30 Years in the Making

I was in highschool or younger when I first heard about Corbet’s Couloir. My Dad told me yet another story about my incredible Uncle Barry and the this ski run in Jackson Hole named after him. It was some crazy notch in the rocks with a hellish monster of a cornice drop into a steep narrow chute. Definitely a Double Black Diamond run (before we had Triple Blacks I used to joke it was a Dark Double Black). At that time I was already a dedicated lifetime skier dreaming of steep runs for experts only and wide open bowls of untracked powder. The whole concept of Heli Skiing blew my mind – you mean you can take a helicopter up to some place no one else can reach and ski long, uninterrupted runs of untracked powder? Where do I sign up for that? Oh, it’s wickedly expensive, I see. I’m definitely saving my money to do that one day.

By the time I was in university I was a pretty good skier thanks to a group of friends I still ski with decades later. Pushed to find jumps and cliff drops and get comfortable with a lot of speed in unpredictable terrain I grew confident enough to eventually tear both ACLs and suffer a variety of lesser injuries pursuing something I absolutely loved doing. And in 1992, around 2nd year university I was part of a package trip that five or six of us made by bus one post-Christmas from Vancouver to Jackson Hole for a week of skiing. Corbet’s was definitely on the list but that early in the year it was closed every time we got near it and although we all had a spectacular week of steep chutes and deep fresh powder we returned home not having skied that famous run. I recall losing a ski in the deep snow on the last run on the final day too so I felt like I had plenty of reasons to return thinking, someday I will ski that…

Decades passed and my dedication to skiing spread to the joy of doing it with my wife and three kids, all of whom are great skiers in their own right. But I found myself requiring more and varied aids to get me through a day on the slopes. Compression sleeves on both knees, a beast of a metal brace and a fist full of Advil are part of any day skiing for me now. And while my confidence and ability is as good these days as it has ever been, I began to feel like the number one item on my Bucket List was only going to get tougher. So I picked a date in February, told everyone I thought would also want to ski Corbet’s and was delighted when my cousins (and a second cousin) jumped on the idea helping make it happen.

We only had a three day window in Jackson Hole to get our chance so I knew we faced some uncertainty as it is often closed. The first day at the resort we took the first Tram up but discovered quickly that the run was closed. As the day progressed with no new snow in the forecast we began to feel like we may not get a chance to ski it in the coming two days. When we finally got to ski it, on our second day, we got to the mountain for the first Tram up as we had the day before but could see from the Tram that the run was empty so we chose to ski around beneath the run to take a closer look at it. As we pulled up in Tensleep Bowl we could see people dropping in above us. Realizing the run was open we all looked at each other and without a word, absolutely booked it straight to the bottom – flashing down wide open freshly groomed Blue runs that felt like broad avenues of corduroy all the way to the base with no other skiers in sight. We got to the bottom in record time with a handsome top speed. That’ll warm you up for a big run.

We got back to the top and over to the run where we saw a lineup of people looking in and preparing to ski it. My cousin Mike had agreed to film me and James drop in while I said I would get us from the bottom. James side-stepped right up to the entrance like he was going in and I was just following close behind. As he approached the entrance, people seemed to step out of the way allowing him to line up and drop in but as soon as he got there he stepped aside, looked back at me and said “Okay, you’re up”. I was like “What? Oh, okay.” With everyone watching there was no time to FAF around getting a Gopro set up so I just stepped up, looked at Mike holding his phone who nodded he was ready then looked out over my skis.

By far the toughest part of skiing this run is that initial drop. We had looked at the entrance the day before so I could see there was an exposed rock we had to avoid just after the first swooping turn. But after that we could see nothing else. Not from the entry point or anywhere else we looked in. So everything after that first turn was blind. Turns out if you make the first turn, which drops 8 feet or more straight down then sweeps right completely out of view and it spits you out heading straight into the East Wall where you must make a second sharp turn with no real chance to hit the brakes. If you make that second turn, you’re on the run and it is all steep, soft powder in a fairly narrow chute that later opens up into Tensleep Bowl. It is fabulous but quite steep all the way down. So much so I have renewed respect for those who launch into it as they do for the Kings and Queens of Corbet’s competition. They must be going so fast when the land and without a lot of room to peel off to either side or scrub off speed.

We were so pumped after doing it we raced back down to the Tram in order to do it again. But when we got back to the top we were told the run had been closed and we realized we had somehow just managed to squeeze in our run during a short window they had it open. What luck.

When the three of us had collected together having just done it and with the run above us we got talking to another skier who had also just come down. We were all talking about our experience when he discovered we had planned this for some time. He stopped us and probed for some details. When he found out who we were, he was like “Wait a minute – your Dad is who again? Barry Corbet? And your Dad is who… And Barry Corbet is your Grandfather. Wow, this is a big deal.”

We were kind of like, yeah, we thought so.

He says “Can I take your picture? You definitely want a picture of this right now.”

We were all beaming. Needless to say we were feeling plenty of energy on the way back down the mountain to ski it again.

Back when I first heard about Corbet’s Couloir, my Uncle Barry was already the coolest person I could imagine. Having lived two lives before and after a helicopter crash that left him a paraplegic and bound to a wheelchair for the rest of his life, he had climbed Everest, and was a prolific writer and filmmaker. We even discovered he had done some work for the CIA as a clandestine mountaineer in the 1960’s. As he described it to me, climbers had been disappearing for months then coming back on the scene with no satisfactory explanation of where they were. He was part of a group of advanced mountaineers that were sent to the Himalayas to plant a sensing device that would reveal the yield of the nuclear tests being done by China at that time. Parked on the north side of that wall of mountains the device help gauge how advanced the Chinese weapons programs were. It needed power of course so a small uranium fuel cell was part of the package they hauled up to some designated, inaccessible spot. The Sherpas all fought over who got to sleep with it because it was so warm. Yikes.

We learned all this after a book was published in the ’90’s detailing the expedition and my cousin Jenny got the medal released that he was awarded through a Freedom of Information request. As Barry described it, a spook arrived at the house replete with trenchcoat and hat asking that no photographs be taken and leaving by the side entrance. I’m not making this up…

Barry’s brother, my Dad, was no slouch. In terms of skiing I discovered Burke Corbet was one of the first people ever to ski down the Peak at Whistler mountain, decades before a chair was put in. As the story goes, Burke was generally working on bridges and tunnels as a Civil Engineer during his early career when his boss brought him along on a particular assignment. It was the 1960’s and Whistler was being considered as a location for an upcoming Winter Olympics. The engineering firm has been tasked with assessing the ski area, how it could be expanded and whether it was suitable for the variety of competitive events. To do this, Burke and his boss Per Hall were flown to the top of the Peak one of those clear bubble helicopters we all saw used in M*A*S*H. Deposited on a shoulder near Whistler Bowl with skis, poles and boots by a pilot with Garibaldi Helicopters, the two skiers made their own way the valley floor. It was chronicled in a human interest article dreamed up by someone at Whistler Blackcomb to mark the 20th anniversary of the Peak Chair getting installed in 1986. I wish I still had the photos of those two standing in front of the copter and another of my Dad carving up some untracked powder.

The weekend gathering to ski Corbet’s and celebrate everything that was Barry Corbet yielded a few other gems. Yet another stunner was the friendship Barry had with Robert Redford. They met in the 1960’s when Barry was on location in some exotic European ski resort filming one of the many ski movies he made. Redford and Corbet connected when Barry was hauling camera gear to where it needed to be and Redford offered a hand to help. Their rapport stretched across decades with Redford narrating one of Barry’s films in the ’70’s about solo climbing Half Dome in Yosemite.

Uncle Barry, what an icon…