchy was established more by socializing (drinking) ability than any measurable display of athletics. Whether at lunch, in the backcountry, in the hot tub, in the tram line, in the poached hot tub, or in the gentlmen’s spa hot tub at the hotel, there was never an unacceptable time to be crushing beers, and everyone from the sprightly college grads to the over the hill were taking advantage, thanks in part to Powder’s gratis après pitcher feeding sessions. I managed to hide from the malay long enough to get one decent night’s sleep with my platonic spooning partner from Evo Gear in the king bed in our way-too-nice-for-bums suite, which ensured I could manage to make three turns in a row instead of two on the first lap of the day before fading into a quad-screaming uncoordinated haze for the rest of the day.

Someone held my hips while another person threw snow in the background.

For those of you who have never been to Jackson, don’t go until you can run a marathon (unless you ski on the West Coast). That being said, the town and resort are god’s gift to the aspiring backcountry ripper – $3 tall boys in all base area bars despite expected pricey food, extremely limited locals’ vibe despite its hard-core presentation, unparalleled access to the backcountry, and its best asset and by far the most bizarre for the East Coast skier, legions of cute girls packing huge rockered skis and avi gear that can actually ski, actually go out of bounds, and will actually talk to you. As well, with most of the best skiing to be had out of bounds, if you have the knowledge and the partners, you can rest assured that you will never run into or have to share turns with the tourists who pay for you to live there while they stand above Corbett’s while their buddy drops in facing uphill.

Gelande quaffing where the chicks smoked everyone.

A big thanks are owed to Powder Magazine and its staff of skiing alcoholics for inviting me to what can only be described as a total ass-whooping that has crushed my ego and spirit and brought me to the conclusion that Connecticut is the only area I can ski in with any confidence anymore. My reviews of next year’s equipment, along with those of people you should actually trust for purchasing advice, can be found in the Powder Buyer’s Guide, on shelves next fall.

I’ve seen many a Gaper Day, but these Jackson Hole locals do it right. You tend to see too many people half-stepping it with park skis and SPKs below their Wrangler jeans. These guys give 110% and bust out the 200+ straight sticks with some backdoor loaders. Ghost-ridin’ the boot at 1:40 deserves special attention– next level shit!