To leap and freefall for 30 feet in a pair of skis is a harrowing stunt. But to do it from the top of the 10,450-foot Rendezvous Mountain at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort in Wyoming, where Corbet’s Couloir cuts a steep white scar between towering cliff faces, is to perform a skier’s sacred rite of passage.
Indeed, just to enter Corbet’s Couloir, a skier or snowboarder must drop off a cornice that varies from 10 to 30 feet in height throughout the season. Then it’s back-to-back turns on a narrow and steep slope, a one-way trip down to the deep white abyss of Tensleep Bowl.
As the ultimate proving grounds for expert skiers and snowboarders, double-black diamond runs offer trees, rocks, giant icy bumps and heart-in-throat drops that push riders to their physical and mental max. Hundreds of vertical feet can fall away underfoot in seconds. One wrong move, one moment of hesitation, and fate can tip toward a tumbling, embarrassing — and potentially injuring — slide to the bottom of the mountain.
But what is life without a bit of risk?
A long time ago, as a burgeoning ski bum in the early 1990s, I kept a scribbled list in a notebook of some of North America’s most difficult double-diamond runs, from archetypes like Corbet’s Couloir to Snowbird’s Great Scott in Utah and the Palisades at Squaw Valley, Calif. My goal was simple: to travel the continent and ski them all.
