SUMMER 2020
Cutthroat Paradise
The Snake River in Jackson Hole is the last, best, and largest watershed still dominated by cutthroat trout in the West. Can it stay that way?
OUTDOORS
[COMPLIMENTARY COPY]
Jackson Lake Sailing
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GETTING OUT
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Bridgette Meinhold
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Thunder River Ranch
Invest in the West As this magazine headed to print in the Spring, the world did not know the final human cost of the corona virus. One solid prediction was that, with the practice of social distancing becoming a human habit, wild open spaces would be even more highly valued than before the tragic pandemic. People who live in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) area are much blessed that their property is surrounded by about 22 million acres of national parks, national forests, tribal and other public lands, comprising one of the largest intact natural ecosystems on Earth. Millions of these pristine acres are designated as Wilderness, defined in the 1964 Wilderness Act as: “…an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain…so as to preserve its natural condition…”. In the GYE there is a shared Spirit of Place, of gratitude, reverence and respect by the people for the abundant wildlife in wild places. This spirit of the people has been the foundation for the globally significant conservation history and legacy of the GYE region. A respected writer recently observed: “Wyoming’s Teton and Park counties and Montana’s Gallatin county are the only ones left in the Lower 48 states where you can find the full complement of large wildlife species that were on the landscape 500 years ago. Without habitat there is no wildlife, which itself is a major economic engine for the (Greater Yellowstone) region.” People in the GYE region have a special opportunity and responsibility to help conserve the wildlife in their wild places, enhancing the spiritual and physical health of the people who visit the vast forests and plains or are blessed to live in God’s Country.
Medicine Bow, WY $20,975,000 for 25,000+/- acres on 11 miles of Laramie River, full cattle/hay operation, trophy resident elk herd near Laramie Peak, excellent conservation easement prospect
Heart K Ranch
Steve Duerr
Top-Producing Broker for Jackson Hole Real Estate Associates 2019, 2017 & 2014. Real Estate Licenses: Wyoming, Idaho & Montana • 21 years in real estate with success in aggregation of large tracts of ranch lands and conservation easement tax planning, 40 years in active law practice including 30 years as General Counsel for the regional electric and gas cooperative utility • Former member of the Teton County Planning Commission and Teton Board of Realtors
Livingston, MT $32,500,000 for 2,000+/- acres on 5.5 miles of Yellowstone River, full cattle/hay operation, 4 center pivots, best indoor $???,000 | MLS ????? arena in Montana historically hosting national equine events, commercial development potential
• Recipient of the JH Chamber of Commerce Power of Place award and pioneer of the former Power of Place brand as executive director of the Chamber, envisioning a sustainable balance between commerce and conservation, people - wildlife and wild places • Former executive director of the Murie Center in GTNP and a catalyst for the Town of Jackson Proclamation in collaboration with the National Elk Refuge renaming North Park at the Greater Yellowstone Visitor Center on North Cache, The Murie Family Park. There is set Olaus’ Rock the 1965 community monument to conservation leadership.
steveduerr@jhrea.com | 307.699.4920 | www.steveduerr.com
Jackson Hole
Summer 2020
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Caribbean Cowboys
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More than 400,000 Puerto Ricans have left their Caribbean island home since 2017. Some are making new lives for themselves in Jackson Hole. BY LINA COLLADO GARCÍA
PHOTO GALLERY
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Training Ground //
Cutthroat Paradise: Jackson Hole
The Upper Snake watershed is the last, best, and largest watershed dominated by cutthroat trout remaining in the West, but the continuance of this status isn’t a given.
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72 PRICE CHAMBERS
Living History
Backcountry cabins are a part of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks’ human history. You can visit them, but no spending the night. BY KYLIE MOHR
BY MIKE KOSHMRL PHOTOGRAPHY BY REBECCA NOBLE
ON THE COVER: Yellowstone cutthroat “are the most beautiful freshwater fish to photograph; they have the most vibrant colors,” says Robert Dotson, who divides his time between Ashton, Idaho, and Bountiful, Utah. Dotson captured this shot while fishing with his son Jesse, 16 at the time. “We started swinging these big, black streamer patterns,” Dotson says. While Jesse fished, Dotson had his Sony RX camera in a housing submerged in the river. He estimates the fish in this image, which was released after Jesse hooked it, is about 23 inches long. Dotson’s photography has appeared in The FlyFish Journal and The Drake, but is most often used by conservation groups including Trout Unlimited. 14
JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2020
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Jackson Hole
Summer 2020
22 TETONSCAPES 7 Best Photo Ops, Snack Up, Climbing for All, Flights and Feathers, Bagel Time
28 PIQUED Some of our favorite summer stuff
32 MEET THE LOCALS Q&A Brent Peakcock, Morgan Jaouen, Driscoll Larrow 42 ON THE JOB The Warden Life The job of a warden at the Jackson Region of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department extends well beyond checking hunting tags and fishing licenses. BY MIKE KOSHMRL
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48 BUSINESS Cowboy Science
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A nonprofit lab in Jackson might be closing in on treatments for ALS and Alzheimer’s. BY DINA MISHEV
54 DESIGN Cellar Style Wine cellars are extra difficult to engineer and build in Jackson Hole because of the area’s extreme climate and altitude. But that doesn’t stop local oenophiles. BY SAMANTHA SIMMA
96 LOOKING BACK On the Upper Gros Ventre, Standing the Test of Time In 1964 Loring Woodman’s parents bought the Darwin Ranch and Woodman launched a 50-year stint as its manager.
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100 OUTDOORS The Wind Rising CY WHITLING
Page
BY MIKE KOSHMRL
Is sailing on Jackson Lake the best summer activity in Jackson Hole? BY MOLLY ABSOLON
109 GETTING OUT All Downhill In gravity riding, a chairlift or car gets you and your mountain bike to the top. Then, enjoy the down. BY CY WHITLING
116 The Road Less Traveled Explore the valley’s dirt roads with a Utility Terrain Vehicle. BY DINA MISHEV
120 High Point Heading out to climb the Grand Teton isn’t always the adventure you expect. BY LEXEY WAUTERS
126 BODY & SOUL Zero Proof Jackson Hole mixologists make sure no alcohol doesn’t mean no fun. BY MELISSA THOMASMA
130 NIGHTLIFE Get with the Program As recently as a decade ago, cocktails here were mostly limited to the classics. Now inventive, well-crafted cocktails are the norm. BY JR RODRIGUEZ
134 DINING It’s a Small World After All Jackson Hole’s options for ethnic eats are expanding. BY MELISSA THOMASMA
142 ART SCENE The Art at the Heart A 55-year-old nonprofit arts organization is the heart of the valley’s art scene. BY JULIE FUSTANIO KLING
150 AS THE HOLE DEEPENS BY TIM SANDLIN
152 JACKSON HOLE MAPPED 154 CALENDAR OF EVENTS
REBECCA NOBLE
JH Living
Best of JH
SHARING THE WESTERN EXPERIENCE ONE GUEST AT A TIME.
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Greetings from the Editor I AM SO excited for this issue, even if, as I put the finishing touches on it in late April, we don’t yet have any idea of what summer in Jackson Hole will look like. The hope is that it will be normal, but it is possible you might read this in July, still sheltering in place in your home in San Francisco or Chicago. I am almost always an optimist though and hope you’re reading this at Pearl Street Bagels (“Bagel Time,” p. 27) or about to head to the Center for the Arts to check out the Art Association Gallery after reading “The Art at the Heart” (p. 142). Or maybe travel is still not recommended and many of the activities and places mentioned in this issue are closed. If this is the case, I hope you and your family are physically and emotionally well and that reading this issue provides some respite from corona news and makes you want to get to Jackson Hole as soon as it’s safe. But I’m really hoping you’re here in person and might be able to meet some of my favorite locals (Local Q&A, p. 32-37) like the manager of Smith’s Pharmacy who is also a world champion offroad triathlete, Brent Peacock, and Morgan Jaouen, the 30-yearold who’s making Jackson Hole’s history hip as executive director of the Jackson Hole Historical Society & Museum. Lina Collado Garciá’s feature about Puerto Ricans who have relocated to the valley (“Caribbean Cowboys,” p. 64) is her
first piece for the magazine and also the first story in the magazine to highlight a part of Jackson Hole’s Latino community. (About 25 percent of the population of the Town of Jackson is Latino.) Equally exciting, “Caribbean Cowboys” is the first story Jackson Hole magazine has translated into Spanish. (Find the profiles in Spanish at jacksonholemagazine.com.) With travel and eating out unavailable for much of the spring, this issue’s Dining department, “It’s a Small World After All” (p. 134), feels more important than a dining story usually does. Writer Lexey Wauters’ story “High Point” (p. 120) is a reminder that adventure isn’t always what you expect, but often exactly what you need. Award-winning Jackson Hole News&Guide reporter Mike Koshmrl’s “Cutthroat Paradise” (p. 72) looks at an environmental success story—why and how native cutthroat trout thrive in the Snake River in Jackson Hole when their population is declining elsewhere in the river—and at current threats to its continued success. The issue also has stories about the Jackson Lake sailing scene (“The Wind Rising,” p. 100), historic patrol cabins in Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks (“Living History,” p. 88), and a local lab working on novel treatments for diseases like ALS and Alzheimer’s (“Cowboy Science,” p. 48). Wherever you are, I hope you enjoy reading this issue of Jackson Hole magazine as much as I enjoyed editing it. Thanks for reading. —Dina Mishev @MYSPIRITANIMALISATREX @JACKSONHOLEMAG
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JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2020
Jackson Hole
magazine
It’s About
ConneCtIons...
Summer 2020 // jacksonholemagazine.com
What is your favorite summer photo spot (that you’re willing to share)?
PUBLISHER
Kevin Olson
A high peak in the forest, far from everyone!
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER
Adam Meyer
Snowdrift Lake at the back of Avalanche Canyon can be the same blue as the Caribbean Sea and is surrounded by dramatic cliffs. Around a bend in the Snake River between Dead Man’s Bar and Moose, and boom—the Tetons unfold in front of you like a postcard.
EDITOR
Dina Mishev ART DIRECTOR
Elise Mahaffie PHOTO EDITOR
Summit of Sheep Mountain for its great views of the Teton Range and the Gros Ventre Wilderness. Looking up at Mt. Moran from the back of a boat on Jackson Lake.
Bradly J. Boner COPY EDITOR
Michael McCoy CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
up Full moon coming over the Sleeping Indian with Elk Refuge in foreground.
Just downstream and around the last corner of Ropes Rapid on the Snake River.
On a bluebird fall day, looking north through the aspens at the Grand on the Village Road bike path.
Safe • Fun • Educational • 3 –Hour Multi-Gun • Private Lessons Open Year-round by Appointment!
Molly Absolon Lila Edythe Lina Collado García Julie Fustanio Kling The Tetons slowly being Mike Koshmrl Jim Mahaffie cloaked in hues of pink and blue Kylie Mohr Jr Rodriguez on a Snow King sunrise. Tim Sandlin Samantha Simma Maggie Theodora Melissa Thomasma Lexey Wauters Cy Whitling Jackson Lake from Signal CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS
Ryan Dorgan Lina Collado García Jay Goodrich Top of the tram! The focal point Rebecca Noble is our beautiful valley below. David J Swift
Mountain Lodge.
Robert Dotson The Gros Ventre Valley Taylor Glenn Neal Henderson offers a unique view of the Jr Rodriguez granite of the Teton Range Kathryn Ziesig framed by fiery red cliff bands.
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Check out our TripAdvisor reviews!
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© 2020 Jackson Hole magazine. All rights reserved. No part of this production may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. No responsibility will be assumed for unsolicited editorial contributions. Manuscripts or other material to be returned must be accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope adequate to return the material. Jackson Hole magazine is published semiannually. Send subscription requests to: Jackson Hole magazine, P.O. Box 7445, Jackson, Wyoming 83002. (307) 732-5900. Email: dina@jhmagazine.com. Visit jacksonholemagazine.com.
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Contributors THE BEST STORIES ARE SHARED OVER
A BEER
A rare Jackson Hole native, Melissa Thomasma (“Zero Proof,” p. 126 and “It’s a Small World After All,” p. 134) earned degrees from the University of Chicago and the University of Montana before returning home. Her first children’s book, Cinder Rescue Cat, was published in 2017. Most recently, her work has appeared in JH Style, Dishing, and Jackson Hole Skier.
Kylie Mohr (“Living History,” p. 88) is the former Jackson Hole News&Guide health and education reporter. She recently relocated to Missoula, Montana, where she is earning a master’s degree in environmental journalism at the University of Montana. She’s written for National Geographic, Montana Quarterly, Powder magazine, NPR, CNN, and Teton Gravity Research.
JACKSON’S BREWPUB SINCE 1994 W W W. S N A K E R I V E R B R E W I N G .C O M
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The words and the photos in “Caribbean Cowboys” (p. 64) are by Lina Collado García. A native of San Juan, Puerto Rico, García completed an MFA in Film from Columbia University’s School of Arts and moved to Jackson in 2013 for a job with Jackson Wild. García’s photography has appeared in Shutterbug Magazine, BBC Wildlife Magazine, and The Outdoor Journal. This is the first feature story she has written.
JEWELRY ORIGINALS
45 YEARS OF INSPIRATION AT 6000 FT. 125 N.Cache • www.danshelley.com info@danshelley.com • 307.733.2259 ALL DESIGNS COPYRIGHTED
“Aspens” by Renowned Artist Wolfgang Vaatz Applied and Hand Detailed Argentium Sterling Silver and Natural California Placer Gold
JH
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Living
TETONSCAPES
The Best Photo Ops Around Jackson Hole THANKS TO THE miracle of the Tetons, jagged and jutting straight up from the sea of sage that blankets our valley, the landscapes here can make the greenest photographer’s pictures—even taken on a phone!—look like coffee-table book material. What are you waiting for?
BY JIM MAHAFFIE
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THE SHOTS: 1. Each corner of the Town Square is adorned with an elk antler arch 2. The Million Dollar Cowboy Bar and its neon bucking bronco sign are on the west side of the square. PRO TIP: Use the sun and evening light—with four arches facing four different directions, one will always be in sunshine (provided the sun is shining). GET THERE: The Town Square is defined by Broadway Avenue, Cache Street, Deloney Avenue, and Center Street.
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THE SHOT: The Tetons in the distance with aspens and dude ranches in the foreground. PRO TIP: In the fall, this is where you’ll find some of the valley’s best colors. Time it right and you can get a photo of orange and yellow aspens and the snow-dusted Tetons. GET THERE: Six miles north of Jackson on U.S. Highway 26/89/191 at the Gros Ventre Junction, follow signs for Kelly (the first exit from the roundabout). At the tiny community of Kelly the road makes a sharp turn left (north). About three-quarters of a mile past this, Gros Ventre Road is a right-hand turn.
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CATHEDRAL GROUP TURNOUT THE SHOT: An up-close image of the Teton Range’s Cathedral Group, the group of peaks between Cascade and Death Canyons that includes the Grand, Mt. Owen, and Teewinot Mountain. PRO TIP: Drive a few miles farther to the one-way Scenic Loop Road and the Jenny Lake Overlook to get a photo of the same peaks, but with vivid-blue Jenny Lake in the foreground. GET THERE: From Teton Park Road, turn onto the Jenny Lake Scenic Loop Road at North Jenny Lake Junction. The turnout is on the north side.
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THE SHOT: The Town of Jackson and the National Elk Refuge immediately below; beyond, the entirety of the Teton Range. PRO TIP: While the biggest views are to the north, don’t neglect to look south and east where the Gros Ventre, Snake, and Wyoming Ranges stretch as far as you can see. GET THERE: Ride up Snow King’s Summit Scenic Chairlift or hike 1.8 miles up (and about 1,500 vertical feet) to the 7,808-foot summit.
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THE SHOT: A high, open vista of the expanse of the Tetons. Whether or not to include in your shot the ancient Limber Pine and Douglas Fir that grew together and give this site its name is up to you. PRO TIP: Because it’s in the BridgerTeton National Forest (rather than GTNP), dogs are allowed. GET THERE: Walk 5 minutes from a pullout on the south side of Gros Ventre Road; the pullout is past Gros Ventre River Ranch, but before you can see Lower Slide Lake.
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THE SHOT: Similar to an Ansel Adams classic—the Tetons with the Snake River meandering along the base of the range. PRO TIP: At sunrise, the sun climbs into the sky at your back and spills light onto the river and mountains. GET THERE: Find the clearly marked entrance on the left as you head north on U.S. Highway 26/89/191 from Grand Teton National Park’s main headquarters at Moose.
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TOP OF BRIDGER GONDOLA THE SHOT: An expansive image looking down on the Snake River and Jackson Hole and out at the surrounding mountain ranges from an elevation of 9,095 feet at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. PRO TIP: The 1.5-mile Casper Ridge Loop hiking trail winds though stands of healthy, ancient whitebark pines and offers views of the Grand Teton. GET THERE: The Bridger Gondola leaves from the base of Teton Village, near Jackson Hole Sports; the trip takes about 10 minutes. JH
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Living
TETONSCAPES
The Town Pump, an 11-week series of climbing competitions, happens here every Tuesday evening during the summer. There’s live music and prizes for the climbers— individuals and teams— who do the most/hardest routes during a two-hour period. It costs $45 to enter the series or $10 to drop in for one comp; money raised goes toward maintaining the boulder park.
Snack Up, on the Side of a Mountain
Enjoy locally made treats during a hike or bike ride on Snow King.
A wall of history describes twelve significant mountaineering events in the Tetons. Renny Jackson, who has summited dozens of peaks in the Tetons and was one of Grand Teton National Park’s elite Jenny Lake Climbing Rangers for 35 years, chose which events to include.
DUNCAN MCLAURIN / COURTESY PHOTO
BY LILA EDYTHE
The deck at the Flying Squirrel Snack Shop.
FIVE HUNDRED VERTICAL feet above the base of Snow King Mountain’s Cowboy Coaster is a postage-stamp-sized cabin with a wraparound deck exploding with blooming geraniums. Take a seat at one of the tables on the deck and enjoy the view of the Town of Jackson, Flat Creek, and the Tetons. It’s a lovely spot made even lovelier once you discover you can get s’mores and Rice Krispies treats from Persephone Bakery and Cream + Sugar ice cream sandwiches inside the cabin. “I wanted to give people on the King a destination that wasn’t as difficult to get to as the summit, and have snacks they could buy once they got there,” says Sue Muncaster, one of the founders of Slow Food in the Tetons. With Christian Santelices, a longtime Exum Mountain guide, Muncaster was a driving force behind the establishment of the Treetop Adventure at Snow King. “The goal was to have as many locally made products as possible,” she says. And so, in July of 2019, the Flying Squirrel Snack Shack opened just off the popular Sink or Swim trail that cuts across the mountain. For anyone familiar with the huts that dot many of Europe’s mountain ranges, the Flying Squirrel will feel a little familiar, albeit on a much smaller and simpler scale. This is exactly what Muncaster was going for when she planned its look and feel. She and Santelices once spent a summer in Switzerland’s Vaud Alps. “We’d hike all over the mountains and find these places that served wine and cheese and salami,” she says. “They were all so unexpected and amazing.” The Flying Squirrel doesn’t serve alcohol (unless you book it for a private event; then Muncaster can apply to the county for a special-use, one-day alcohol permit); nor does it have a kitchen that prepares hot foods like most European huts do. But it is an idyllic place accessible only by foot or ski lift where you can rest and get a snack on the side of a mountain, while soaking up gorgeous views. Open daily from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. JH 24
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The addition of a fourth boulder is currently being discussed. The “Ranger Boulder” would honor the Jenny Lake Climbing Rangers, who have performed searchand-rescue missions in GTNP since the 1950s and saved hundreds of lives. An accompanying interpretative display will share the group’s history. A kids’ boulder with about ten routes features large hand holds, bold colors, and easy routes.
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Climbing for All
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A guide to the Teton Boulder Park BY SAMANTHA SIMMA
AT THE BASE of Snow King Mountain, Phil Baux Park brims with the potential for activities: You can set up a slackline, picnic, toss horseshoes, climb on jungle gyms, or play Frisbee. At the center of it all, rising from wood chips, are three manmade “boulders” covered with colorful climbing holds. Meet the Teton Boulder Park. This parkwithin-a-park is a partnership among the Town of Jackson, Teton County Parks and Recreation Department, and the Teton climbing community. An interactive memorial to mountaineering in the Tetons, it honors the history of Teton mountaineering and climbers who have died in the range and also seeks to inspire present and future climbers, all while providing the valley’s only public artificial rock climbing area. You can just climb and ignore the colorful strips of tape beneath holds, but the strips mark routes of varying difficulty. If you want to challenge yourself, climb to the top of a boulder using only the holds marked with the same color of tape. The Guides Boulder features between 20 and 30 routes. The moniker is a nod to the Exum Mountain Guides, who helped raise funds for this boulder. JH
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A collection of 8-foot-tall granite slabs mimics the circle found atop the Enclosure, a 13,285-foot-high rock outcrop to the west of the Grand Teton that was likely summitted by pioneer Teton climbers Nathaniel Langford and James Stevenson in 1872. Many believe the circle was constructed by Native Americans to serve as a shelter and/or as a site for vision quest rituals. The slabs in the boulder park come from quarries near Idaho’s City of Rocks National Reserve, another popular climbing area. The central stone bears the inscription, “For those we’ve lost in the mountains.”
The boulders were made in Bend, Oregon, by Entre-Prises, a climbing wall, boulder, and hold manufacturer. Each boulder has an internal steel skeleton, but the exterior is Entre-Prises proprietary FreeForm, a composite material created specifically for outdoor climbing walls to limit cracking. The boulders were delivered to Jackson by truck and then assembled on site.
The Boxcar Boulder, so named because during its design phase it looked like a boxcar, is the biggest of the park’s three boulders. It is about 12 feet tall and ranges between 30 and 40 feet long. The boulder, which weighs six tons and was delivered in two pieces, holds between 60 and 70 routes. At the time of the park’s construction, it was the largest human-made outdoor climbing boulder known (it has since been surpassed in size).
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Living
TETONSCAPES
At the Jackson Hole Airport, meet an owl, falcon, eagle, or hawk while you wait for your luggage. BY MAGGIE THEODORA
RYAN DORGAN
Flights & Feathers
Every Saturday morning, the Teton Raptor Center offers arriving passengers at the Jackson Hole Airport the opportunity to see raptors up close. The nonprofit has 14 raptors in its “teaching team;” these include eagles, hawks, owls, and falcons.
“THAT IS THE coolest thing I have ever seen in my entire life” is not something often overheard at an airport. But Becky Collier, education director at the Teton Raptor Center, says she hears it, and also “Did that just happen?” and “Can you believe that?” almost every time she’s at the Jackson Hole Airport. She also says she sometimes sees tears of amazement. Education staff, including Collier, and volunteers from the Raptor Center bring several of the 14 raptors on the nonprofit’s “teaching team” to the arrivals area of the Jackson Hole Airport from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. every Saturday during the summer and winter. Passengers waiting for their bags can meet an eagle, hawk, owl, or falcon, and maybe even feed one a bit of raw ground beef. “We’re helping people see wildlife before they even leave the airport,” Collier says. The raptors are not in cages, but perched on thick leather gloves worn by their handlers. “This is probably the closest most people will ever get to a raptor,” Collier says. (Worried one 26
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of the birds, all of which are predators, might attack you? Birds are attached to gloves with leather straps, so they can’t get far.) Collier is not aware of another airport that has a raptor program. “I know there’s a movement across the country to get therapy dogs into airports to help people with stress and anxiety, but, to my knowledge, we’re the only airport that does raptors,” she says. “I think this is a function of our airport being small and having a cool vision.” Annually the Raptor Center does about 430 educational programs. Flights and Feathers reaches more people than any other program. “Between eight and ten planes land while we’re there,” Collier says. “We see about 1,200 guests every week.” Collier says it’s not just arriving passengers. “There are people who come to the airport just to see the birds,” she says. (To compare: The average attendance at a Raptor Center program at the Jackson Hole & Greater Yellowstone Visitor Center, the nonprofit’s second busiest site, is about 300 per week.) Also, “It’s an opportunity for us to meet people who would not necessarily seek out the Raptor Center. At other events, it’s people who are interested in raptors seeking us out. At the airport we’re catching people who aren’t otherwise looking for it. They’re here to ski, or for business, and they meet a bald eagle at the airport.” This spring the Raptor Center created an informational card for each of the birds on its teaching team. “They’re like baseball cards, but for birds,” Collier says. The cards will be passed out to kids (and adults, if they ask) when they meet a raptor. “Every Saturday it’s a different groups of birds,” Collier says. “You never know which ones you’ll meet. The idea is that kids can collect all the cards. They’re a tangible takeaway from what is, for most people, a totally unique and amazing interaction.” JH
Bagel Time
Wyoming’s original bagel bakery turns 30 in 2020. BY MAGGIE THEODORA Wyoming and had no one to go to for advice,” Maggie says. “So Les and I learned on the fly.” But, “It turns out that high altitude and Jackson water make great bagels,” Maggie says. This was good because business was brisk from the start. “In the nineties Les and I rode the wave of popularity for three commodities—bagels, coffee, and Jackson Hole.” By 2008, the couple was ready for a new adventure though, and Polly Filice, who in 2001 started as a barista at the Pearl Street Bagels location in Wilson (which the Gibsons had opened in 1997), had already told them she was interested in buying the business if they ever wanted to sell. Filice, who has worked in food service since she was 15, partnered with two co-workers, Gould and Brevan Daniel. (Gould started as a barista at the Wilson location around 2003 and Daniel worked in the kitchen at the downtown location.) In 2015 Gould and Filice bought out Daniel. Maggie says, “We could not have been happier about passing the business on to our former employees. They have kept the good vibe alive.” Gould says, “One of the things so special about Pearl Street is that it runs so deep. I know three people who have a pteranodon [the bakery’s logo] tattoo. I love that it’s a place people care enough about to do something like that.” JH
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GREATER YELLOWSTONE
CRANE FESTIVAL
September 14-19* Teton Valley, Idaho Crane Tours Workshops - Art Show Community Celebration September 19 th at the Driggs City Center Plaza 11am to 5pm For more information on the week's activities go to: www.tetonlandtrust.org
Come stay overnight in Teton Valley!
*considering travel restrictions and social distancing requirements have been lifted photo credit: Anna Kirkpatrick
BRADLY J. BONER
IT IS BECAUSE of a summer job that Maggie Gibson had at the Burlington Bagel Bakery in Vermont in the 1980s that Jackson Hole has Pearl Street Bagels. Gibson and her husband Les founded the now-iconic bagel bakery in downtown Jackson in 1990. In 2008 they sold the business to three former baristas/managers, one of whom, Heather Gould, says, “It was, and is, a pretty big responsibility to be the owner of a place that is so popular and embedded in the community. From the time we bought it, it was important to all of us to continue with it largely unchanged.” 2020 marks Pearl Street Bagels’ 30th anniversary, a milestone that never crossed the Gibsons’ minds back in 1990. “Neither of us had ever made bagels before,” says Maggie, who had worked at Burlington Bagel Bakery’s counter, not anywhere near its boiler or oven. “I arranged to buy the recipe and know-how from the Burlington Bagel Bakery though,” she says. “I chose them because their recipe was an authentic New York City boil-and-bake style bagel and it was my favorite.” It wasn’t certain how this recipe would do at Jackson’s elevation, which is more than 6,000 feet higher than Burlington’s, though. (The higher you go in elevation, the lower the air pressure, which means that leavening and evaporation proceed more quickly than at sea level, among other differences.) There weren’t any other bagel bakeries in the state the Gibsons could check in with. “We were the only bagel shop in
Pearl Street Bagels has been a staple of downtown Jackson for 30 years.
NEWS SIN
1909
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PIQUED 1 / EASY CARRY Fully updated for 2020, the Gregory Paragon (men’s) and Maven (women’s) backpacks don’t lessen the weight of the gear you’re carrying, but they definitely lessen the discomfort of carrying it. The combo of traditional top entry with a full-length side zipper ensures these packs, which are available in three capacities, are as easy to get into as they are to carry. (The Paragon comes in 48, 58, and 68 liters; the Maven in 45, 55, and 65 liter capacities.) From $199.95, Available at Skinny Skis (65 W. Deloney Ave.), gregorypacks.com
2 / DRY OFF
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It’s always handy to have a towel on hand. We keep a PackTowl Personal towel in the car and take the brand’s Ultralight model with us when weight matters. How light is it? The largest size available, 36-by-59 inches, weighs about as much as a deck of cards. Personal models from $9.95, Ultralight from $14.95, Available at Teton Mountaineering (170 N. Cache St.), packtowl.com
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3 / SUCK IT
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We’ve long dreamed about a hydration reservoir with a built-in water filter. MSR took our dream to the next level with its Thru-Link InLine Water Filter, which is compatible with any reservoir system. Just click it into the hose of your bladder and start drinking. Two stages of filtration remove pathogens, particulates, and microplastics and reduce chemicals, tastes, and odors. $39.95, Available at Skinny Skis (60 W. Deloney Ave.) and Teton Mountaineering (170 N. Cache St.), msrgear.com
4 / LOOKING GOOD Outdoor Research’s women’s Equinox pants are lightweight, quick-drying, stretchy, and have a water-repellent finish to keep you comfortable on almost any mountain adventure. OR’s wicking and breathable Chain Reaction tee has a cute crossover back detail that allows you to wear it open or tied. ActiveFresh™ odor control keeps you from being stinky. $89 (Equinox pants) and $49 (Chain Reaction tee), Available at Hoback Sports (520 W. Broadway Ave.), outdoorresearch.com
5 / QUIET SLEEP
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Nemo Equipment’s Tensor Insulated Sleeping Pad is made with super-quiet 20D polyester fabric to reduce the sound of a sleeping bag sliding on a sleeping pad. A layer of Primaloft synthetic insulation, a heat-reflective metallic film, and baffle construction ensure it’s as comfortable as it is quiet. $129.95–$179.95, Available at JD High Country Outfitters (50 E. Broadway Ave.), nemoequipment.com
6 / KEEP FEET CLEAN Kahtoola’s INSTA™gaiter Mid is one of the things we toss into our pack whenever we head out on a hike. The eight-inch-tall gaiters, which are water-resistant and breathable, pack down to a ball about the size of an avocado. $49.95, Available at Teton Mountaineering (170 N. Cache St.), kahtoola.com 28
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7 / A BLANKET IS BETTER Therm-a-Rest’s new Corus Quilt is lighter and more versatile and packable than a sleeping bag. It’s rated to 20 degrees Fahrenheit, stuffed with 650-fill Nikwax Hydrophobic Down, and has box baffles and mesh walls to minimize cold spots and a foot box that smartly slips over your sleeping pad to keep your tootsies toasty. $259.95, Available through Teton Mountaineering (170 N. Cache St.), thermarest.com
8 / THE DUFFEL DRYBAG
9
Because our favorite new adventure is stand-up paddleboard (SUP) camping, we’ve recently taken a deep-dive into waterproof bags. Our favorite so far is Seal Line’s Pro Zip Duffel, which is made from heavy-duty PVC-free waterproof materials, comes in three capacities (40, 70, and 100 liters), and allows for easy access to everything inside. From $199.95, Available through Rendezvous River Sports (945 W. Broadway Ave.), seallinegear.com
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9 / STYLISH SUN PROTECTION Smith’s Monterey sunglass is super lightweight—it’s made from the company’s proprietary Evolve bio-based frame material— comes with ChromaPop lens technology (which amplifies natural color and increases definition), and has a shape and fit that complement many face shapes. And it’s RX compatible. From $149, Available at Shades of Jackson Hole (28 E. Broadway Ave.), smithoptics.com
10 / UNCOMPLICATED SHADE Moon Fabrications’ MoonShade, a 9-by-7-foot lightweight, affordable, and durable awning, attaches to almost anything (even trees!!), packs down to fit into a 28-by-6-inch bag, and weighs less than 8 pounds. $350, Available at moonfab.co
11 / FREE YOUR FEET
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There’s nothing new this year about OluKai’s classic ‘Ohana flipflop. But why mess with perfection? The sandal’s water-resistant synthetic upper (with quick-drying jersey knit lining), compression molded EVA midsole, and non-marking rubber outsole already make it our favorite. $70, Available at Skinny Skis (65 W. Deloney Ave.), olukai.com
12 / ULTIMATE LAYERS 12
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Favorite local brand Stio has the perfect one-two layering punch with its new Icefloe Tech Tee and Alpiner Hooded Jacket. The former uses a proprietary polyester fabric (Floe) to make it the quickest-wicking and fastest-drying t-shirt we’ve ever tested. Also, it’s odor resistant. The latter is a standout in the active insulation category for its breathability, stretch, and DWR-treated ripstop shell. Tee $69.95, Jacket $289, Available at Stio Mountain Studio (10 E. Broadway Ave.), stio.com
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LOCALS
Brent Peacock AROUND JACKSON HOLE, many people recognize Brent Peacock as the friendly, white-jacketed manager of Smith’s Pharmacy, a job he’s held since it opened in 2005. The junior high and high school mountain bikers on Jackson’s National Interscholastic Cycling Association (NICA) team know Peacock as a coach. And at the starting lines of mountain bike races and off-road and winter triathlons around the world, he’s recognized as the man to beat in his age group. The 58-year-old is a five-time U.S. national winter triathlon champion (including in 2020) and the 2011 International Triathlon Union OffRoad world champion, among other titles. Peacock acquired his first road bike in the 1980s, a gift from his girlfriend. (That girlfriend, Nola, has been Peacock’s wife since 1992.) In the late 1990s Nola convinced Peacock to try mountain biking and entered him in a race. “I thought it would be a bunch of guys in cut-off jean shorts, but they weren’t,” he says. “It was intimidating, because I was basically in jean shorts.” Despite his attire, Peacock won. “From that point on, I was hooked and started training hard and putting in hours and hours.” Twenty-five years later, he’s still hooked and training hard. 32
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RYAN DORGAN
Q: Jackson Hole isn’t the best place to be a cyclist, road or mountain, right?
BP: That’s true. If I were just trying to be a racer, I would have moved somewhere else where it’d be easier—summer yearround and big cycling groups and races. [Mountain bike] nationals are in May and, living in Jackson, I show up and haven’t even been on a trail yet.
Q: So, you’re not just trying to be a racer?
BP: I wanted to live in a mountain town when I was in college, long before my first bike race. Racing is one of the only times when I am completely in the moment and not worried about anything else, but I’d never leave Jackson for it.
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It all started when the Hamel family purchased a Sonoma home that came It all started when the Hamel family purchased a Sonoma home that came with an acre of cabernet sauvignon vineyards. They thought winemaking with an acre of cabernet sauvignon vineyards. They thought winemaking would be a way to spend time together. Inspiration took root, and their hobby would be a way to spend time together. Inspiration took root, and their hobby evolved into intoaafamily familybusiness. business.As Asthey theybuilt builtand andestablished established the winery, evolved the winery, their priorities prioritiesremained remainedconsistent: consistent:aapassion passionfor forwine, wine,respect respect the their forfor the land and andcommitment commitmenttototheir theircommunity. community.Hamel HamelFamily FamilyWines Wines building land is is building legacythat thatwill willgrow growfor forgenerations generationstotocome. come. aa legacy
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Your Guides to the Jackson Hole Lifestyle Q: Why did you want to live in a mountain town? BP: At that point in my life I was an alpine skier.
Q: How’d you pick Jackson as the mountain town for you? BP: My wife got a job at the hospital. She’s a physical therapist. At the time, I was still finishing pharmacy school in Utah, so she moved here a year before I did. I’d come up on weekends.
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Q: Why pharmacy school?
BP: I had heard that pharmacists could get schedules with longer workdays and more days off.
Q: And did that turn out to be the case? BP: Yes.
Q: Is it still the schedule that keeps you in the profession?
BP: No. I love pharmacy. I meet lots of really awesome people that are totally inspirational. I have been in the aisles [at Smith’s] and long-time customers who became friends are saying good-bye to me because they’ve been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and we’re just hugging. I want Smith’s Pharmacy to feel like a neighborhood pharmacy even though it’s a big company; I like when people come by the pharmacy to say hi and talk. That has not been the most efficient way to run the pharmacy, but to me pharmacy is not about efficiency.
Q: You were one of the founding coaches of the Jackson NICA team; what about junior racing interested you?
BP: We started with my daughter on the NICA team. She’s a superstar cyclist, as is my son. There were so many kids who were interested, and they were so enthusiastic. Coaching kids all summer long is one of the big points in my life now.
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Q: Were you ever worried your own kids wouldn’t like biking?
BP: I realize I’m a lucky guy that my kids share the same passion. We’d go on family group rides, even do pace lines on the bike path. There was no way I could be happier than racing with my kids.
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—INTERVIEW BY DINA MISHEV
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Morgan Jaouen IT’S NOT SURPRISING that a girl who spent her childhood in a house built in the 1700s in an even older town in one of the thirteen original colonies grew up to earn a Master of Science degree in historical preservation. Less predictable is that this woman earned the degree with the goal of using it in Jackson Hole. “I remember talking to a career counselor near the end of my program and, quite honestly, freaking out. I was thinking: ‘What have I done? I’m in debt and there are maybe three places I can use this degree in Jackson.’” However, just as Morgan Jaouen, now 30, was nearing graduation from the University of Oregon with her MS degree in 2017 one of the three places was looking for a new executive director. “I knew being an ED would be a stretch for me, but I threw my hat in the ring,” she says. She landed the position and started as ED of the Jackson Hole Historical Society & Museum as soon as she graduated. “Jackson’s isn’t the history of my childhood, but it’s the history I most connect with,” she says. “It’s the same with the community here—this isn’t where I grew up, but it’s such a welcoming and accepting community and where I feel at home. I love this place.” 36
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BRADLY J. BONER
Q: You’re from Old Deerfield, Massachusetts. How did Jackson, Wyoming, get on your radar? MJ: I came here with my family on a trip when I was about six. We camped in Yellowstone and Grand Teton [National Parks]. I remember camping at Signal Mountain Lodge on Jackson Lake. That stuck with me.
Q: And then you moved here as an adult? MJ: My sophomore year in college I applied for a bunch of summer jobs in parks out West and got a job at the Signal Mountain Marina. I was looking for a change, and I had this vivid memory of Signal Mountain from that family trip.
Q: Did it live up to your memory? MJ: Yes—I remembered a beautiful, inspiring place with incredible views of the lake and Mount Moran, and that synced up and was powerful. I came back for a second summer and realized I wanted to be in Jackson and Grand Teton, but I wanted a job that used my college degree, which was in archaeology.
Q: Is there much archaeology in Jackson Hole? MJ: The record of human use and
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occupation in the Tetons dates to about 11,000 years ago. You can literally walk around and find archaeological artifacts like arrowheads.
Q: How did you transition from archaeology to historic preservation? MJ: After moving here in 2013 I volunteered and got some historic preservation internships in Grand Teton and with the National Council for Preservation Education. Doing these, I realized I enjoyed recent history and the built environment that we can see more readily than evidence of prehistoric people. Eventually I decided to leave Jackson, temporarily, to get my Master’s degree.
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Q: Do you have favorite events or people in Jackson Hole’s history? MJ: I love Betty Woolsey’s story. I got married at Trail Creek Ranch [which Woolsey founded]. And Geraldine Lucas; she had this life back East, but left her husband there and homesteaded here. I really also love the dude ranching era.
Q: Favorite artifacts in the Historical Society’s collection? MJ: We have about 10,000 objects, more than 18,000 historic photos, and another 10,000 archival records. In the museum there’s a fiddle made from rolled out lard cans. It shows how [early residents] had to be flexible and creative with limited resources.
Q: With all of the wildlife to see and outdoor activities to do here, what’s your argument for telling someone they should visit a history museum? MJ: People come here for the outdoors, the mountains, the parks, but it’s the community that really makes Jackson Hole special. History is remembering the people—the community—who came before and made Jackson Hole what it is today.
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—INTERVIEW BY MAGGIE THEODORA
SUMMER 2020 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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Driscoll Larrow DRISCOLL LARROW SAYS his father, Joe Larrow, “first put me in a boat when I was seven or eight.” Now 17, Larrow paddles Class V whitewater, the most difficult on a scale of I to V, and recently finished up his junior year at the World Class Kayak Academy, “a traveling high school for students who want to earn their education while exploring unique rives and cultures around the world.” Larrow spent his first quarter with the academy in eastern Canada. The second quarter was in Costa Rica and the third in Chile. The fourth quarter of the 2019–20 school year was supposed to be in the western U.S., but was cancelled because of Covid-19. “It was a pretty tough decision to leave winter behind, but this has been a dream school,” says Larrow, who is also an alpine skier. (“I was a pretty big ski racer for six or seven years,” he says.) “I’m really lucky I get to go.” Before starting at the WCKA, Larrow was a student at Jackson Hole Community School. Between mid-April and the start of the school year he would kayak four to five days a week, working summers at Rendezvous River Sports, a local store dedicated to human-powered water sports. “When you’re younger, your parents definitely have an influence and I was lucky my dad got me into kayaking,” he says. “But I’ve been enjoying it for myself for a long time now.” 38
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PHOTO CREDIT BRADLY J. BONER
Q: Why did you pick kayaking over ski racing?
DL: I wouldn’t say I’m a super good ski racer. A lot of the guys I was racing with are going to school for it. The kayaking thing overall I have a little more fun with in a way where I can be a little more individual in the decisions I make.
Q: Do you still paddle with your dad?
DL: He’s starting to move away from paddling, but we paddle maybe once or twice a year.
Q: Who’s the better paddler now? DL: [No comment.]
Q: To people who don’t paddle whitewater, it looks terrifying. Does big water ever scare you?
DL: If I’m paddling a remote river where, if someone gets hurt there’s really not much you can do, I’m definitely aware of that. But I think you can limit the risks. There is a difference between being nervous and scared. If you’re scared, you should get out. Every year, I’m gaining knowledge and lowering the scare factor. But there are lots of things that can go wrong.
Enjoy a scenic float trip
Q: Did you have other kayak teachers besides your dad?
DL: I started in the [Jackson Hole Kayak Club] when I was eleven or twelve. It has five groups of kids. The muskrats are the youngest group. I started as a muskrat.
IN GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK
Q: What do muskrats evolve into?
DL: You’re a beaver after that. At my age, I’m an otter.
Q: Are the other otters a lot of the kids you started with?
Q: But you’re fine with it?
DL: Yeah, it’s no problem. Unless there is a rock in the way.
Q: Do you want to make kayaking a career?
DL: No, definitely not. There are some people that can make a career out of kayaking, but I don’t think I will. I’d like to, but I think I’ll balance kayaking with something else. —INTERVIEW BY LILA EDYTHE
Photo by B-E boatman Jim Stanford
DL: I’d say more kids drop out along the way than stick with it. I think they just want to have fun on the water and when they get to a certain level decide they want to do something else. Some kids don’t like being upside down trapped in a kayak.
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Living
ON THE JOB
The Warden Life A warden for the Jackson Region of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department logs long hours and has a job description that extends well beyond checking hunting tags and fishing licenses. BY MIKE KOSHMRL
ONCE AGAIN, KYLE Lash is roused from relaxation—pulled away from his wife, two young children, and the comfort of his East Jackson home—by an after-hours call from work. It’s a weekday evening in March and the Wyoming Game and Fish Department warden has a persistent hack and a cold, but he’s been alerted that a decoy elk antler is on the move out by the Horsethief Canyon trash transfer station south of Jackson. The slope where Game and Fish left this antler a couple of weeks earlier is seasonally closed to humans to protect wintering elk and mule deer. So, whomever picked up the decoy, which is embedded with a chip, is poaching. Two springs before, Lash had given chase after an antler poacher in the same gulch, but the scofflaw turned off
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RYAN DORGAN
Above: Game Warden Kyle Lash checks totals after finishing a count of elk on the National Elk Refuge’s Nowlin feedground. Opposite inset: Lash talks to Brian Caskey as Caskey decides where to begin his elk hunt in Grand Teton National Park.
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BRADLY J. BONER
Kyle Lash holds a sedated mountain goat as samples are gathered during a capture and collar operation near Alpine.
their headlamp and went “pitch black” under the guise of dark- valuable pointy protuberances that annually fall or “shed” off bull elk and buck deer—has created a new breed of poacher ness. Lash was unable to find them. Fast-forward two years, and Lash is motivated. There’s no that occupies much of the Jackson game wardens’ time. chance he’ll pass on an opportunity to nab a poacher on the Summer duties are often fishing-related, checking licenses and same slope again. “Honestly, it gets addicting,” Lash says. He’s angler creels, and also taking a bear conflict call now and then. motivated not only by the adrenalin of making the case, but By August, Lash is prepping for the busiest time of year: the also by the noble task at hand: bringing justice to one commit- general rifle season fall hunts, which stretch from September ting crimes against wildlife. His love of his profession, which through the end of October. There are always unpredictable tasks thrown into the mix, often overlaps with his personal outdoor interests, is also bepartially a product of working out cause the work can be enjoyable. of an office with just 16 full-time “To be honest with you, sometimes AN UNPRECEDENTED INTEREST IN employees. “When you have a small this job is so much fun,” he says. ANTLER HUNTING HAS CREATED A NEW BREED agency,” Lash says, “everybody has to help each other out.” Go back to A 33-YEAR-old who grew up in OF POACHER THAT OCCUPIES MUCH OF February 8, 2019, and Lash spent Thermopolis, Wyoming, Lash is THE JACKSON GAME WARDENS’ TIME. his morning on a snowmobile, seven years into his stint as the Game and Fish’s staff warden for herding bison south from Grand the south half of the Jackson Region; Jon Stephens is his coun- Teton National Park (GTNP) toward the National Elk Refuge. terpart covering the region’s north half. Depending on the time About 100 animals had become stranded by deep snow near of year, their duties vary wildly—although they’re cyclical, usu- the Moosehead Ranch, and they weren’t getting along with the ally predictable, and always demanding. “I don’t know if there’s guest ranch’s resident herd of horses. After bison had gored ever really a ‘down’ time of year,” Lash says. In the heart of win- several of the horses, GTNP and Game and Fish—Lash includter, the main tasks are policing late season bison and elk hunts, ed—teamed up to escort the herd south using snowmachines. monitoring and checking trap lines and ice fishermen, and re- The park even closed the highway to cars for the morning so sponding to wildlife calls, like stubborn moose bedded in the herders and bison could utilize the path of least resistance. The routine and unplanned outings—plus some office and driveways. Spring was once a slow time of year, but nowadays an unprecedented interest in antler hunting—collecting the courtroom time here or there—all add up. Each fall, Lash, 44
JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2020
whose prior warden job had him stationed in the agricultural community of Kaycee, Wyoming, a small town between Casper and Sheridan, puts in the maximum number of hours the state allows: 259 hours a month, or about 65 hours a week. As a salaried employee, there isn’t overtime pay (although Lash, and all Wyoming Game and Fish game wardens, are provided housing as part of their job). “Basically, you’ve got to work the hours to get the job done—[however many] that might be,” he says. “We have to code our hours, and I even try to code it out down to the species. If I’m out checking duck hunters, I’m coding for waterfowl.” The long weeks are easier to endure because of the flexibility inherent in the job. “The lucky part about it is I can throw my dog in with me,” he says, “and my wife can ride along.” Now with two young kids, such ridealongs don’t happen that often, but Lash says that pre-kids they were frequent. One caricature of a game warden is someone who’s creeping around checking out hunters and anglers through binoculars, eager for the chance to thumb through their ticket pad to cite any noncompliance. Stealth operations and straightforward policing are no doubt part of the job, but just as often Lash is in the field simply helping people out. On one recent late October morning, he trudged through thick, matted grass along the bottom of the Horse Creek elk feed ground south of Jackson, toward two horseback elk hunters. Arriving, he told the men, local residents Ryan Fillpot and Steven Babbitt, about a nearby area where a couple of days prior he had seen a wad of elk. A few minutes later, he trekked back toward his green pickup truck and the hunters’ horses walked away in the direction Lash had indicated—though not before he had checked the men’s licenses. Lash’s first task that same morning was to check out some animal carcasses that a pedestrian along Henry’s Road had called in. Being hilly country near the Snake River, it was an odd place for pronghorn, but, at 8:53 a.m., that’s just what the warden found off the shoulder. He suspected the remains were legally discarded by a hunter. Just to be sure, Lash eased down a steep hillside to the floodplain to investigate and make sure
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SUMMER 2020 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
45
all the legally required cuts of meat were retrieved. Because it was such a small buck, Lash wondered if it wasn’t a missidentified doe. Combing nearby cottonwoods, he found three more pronghorn rib cages before calling it good. BACKTRACKING THE DECOY antler above the trash transfer station, Lash loses his suspect. This time, instead of giving chase, he waits for the suspect to come to him. A game warden who came up from Star Valley, Cody Schoonover, trails a car leaving the trash transfer station property while Lash keeps his eyes on the site. Schoonover is not following the right car. While he is diverted inspecting it, another vehicle, possibly carrying the poached decoy antler, drives away. “I’m angry, more than anything,” Lash says, after realizing the antler poacher got away. Before Lash has a chance to make it home, another call comes in that he responds to: a nuisance moose that’s bedded on a sidewalk in a residential area off Teton Village Road and won’t move. It’s a difficult winter with a historically deep spring snowpack still covering the valley floor, and the warden has an obvious soft spot for the animals. He knows they’re worn down and barely able to move through the deep snow that’s everywhere except on plowed parking lots, roads, and sidewalks. Arriving at a building of condominiums, Lash quickly locates the moose, a cow, and finds there’s also a calf. “C’mon now, girls,” he says, confidently walking at the weary ungulates and nudging them away from the sidewalk. After a moment of hesitation, the two moose high-leg it away. It’s not catching a poacher, but it’s another routine, and rewarding, part of a Jackson Hole game warden’s life. JH 46
JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2020
What Happened to the Antler Poacher? Lash suspected one of the temporary contractors working at the old landfill was the culprit and leaned on the business owner to check in with his employees. When the employer did so, Bliss, Idaho, resident Robert Halligan, 44 at the time, confessed. Appearing before Ninth Circuit Court Judge James Radda on May 10, 2019, Halligan pled guilty to two antler-gathering violations on March 25 and another two violations that occurred two days later. All were elk antlers he picked off the Horsethief Canyon hills after wrapping up his day’s work. Halligan apologized and said he didn’t know the area was closed to humans in the winter. Prosecuting attorney Zane Aukee pointed out that Halligan had been convicted of 17 wildlife violations in Idaho last year alone. Aukee charged that Halligan had a “total disregard” for Wyoming and Idaho’s wildlife regulations, and asked for a sentence that included jail time. Radda obliged, and Halligan, looking stunned, was escorted away by a police officer. He spent ten days in the Teton County Jail.
MIKE KOSHMRL
As a game warden, Kyle Lash doesn’t just check licenses. Here he talks with local elk hunters about where he saw a group of elk moving a few days earlier.
HUNTING | RA NCHING | F L Y F IS H IN G | CO N S E RV A T IO N
Grandeur at Bar B Bar
REDUCED
Jackson Hole, WY | 36 Acres | $6.995M
This private lot boasts sweeping views, private fishing access, a 2.5-acre pond and wildlife that roam the property under the shadows of the Tetons.
West Rim Ranch
Tetonia, ID | 2,554 Acres | $4.5M
REDUCED
Located on the “quiet side of the Tetons,� this ranch offers timbered hillsides, open pastures, deep canyons and a shared border with National Forest.
Warm River Ranch
NEW
Dubois, WY | 1,599 acres | $5.2M
This working ranch offers Wind River frontage, forest service access, Absaroka Mountain views, priority water rights, abundant wildlife and multiple improvements.
Teton Vistas Ranch
Felt, ID | 320 Acres | $832K
Currently run as a seasonal cattle grazing operation, this ranch features incredible full range Teton views and provides exceptional habitat for deer and elk.
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JH
Living
Cowboy Science
BUSINESS
A nonprofit lab in Jackson is closing in on treatments for ALS and Alzheimer’s. BY DINA MISHEV
A beaker full of cyanobacteria. The majority of the research Brain Chemistry Labs does is with cyanobacteria, aka blue-green algae, and a toxin found in it, BMAA. BCL research has found BMAA in the brains of people who have died of Alzheimer’s and ALS. 48
JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2020
TAYLOR GLENN
“LAWS OF PHYSICS and chemistry hold true here in Wyoming just as they would in Berkeley, California, or Sydney, Australia.” So says Paul Cox, an ethnobotanist with a PhD from Harvard, to explain why Jackson Hole is Brain Chemistry Labs’ (BCL) world headquarters—despite the valley being in an isolated corner of the least populated state in the U.S. and hours from any academic research center or pharmaceutical lab. Dr. Sandra Banack, whom Cox recruited to BCL from the University of California, Berkeley, where she had lifetime tenure says, “I think the question is ‘Why not Jackson?’” BCL’s work started while Cox was based in Kauai and director of the National Tropical Botanical Garden, a collection of five preserves in Florida and
RYAN DORGAN
Ethnobotanist Dr. Paul Cox, one of Brain Chemistry Labs’ founders, grew up spending time in Jackson Hole. He says locating the nonprofit’s lab in Jackson has benefits including the generosity of local donors. Donors who contributed $150,000 to the Phase II trial led by a consortium scientist got a “Serine Dipity” sweatshirt. “Serine Dipity” is a play on the name of the amino acid BCL research shows might be a treatment for ALS and Alzheimer’s.
Hawaii. BCL works with human brain tissue and, Cox says, “It got very difficult to carry human brains through TSA. “I was carrying [containers] with smoke and stuff coming out of them from dry ice. It was the definition of suspicious. We realized we needed to move to the mainland.”
a nonprofit; board members do not expect any commercial return. Its annual budget is about $2.5 million and there are only four PhDs on staff: Cox, Banack, James Metcalf, and Rachael Dunlop. Another 50 scientists who are experts in 28 different disciplines, from neurology to physics,
“IF JACKSON WAS GOING TO BE RENAMED RIGHT NOW, IT SHOULD BE ‘HUMILITY.’ THIS TOWN HAS BEEN AMAZING IN ITS SUPPORT OF FINDING TREATMENTS FOR DISEASES THAT PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES HAVE GIVEN UP ON.” —DR. PAUL COX, BRAIN CHEMISTRY LABS FOUNDER BCL is not only unique for being a toplevel research lab in a state lacking anything like it, but also for the research it does and the way it does it. BCL’s research and ongoing FDA-approved phase II clinical trials show progress on treatments for ALS (Lou Gherig’s disease) and early-stage Alzheimer’s. Neither of these diseases currently has treatments that provide anything but limited, temporary relief. And, unlike the majority of other pharmaceutical labs, BCL is
chemistry, and oceanography, are part of an extended BCL consortium. They share their unpublished research with the goal of developing treatments and cures for brain diseases based on unique theories Cox developed while studying the Chamorro people of Guam (see sidebar). Consortium scientists are based in 12 countries and get together once a year, usually in Jackson Hole. “This isn’t a difficult place to get people to come to,” Cox says. SUMMER 2020 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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TAYLOR GLENN TAYLOR GLENN
Dr. James Metcalf (left) and a former Brain Chemistry Labs researcher look at a plate that allows them to measure changes in the genetic material of patients who have neurodegenerative disease. They do this to understand what causes the disease and how genes might be contributing.
BCL scientists study changes in proteins in patients’ samples, which can be seen here. BCL’s Dr. Rachael Dunlop says, “Proteins are the product of genes and if they don’t function properly, they can cause or contribute to disease. If we know which proteins are affected in patients, we can design targeted therapies.”
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JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2020
JACKSON HOLE WAS on Cox’s radar as a potential location for BCL because he spent time in the valley when he was young: his dad was a seasonal ranger in Grand Teton National Park and his mother did research at the Jackson National Fish Hatchery. “I always loved it here,” Cox says. “And it’s turned out to be a great decision for us, for so many reasons.” Cox tells a story about bargaining for a piece of machinery that was tens of thousands of dollars beyond the lab’s budget. “I pointed out to [the company] that they would have to travel to calibrate the machine five times a year,” he says. “I asked them if they skied, snowboarded, rafted, hiked, or watched birds. There was silence for about 90 seconds then I heard, ‘Sold.’” When BCL ran out of immersion oil for its microscope, St. John’s Health gave them some. The biggest benefit might actually be what some would think to be a drawback: the state’s isolation. But, “The isolation gives us time and focus to concentrate on what we’re doing,” Banack says. “And when we want to interact, it is a heartbeat away. There are no interruptions unless we want them. Coming from a university environment, you spend so much time sitting in meetings and wasting time; here all of our time is spent doing research and there’s not the dogma and red tape. In Jackson we have the freedom to follow the science; it’s kind of a cowboy approach.”
From Guam to Jackson Brain Chemistry Labs has its roots in Guam. After World War II, the Pacific island’s Chamorro people were up to 100 times more likely as people elsewhere in the world to develop symptoms characteristic of neurodegenerative diseases like ALS, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s: slurred speech, facial paralysis, loss of motor skills, immobility, and dementia. Locals called this lytico-bodig (from the Spanish paralytico, meaning weakness).
FALL ARTS FESTIVAL
Scientists from around the world had studied the Chamorro cluster, ruled out a genetic cause, and developed theories about environmental triggers including the seeds of the cycad tree, which locals ground into flour to make tortillas. Paul Cox and his colleagues discovered that cyanobacteria in the roots of Guam’s cycad tree produce betamethylamino-L-alanine (BMAA), a toxin. In high quantities—much, much higher than any Chamorro could get from eating tortillas—BMAA was known to kill nerve cells and induce symptoms of lytico-bodig when fed to monkeys. Dr. Cox, the late neurologist Oliver Sacks (known for his books including Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat), biologist Sandra Banack, and Canadian chemist Susan Murch came up with a novel and compelling theory: One of the most important foods in the Chamorros’ diet, flying fox stew, included biomagnified levels of BMAA. Every night, Guam’s flying foxes ate up to one pound of BMAA-rich cycad seeds. A foundation of this hypothesis was that as the flying fox population on Guam declined and Chamorros ate fewer of them, the incidence of lytico-bodig also declined. Due to commercial hunting, the bats were virtually extinct by 1970. Since then, lytico-bodig declined into relative obscurity and it is difficult to find anyone born after 1960 with the disease. Cox worked with Banack and Murch to confirm the theory that the Chamorros had been poisoning themselves. They found massive levels of BMAA in specimens of the bat preserved in museum collections around the world. Along the way they made an additional discovery: lyticobodig seemed to be related to brain diseases throughout the world. They didn’t just find BMAA in the brain tissue of Chamorros who had died of the diseases, but also in the brains of Canadian Alzheimer’s victims who did not eat flying fox, but could have been exposed in other ways to the cyanobacteria that produces the toxin. Cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, is nearly ubiquitous on Earth—from the cycad trees of Guam to oceans, deserts, and even Yellowstone’s hot pools. “The road to Brain Chemistry Labs starts in Guam,” Cox says.
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SUMMER 2020 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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TAYLOR GLENN
CLEVELAND CLINIC NEUROLOGIST AND BCL COLLABORATOR ERIK PIORO PLOTTED 1,000 CASES OF ALS IN NORTHWESTERN OHIO, NEAR LAKE ERIE, WHICH SUFFERS FROM CYANOBACTERIA BLOOMS.
Dr. James Metcalf in BCL’s Jackson labs. Metcalf is one of the world’s foremost authorities on cyanobacteria. In addition to working at BCL, he teaches chemistry at Central Wyoming College. “That’s the equivalent of having Michelangelo painting your car,” BCL founder Dr. Cox says.
L-Serine The Brain Chemistry Labs consortium found that BMAA substituted for L-serine, a dietary amino acid that, along with 19 other amino acids, make up human proteins. The L-serine molecules are often the site where proteins are charged so they can be properly folded. Misfolded proteins in the brain characterize diseases including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Our body produces L-serine; it is also abundant in soy products, sweet potatoes, eggs, some edible seaweed, and even bacon and other meats. You can buy L-serine supplements and powders on Amazon. In February, a study published in Journal of Neuropathology & Experimental Neurology authored by members of the Brain Chemistry Labs consortium showed that L-serine supplementation successfully reduced ALS-like changes in an animal model of ALS. At Dartmouth Medical School, consortium member Dr. Elijah Stommel, a professor of neurology, is conducting a Phase II trial of L-serine in 50 ALS patients. Consortium member Dr. Aleksandra Stark is conducting a Phase IIa study of L-serine in early-stage Alzheimer’s patients at DartmouthHitchcock Medical Center. While this research provides valuable insights, at this time the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has not approved L-serine for the prevention, treatment, or mitigation of any disease. It is recommended that anyone considering supplementing their diet with L-serine consult with their physician.
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The wealth in Jackson has also benefitted the lab, which, as a nonprofit, has the mantra, “for patients, not profits,” Cox says. Most of the owners of what might be the world’s most expensive sweatshirt live in Jackson Hole. Emblazoned with “Serine Dipity,” a play on the name of the amino acid L-serine (see sidebar), which BCL research shows might be a treatment for ALS and Alzheimer’s, these sweatshirts were given to individuals who donated $150,000 (or more) to one of BCL’s phase II trials. this raised a total of about $2 million. “I can’t think of any other time in history where a group of citizens decided they would fund their own trial,” Cox says. “This is where Jackson really shines. Every year we max out at Old Bill’s [Fun Run for Charities]—it’s amazing. We have some really generous people here who are interested in the public good and really want to help take on these diseases that the pharmaceutical companies have given up on. It’s a long shot, but we’re taking it.” JH
Toxic Puzzle Paul Cox, Brain Chemistry Labs (BCL), and cyanobacteria are the stars of the awardwinning 2017 documentary Toxic Puzzle, which Harrison Ford narrates and was made over four years by Swedish biologist and founding director of Scandinature Film, Bo Landin. Toxic Puzzle follows Cox and BCL collaborators around the world as they collect cyanobacteria, learn more about the toxic substances it produces, and discover enough of a link between it and ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s that, after watching it, we didn’t want to be anywhere near cyanobacteria blooms. Available for streaming on iTunes and Amazon, Toxicpuzzle.com
JH
Living
DESIGN
AUDREY HALL
Cellar Style For wine collectors in Jackson Hole, wine cellars are extra difficult to engineer and build because of the area’s extreme climate and altitude. But local homeowners, architects, builders, and designers are up to the challenge. BY SAMANTHA SIMMA
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Caption here
MATTHEW MILLMAN
Opposite and above: A CLB Architects-designed wine cellar.
IN A REGION like Jackson Hole, with its extreme temperature changes and dramatically dry air, wine enthusiasts must pay extra attention to the storage of their precious bottles. Neil Loomis, sommelier and the wine and beverage director for Jackson’s Fine Dining Restaurant Group, says that ideal wine storage settings hover at around 55 degrees Fahrenheit and a relative humidity of 70 percent. Besides avoiding exposure to light and heat, Loomis says, “It’s okay for the temperature to gradually fluctuate with seasonal temperature changes, but you want to avoid any rapid spikes in temperature.” Here are some of Jackson Hole’s most interesting wine cellars.
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Left to right: A wine cellar designed by Tichenor & Thorp; a CLB Architects wine cellar; a wine cellar designed by Genuwine Cellars and Zoske Construction
ROGER DAVIES
TICHENOR & THORP With subtle nods to the client’s New York City lifestyle, Tichenor & Thorp Architects combined modern and rustic design elements in this home. “We wanted to keep it a little bit elegant, in a way that was rustic, but not just the obvious Western theme,” says Raun Thorp, principle architect of the L.A.-based firm. This extends to the design and look of the two-story wine cellar, which has slate floors, a kitchenette, ebonized wood cabinetry, custom stainless-steel racks with built-in lighting, and glass-fronted cabinets. (Ebonizing, also known as iron staining, creates a natural-looking black that sets into the fibers of the wood rather sitting on top like a stain.) This cellar, which can hold up to 8,000 bottles of wine, including magnums and other large format bottles, features humidity and temperature sensors and controls that can be monitored and adjusted remotely. The glass-fronted cabinets are home to wine glasses and decanters, among other items. The cellar’s mechanical equipment is concealed behind bins that serve as storage for cases of wine. The floor on the cellar’s second level is made from upcycled wine barrel tops set in a honeycomb pattern. 56
JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2020
AUDREY HALL
CLB ARCHITECTS Architect Matt Thackray says this wine cellar is one of the most challenging he has worked on. It was an addition to a Teton Village residence that was already at the maximum allowed square footage. Because of this, the only option was to build it below existing footings, but the site has multiple freshwater springs and variable soils. The project required “substantial geotechnical preparations [in the form of] drainage and waterproofing,” says Thackray (who is no longer with CLB). This cellar’s design, engineering, and construction took about three years. While the form of the cellar is a concrete, underground bunker, it certainly does not feel like that
HORIZONTAL ARRANGING OF BOTTLES IS THE PREFERRED MANNER OF STORAGE. “A DRY CORK COULD ALLOW AIR INTO THE BOTTLE AND SPEED UP THE OXIDATION OF THE WINE,” SAYS SOMMELIER NEIL LOOMIS. “STORING WINE ON ITS SIDE KEEPS THE CORK WET.”
KARL NEUMANN
when you’re in it. The space has a climate-controlled area—sealed off from the rest of the cellar by glass walls—with a capacity for 7,500 bottles of wine, a tasting area, and extensive windows that provide both natural light and views of a series of cascading pools in the yard outside. To protect the wine from potentially damaging UV light coming in from these windows, the glass walls behind which the wine is stored are laminated. In addition to glass, the materials palette includes Valser Quartzite, Honduran mahogany, and blackened steel. Sourced from a family-run quarry in Switzerland, the Valser Quartzite appears in the space in three different forms: split, chopped, and honed, each with a different texture.
ZOSKE CONSTRUCTION During a design meeting for this new home, it was realized the wine cellar was located directly below the upstairs dining room. So, it made sense to add a dumb waiter to the plans to make retrieving a bottle as easy as possible. But this addition further affected the cellar’s storage space, which was already somewhat limited by its variety of irregular angles. To maximize the storage capacity, Winnipeg, Manitoba–based Genuwine Cellars designed and built four custom circular wine racks; each rotating rack holds 84 bottles. Genuwine Cellars also assisted with the design of the cellar’s temperature and humidity controls. To help with the former, LED lighting was used instead of heat-emanating bulb lighting. Builder Mike Zoske, of Zoske Construction in Bozeman, came up with the idea of using handmade bricks reclaimed from a Montana train depot for the cellar’s floor.
SUMMER 2020 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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HOWELLS DESIGN This in-floor wine cellar was designed by Genuwine Cellars and incorporated into the remodel of a guest house on the West Bank by architect Mike Howell of Howells Architecture + Design in Portland, Oregon. Because the 1,870-bottle wine storage system is set in the floor of the new rec room and mostly hidden, it is not the room’s most visible big move. That goes to the new wet bar, a half-moon shape illuminated by a backsplash backlit by colors that can be changed to suit the mood. Also in the rec room is a 19th century pool table. The wine storage here isn’t hidden just to be hidden but to minimize the amount of floor space it claims. Nine-feet, teninches deep and set in the floor, it takes up no space beyond the fivefoot diameter of its access door. But that’s not even totally consumed: the system’s retractable, motorized glass door is designed to withstand as much as 1,000 pounds of weight on top of it (when it is closed, of course). JH
DAVID AGNELLO
DAVID AGNELLO
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JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2020
A wine cellar hidden in a home’s floor was designed by Genuwine Cellars and Howells Design.
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Traditional Alpine Accommodation
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Alpine Cuisine
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Special Interest Feature
Peak Properties THE FACTOR THAT makes the Jackson Hole real estate market so unusual is the relative scarcity of private land. Ninety-seven percent of Teton County, Wyoming, is publicly owned—either national park, national forest, or wildlife refuge. This computes to just 75,000 privately held acres in a county spanning 2.5 million acres. The guaranteed open spaces and unobstructed views these surrounding public lands afford make the remaining private land a real treasure. Add the abundance of recreational opportunities found in and around the valley, and the quality of life one can enjoy in Jackson Hole is simply unbeatable. Moreover, many of the properties featured here are secluded, scenic retreats located in the midst of prime wildlife habitat. Most existing and prospective property owners in Jackson Hole cherish this notion, and serve—or will serve—as stewards of nature. One cannot put a dollar value on waking to the Teton skyline, skiing home for lunch, or listening to a trout stream gurgling through the backyard. In Jackson Hole, “living with nature” is not a fleeting, vicarious experience a person has while watching TV. Here it’s a fact of life, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
SHOOTING STAR CABIN 6
3,310
square feet
3
bedrooms
3.5
Bordered by a beautiful stream and Shooting Star’s world class golf course, Cabin 6 is the perfect property for those looking for privacy and the convenience of all the amenities of Shooting Star and Teton Village. Impeccably furnished with spectacular views of the Teton Range to the West and the Gros Ventres mountains to the East, this turn-key property encompasses everything Jackson Hole has to offer.
baths
5,500,000 dollars
19-1007 MLS#
60
FALL CREEK GEM
5,289
square feet
6
bedrooms
5
This Westbank home has privacy, a convenient location and is in the Wilson school district. The total living space is 5,289 sq ft comprised of a 3 bedroom log sided home, 2 bedroom guest home, a separate 1 bedroom apartment and a four-car heated garage, all of which have been very well maintained. Abundant wildlife, huge decks and warming hut make this property unique. Being sold furnished.
baths
Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Brokers of Jackson Hole Real Estate Jack Stout - (307) 413-7118 jack@bhhsjacksonhole.com bhhsjacksonhole.com
JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2020
4,950,000 dollars
— MLS#
Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Brokers of Jackson Hole Real Estate Doug Herrick - (307) 413-8899 dherrick@jhrealestate.com bhhsjacksonhole.com
TETON PINES HOME
6,732
square feet
5
bedrooms
7
baths
6,950,000 dollars
20-187 MLS#
Understated elegance describes this amazing home in Teton Pines. Only steps from the Teton Pines County Club and minutes from the world famous Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, this home is perfect for discerning buyer looking for understated elegance while being located right in the middle of everything Jackson Hole has to offer. High-end appliances, hot tub, fire pit, and Control 4 Home Automation System are just a few of the features of this gorgeous home.
Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Brokers of Jackson Hole Real Estate Jack Stout - (307) 413-7118 jack@bhhsjacksonhole.com bhhsjacksonhole.com
LISTEN TO THE QUIET
7.68 acres
—
bedrooms
Enjoy direct views of the Tetons and the entire Teton range. This elevated building site is a unique and private setting offering endless possibilities for you to create the perfect Jackson Hole home. 7.68 acres of quiet and sunshine will surround you daily, located only 10 minutes from town. Horses allowed.
—
dollars
20-167 MLS#
2.5 acres
—
bedrooms
—
baths
725,000 dollars
19-730 MLS#
5,000
square feet
5
bedrooms
4
Jackson Hole Real Estate Associates Nancy Martino - (307) 690-1022 Associate Broker, CRS,GRI nancymartino@jhrea.com
Located on the southern side of Moulton Loop, this 2.5 acre parcel boasts unobstructed, full-range, Grand Teton views. With proximity to downtown Jackson, Grand Teton National Park, and the airport within 15 minutes, this is the perfect place to build your dream home. Enjoy stunning views of Death Canyon and the Sleeping Indian as the sun sets. There is no shortage of wildlife in the area including elk, moose, bison, and fox. Adjacent lot is also available.
Budge Realty Group, Jackson Hole Real Estate Associates, Christie’s International Real Estate (307) 413-1362 budgerealtygroup@jhrea.com www.budgerealestate.com
INVEST IN THE WEST
baths
baths
5,100,000
MOULTON LOOP LOTS
5,950,000 dollars
19-1025
1,100+/- productive acres located east of Boulder, WY, in the foothills of the spectacular Wind River Range on the East Fork of the New Fork River, including a magnificent custom home set among 9 fishing ponds overlooking the river with 100 mile 360’ views. Includes a second ranch home/shop cattle feeding facility with 3 sets of irrigation pivots & wells, consistent hay production, world class hunting & fishing. $5,950,000 all in or $2,700,000 for the home & 80 acres on the river.
Jackson Hole Real Estate Assoc./Christies International Steve Duerr - (307) 699-4920 steveduerr@jhrea.com www.steveduerr.com
MLS#
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CAPTIVATING SOLITUDE RESIDENCE
6,423
square feet
5
bedrooms
5
baths
7,495,000 dollars
20-133 MLS#
A home that will capture your soul from the moment you step inside. Bordering Grand Teton National Park, this 5+ acre corner parcel features commanding views of the Tetons. Completed in 2018, the house was designed and constructed with ultimate detail, livability and grasping the breathtaking, surrounding landscapes. The house incudes a gorgeous master suite and charming guest bedroom, impressive living and dining spaces, and a chef’s kitchen extends into the cozy family room.
Jackson Hole Sotheby’s International Realty Huff Vaughn Sassi (307) 203-3000 theteam@jhsir.com mercedeshuff.com
CONTEMPORARY FARMHOUSE IN POLO RANCHES
3,446
square feet
3
bedrooms
3
Set on 3 private acres just minutes south of town in Polo Ranches, this contemporary farmhouse was remodeled in 2006 and again in 2018. The many windows fill the home with abundant natural light. A newly updated, beautifully appointed kitchen is at the center of the main living areas. The home features an upstairs master bedroom, 2 guest rooms, a mother-in-law apartment with its own private entrance and a 3-car garage.
baths
2,750,000 dollars
20-406 MLS#
62
TIMELESS TETON PINES ESTATE
7,300
square feet
4
bedrooms
6
baths
UPON REQUEST dollars
19-1885 MLS#
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Jackson Hole Sotheby’s International Realty Spackmans & Associates (307) 739.8156 spackmans@jhsir.com spackmansinjh.com
TETON VIEW CABIN
4,934
square feet
5
bedrooms
6
baths
Jackson Hole Sotheby’s International Realty Ashley DiPrisco (307) 413.0208 ashley.diprisco@jhsir.com
One of the finest homes and settings in Teton Pines sited on 1.5 lots with a large pond wrapping around two sides of the property. The home offers timeless architecture and high quality craftsmanship throughout. The home has been meticulously maintained and updated through the years. Enjoy easy walking access to all the club amenities available at Teton Pines.
Enjoy sweeping views of the Tetons and Fish Creek from this beautifully-designed log cabin on nearly 2 acres in Crescent H Ranch. Owners will delight in the dramatic views looking over conservation lands to the Grand Teton in addition to the many amenities of Crescent H including world-renowned angling and private trails for hiking and cross-country skiing. Experience the ultimate combination of views and privacy just minutes from Wilson and worldclass skiing at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort.
4,350,000 dollars
19-363 MLS#
Spackmans & Associates, Jackson Hole Sotheby’s International Realty, (307) 739-8156 • spackmans@jhsir.com
GRANDEUR AT BAR-B-BAR RANCHES
36
acres
—
bedrooms
—
Bar-B-Bar is a blank canvas primed with postcard views in all directions. A fisherman’s delight, the 36-acre vacant parcel is secluded by a natural bench with private access to the Snake River, streams running through it and a pond deep enough to stock cutthroat trout. The peaceful, gated entrance leads to a sanctuary for wildlife. Elk, Moose and Bison drink under the shadows of the Tetons just 8.5 miles from town. See the website, GrandeuratBarBBar.com
baths
6,995,000 dollars
19-482
Live Water Properties Jackson Hole Latham Jenkins - (307) 690-1642 latham@livewaterproperties.com LivewaterJacksonHole.com
—
bedrooms
—
This 93 acre foothill property is perfect for the buyer that seeks an incredible property at a fraction of prices in Jackson, just over 20 minutes away. The property offers creek frontage adjoining BLM and National Forest Service. The property has access to hiking, mountain biking, skiing, and fishing without getting in your car. This may be one of the last legacy properties to come on the market in Victor with such a desired location.
baths
2,100,000 dollars
— MLS#
acres
5
bedrooms
3
5,200,000 dollars
19-482 MLS#
93 ACRE RANCH NEAR TETON PASS
acres
1,599
baths
MLS#
93
WARM RIVER RANCH
Located one mile west of Dubois, the Warm River Ranch boasts approximately one mile of Wind River frontage, priority water rights and abundant wildlife. Above the irrigated fields, the upper ranch offers views of the Absaroka Mountains and provides direct access to Shoshone National Forest and the Wind River Mountains. The ranch is complete with a 5-bedroom, 3-bathroom main house, manager’s home, barn, shop, corrals and cattle handling facilities.
Live Water Properties John Turner, Partner and Broker - (307) 699.3415 jturner@livewaterproperties.com Matt MacMillan, Associate Broker - (307) 413.3582 | matt@livewaterproperties.com www.LiveWaterProperties.com
CORPORATE AIRCRAFT HANGAR AT DRIGGS-REED MEMORIAL AIRPORT (KDIJ)
15,000 square feet
—
bedrooms
—
15,000 sq. ft. on .37 acre deeded parcel on main aircraft ramp, inside the airport security fence. Sealed concrete floor with grated drains. South facing aircraft door with heated, concrete apron. Radiant propane heat. Crew quarters, pilot’s office, kitchen/dining room and 3 bathrooms. Door opening of 93.5’ wide x 27’ high is large enough to accommodate and aircraft as large as a Gulfstream IV. $1,250,000
baths
Teton Valley Realty Sam Lea (208) 351-7211 info@tetonvalleyrealty.com tetonvalleyrealty.com
1,250,000 dollars
—
Teton Valley Realty Sam Lea - (208) 351-7211 info@tetonvalleyrealty.com tetonvalleyrealty.com
MLS#
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CARIBBEAN
COWBOYS A depressed economy and natural disasters have persuaded more than 400,000 Puerto Ricans to leave their Caribbean island home since 2017. Some are making new lives for themselves in Jackson Hole. STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY LINA COLLADO GARCÍA
I
N PUERTO RICO—an archipelago in the northeast Caribbean Sea about 1,000 miles southeast of Miami, Florida—instead of being asked “Do you ski?” a common question is “Do you surf?” The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, a U.S. Territory since 1898, has over 143 islands, cays, islets, and atolls; today only three are inhabited—Puerto Rico, Vieques, and Culebra. When Christopher Columbus arrived in Puerto Rico in 1493, the indigenous Taínos lived on all 143 islands, plus on nearby islands including Jamaica, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic. By the end of the 16th century, the Taínos had slowly succumbed to infectious diseases brought by Europeans, war, and exploitation by Spanish settlers—Puerto Rico was a key part of the Spanish Empire from the 16th century through most of the 19th. (The Taínos were not completely extirpated: a 2011 study of people born in the commonwealth found that, on average, a Puerto Rican is 15 percent Taíno, 21 percent African, and about 64 percent European.)
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Spanish is Puerto Rico’s main language, San Juan its capital, and salsa its music. The commonwealth’s population—3.2 million—is about five times greater than that of Wyoming. If Puerto Rico’s population density was ranked alongside those of the fifty U.S. states, it would be in the top five (Wyoming ranks 49th on this list). The island’s average annual temperature is almost forty degrees warmer than Jackson Hole’s and the average elevation is about 5,500 feet lower. The main island is only about 20 percent bigger in landmass than Teton County. Wyoming’s state flag features a bison. Most Puerto Ricans would say the animal that best symbolizes their islands are tiny coquí frogs, several species of which are endemic. The distance and differences between Jackson Hole and Puerto Rico explain why, as recently as 2013, there were only five Puerto Ricans living in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and Teton Valley, Idaho, combined (and only 33 Puerto Ricans in all of Wyoming, according to the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College in New York City). In 2016, when the island’s debt was more than $70 billion and the economy fell even deeper into recession than it had been in for the prior decade, about 7,500 people were leaving every month. Then came Hurricanes Irma and María. Between 2017, when the hurricanes hit, and 2019, an estimated 14 percent of Puerto Rico’s population, or nearly half a million people, left for the U.S. mainland. Puerto Ricans are as free to move to Wyoming as any other U.S. citizens, but those leaving the islands typically join friends or family in the diaspora concentrated primarily on the East Coast. Until recently, that is. Now more than 200 Puerto Ricans call Teton County home, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The dislocation the islanders might feel upon arriving in Jackson Hole is partially mitigated by the area’s large Spanish-speaking population: about 25 percent of the Town of Jackson’s population is Hispanic, with the largest number coming from Mexico. Still, there are geographic, geologic, meteorological, and cultural differences to contend with. “Getting used to having to wear so many clothes during winter, not seeing the sun sometimes for three days straight, or not being able to dance salsa anywhere in town except for one bar, once a week, took determination,” says Teresa Rivera, who moved to Jackson in 2017. “But I’m making it work.” Meet Rivera and some of the other Puerto Ricans making new homes and lives for themselves in a landscape that is almost as different from their homeland as the moon.
EN PUERTO RICO—un archipiélago en el noreste del Mar Caribe, a unas 1,000 millas al sureste de Miami, Florida, la expresión “puntas blancas” se refiere al mar en lugar de a los picos de las montañas. En lugar de que te pregunten “¿esquías?” es “¿surfeas?” El Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, un territorio de EE.UU desde 1899, tiene más de 143 islas, cayos, islotes y atolones; hoy solo tres están habitadas: Puerto Rico, Vieques y Culebra. Cuando Cristóbal Colón llegó a Puerto Rico en 1493, los indígenas taínos vivían en las 143 islas, además de las islas vecinas, incluidas Jamaica, Cuba y la República Dominicana. A fines del siglo XVI, los taínos habían sucumbido lentamente a las enfermedades infecciosas traídas por los europeos, la explotación por parte de los colonos españoles (Puerto Rico era una parte clave del Imperio español en los siglos XV y XVI) y la guerra. Sin embargo, los taínos no se erradicaron por completo: un estudio del 2011, basado en personas nacidas en la isla, encontró que, en promedio, un puertorriqueño tiene un 15 por ciento de sangre taína, un 21 por ciento sangre africana y aproximadamente un 64 por ciento de herencia europea. El español es la lengua oficial de Puerto Rico; San Juan su capital; y salsa su música. La población del Estado Libre Asociado, 2.8 millones, es aproximadamente cinco veces mayor que la de Wyoming. Si la densidad de población de Puerto Rico se clasifica junto con la de los cincuenta estados de los EE.UU., estaría entre los primeros 5. Wyoming ocupa el puesto 49 en esta lista. La temperatura promedio anual de la isla es casi cuarenta grados más cálido que la de Jackson Hole y la elevación promedio es unos 5.500 pies más bajo. La isla principal es solo un 20 por ciento más grande en tierra que el condado de Teton. La bandera del estado de Wyoming presenta un bisonte. La mayoría de los puertorriqueños diría que el animal que mejor simboliza sus islas es una pequeña rana llamada coquí, varias de las cuales son endémicas. La distancia y las diferencias entre Jackson Hole y Puerto Rico explican por qué, tan recientemente como en el año 2013, solo había cinco puertorriqueños viviendo en Jackson Hole, Wyoming y Teton Valley, Idaho combinados. (Y solo 33 puertorriqueños en todo Wyoming, según el Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños en el Hunter College de Nueva York). En el 2016, cuando la deuda de la isla era de más de $70 mil millones y la economía cayó aún más en una recesión comparado con la que había estado en la década anterior, causando que alrededor de 7.500 personas se fueran de la isla cada mes. Luego vinieron los huracanes Irma y María. Entre el 2017, cuando golpearon los huracanes, y el 2019, se estima que el 14 por ciento de la población de Puerto Rico, alrededor de 470,335 personas, se fue a la parte continental de los EE.UU. Los puertorriqueños son tan libres de mudarse a Wyoming como cualquier otro ciudadano de los EE.UU., pero los que salen de las islas se unen a amigos o familiares en la diáspora concentrados principalmente en la costa este. Hasta hace poco, más de 200 puertorriqueños ahora llaman hogar al condado de Teton de acuerdo con la Agencia Federal para el Manejo de Emergencias (FEMA). El cambio que los isleños podrían sentir al llegar a Jackson Hole se ve parcialmente mitigado por la gran población hispanohablante de la zona: alrededor del 25 por ciento de la población de la ciudad de Jackson es hispana, y la mayor parte proviene de México. Aún así, hay diferencias geográficas, geológicas, meteorológicas y culturales con las que lidiar. “Acostumbrarse a tener que usar tanta ropa durante el invierno, no ver el sol a veces durante tres días seguidos o no poder bailar salsa en cualquier lugar de la ciudad, excepto en un bar, una vez a la semana, tomó determinación”, dice Teresa Rivera, quien se mudó a Jackson en el 2017, “pero lo estoy haciendo funcionar”. Conozca a algunos de los puertorriqueños que están creando nuevos hogares y nuevas vidas para sí mismos en un paisaje que es casi tan diferente del de su tierra natal como el de la luna. – LCG Para continuar leyendo sobre estos perfiles Puertorriqueños en español, porfavor visite la página web de la revista, www.jhmagazine.com.
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The Klein Family, Andy, 41, Nastassia Cruz, 34, Michael “Mickey,” 11, and Odie, 6 The Klein family moved to Jackson in 2017 looking for a different pace from what they left behind in Puerto Rico. Cruz says, “Very slowly, we are creating a home for ourselves and our kids. We’ve slowly added furniture, plants, and our children have their own rooms and their own space. We established a weekly routine of being home, playing games, and cooking dinner together.” Every weekend night they play a game together like dominoes, a favorite game in Puerto Rico.
“Even if our decision to stay in Jackson felt easy, the experience of staying in Jackson was becoming very hard for us.” — Andy Klein NASTASSIA CRUZ WAS a recent high school graduate living with family in her hometown of Aguadilla when she met Andy Klein, an athletic outdoorsman who had recently moved to Puerto Rico from Jackson Hole. Klein spoke Spanish fluently and loved to cook, and he and Cruz quickly became involved. Eventually they opened a successful Thai restaurant in Aguadilla, One Ten Thai. They had a son, Mickey, in 2008, and got married in 2012. They celebrated the latter for one month with parties in both Jackson Hole and Puerto Rico. At that time, Cruz had been to Jackson several times with Klein and says she “felt a connection to this beautiful place.” They got married at Flat Creek Ranch. By the spring of 2017, the Kleins made what they describe as an “easy decision” for the four of them— daughter Odie was born in 2014—to spend that summer in Jackson. They would return to Puerto Rico and One Ten Thai in October. But Hurricane María hit the island in September, and within two weeks they realized there was little to return home to. The family considered California, Colorado, and Jackson before deciding to try one winter in Jackson. “We wanted our kids to learn how to ski, and [to] find housing,” Klein says. Finding housing was more difficult than getting the kids skiing, but not by much. By the end of the winter they had moved three times and were only able to afford skiing thanks to local nonprofits like Teton Literacy Center and Coombs Outdoors (created in honor of the late skier Doug Coombs, the organization strives to empower youth to reach their potential through involvement in outdoor recreation). “Even if our decision to stay in Jackson felt easy, the experience 66
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of staying in Jackson was becoming very hard for us,” Klein says. “We constantly had to keep our heads up to show the kids we were making it; but in reality, we were going through a very hard time.” So was Odie, who couldn’t understand why they moved so much and lived with strangers when they had a house in Puerto Rico. “Every day for four months, [she] asked when we were going back home,” says Klein. The bright light of their move was seeing how much Mickey loved Wilson Elementary School. After his first day of school he announced that he wanted to graduate elementary school there. It was actually Mickey and Wilson Elementary that had kept the family here. Cruz and Klein say that during their first couple of years in the valley they regretted “many times” the decision to stay, but what kept them from leaving was watching Mickey thrive at and love his school. Skiing has replaced snorkeling as the kids’ favorite activity and Klein is back in a restaurant kitchen, as executive chef at the Whistling Grizzly, which is inside the Wyoming Inn. There Klein has created a menu of “Latin-inspired cowboy cuisine” that includes mofongo (mashed green plantains, vegetables, rice and beans, and curtido slaw), trout a la plancha (pan-seared Idaho Red Trout with a Spanish eggplant relish, served on a bed of quinoa and vegetables), and la kabocha rellena (roasted kabocha squash stuffed with quinoa, mushrooms, and roasted tomato, pepitas, and romesco). In doing this, Klein has created a gathering spot for the valley’s Puerto Ricans, and a place where locals and visitors who don’t know much about this U.S. territory’s culture can get a literal taste of it.
David Figueroa, 56 IT WAS HIS guitar that made David Figueroa first feel like Jackson Hole was home. “During the summer, I play guitar every day on my time off with my front door wide open to get to know my new neighbors and my new community,” says Figueroa, who moved to the valley in December 2015 and lives in the Albertsons workforce housing. “I have met people from all around the world that are starting over in a very different world than their own, just like me.” In Puerto Rico, Figueroa lived in San Juan and made the hour-long trip to favorite fishing spots in the mountains every couple of weeks. His work delivering household cleaning and kitchen supplies to supermarkets around the island was not steady, so he applied after he saw an ad in El Nuevo Día, the territory’s largest paper, for a service-industry job with a guaranteed amount of hours every week, health insurance, and housing in Jackson Hole. He did expect the outdoorsy lifestyle of the valley, even if he had never heard of Grand Teton National Park and only knew Yellowstone through Yogi Bear and a documentary film. But he says he never imagined he would find the community he has found here. Last September, using his one day off a week from his two jobs—as a butcher/clerk in the Albertsons deli and as a server at the Whistling Grizzly—Figueroa visited Yellowstone for the first time. “It blew my mind,” he says (even if he didn’t see a bear, which has long been a dream of his). More often Figueroa uses his day off to fish on Jackson Lake. “I moved to Jackson Hole for the many job opportunities, so I could afford to send money home and save, and to have better options for myself,” he says. “I have found so many other benefits: here I fish, I feel one with nature and can be present in the moment. Many people outside of Jackson do not understand [the importance of nature and being outside], but I don’t care. It is my therapy and my way to cope with what I am missing from home,” he says. And also a way of coping with racist remarks. One day when Figueroa was working at the Albertsons deli, a customer told him, “You need to learn English if you are going to live in this country. If I were you, I would go back.” Figueroa, who rates his English as an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10, replied that he had been a US. citizen since birth. He also showed the customer one of his most prized possessions, which he had in his wallet that day: his late father’s veteran certificate. Ladislao Figueroa received a Purple Heart in Vietnam. “It made me feel angry and frustrated that the average American doesn’t understand anything about Puerto Rico or Puerto Ricans, and that is my constant reality,” he says. Still, “I wouldn’t leave Jackson. [Here] everyone understands a walk in nature, a fishing rod, or a good baseball game. This town is a mixture of every culture I can imagine. I love that.”
David Figueroa arrived in Jackson in December 2015, looking for better opportunities to provide for his partner and daughter back home in Puerto Rico. He works 14 hour days and often uses his one day off a week to fish and connect with nature. Figueroa prefers hand fishing, which means fishing with no rod or pole.
“I have met people from all around the world that are starting over in a very different world than their own, just like me.”
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Teresa Rivera, 48
Teresa Rivera moved to Jackson in 2017. At both of her jobs, as a manager at the Dollar Store and a server at San Juan Restaurant, she says she always “talks to customers about Puerto Rico, and about its amazing cuisine. Customers got so curious that I started to make everything I loved, and gave it to everyone who was interested in trying it.” Her traditional Puerto Rican eggnog, coquito, was a huge hit and Rivera now gets more than 30 orders for it every holiday season, from locals of all backgrounds.
“I have been able to create a family here when there was none,” Rivera says. “I walk down the street and people are always interacting with me, Latinos and non-Latinos.”
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TERESA RIVERA HAD a rough entry to living in Jackson Hole. The only housing she could find was a 600-square-foot, two-bedroom/one-bathroom apartment. She shared it with two roommates but, for several months, there were as many as five people living there. It was “a nightmare” she says. She eventually spent all of her time at the apartment in her bedroom, where she kept all of her possessions, kitchenware included, and made sure to lock the door when she wasn’t home. Then, two months after moving here, Rivera slipped and tore two ligaments in her knee. The surgery to repair the ligaments went routinely, but a week later she developed a pulmonary embolism. A blood clot, likely formed after surgery, had lodged in an artery in her lung. Pulmonary embolisms can be life threatening, and Rivera was in the hospital for two days. She says it would have been easy to fall into a deep depression, but she didn’t thanks to her boyfriend, Luis Gil, and also help received from the community. “Thanks to people like Carmina Oaks [of the Community Resource Center], Dr. [Bruce] Hayse, and the Teton Free Clinic, I got the medication and the oxygen tanks I needed,” Rivera says. Gil, a native of the Dominican Republic who had moved to Jackson Hole a year before Rivera, supported her throughout her recovery. Today, about three years after Rivera’s pulmonary embolism, she and Gil support each other. During a snowstorm last March, they got married. The ceremony was outside, in the backyard of a home in East Jackson. The officiant was the home’s owner, Cynthia M. Dahlin, whom Rivera first met through her job as a manager at the Dollar Store. Wedding guests included five of Rivera’s co-workers and supervisors from San Juan Restaurant, which is owned by a local Mexican-American family and where she has been a server/host for more than two years. “I have been able to create a family here when there was none,” Rivera says. “I walk down the street and people are always interacting with me, Latinos and non-Latinos. The non-Latinos speak to me in Spanish, to practice the language, and are always asking me about traditional Puerto Rican dishes. The Latinos ask about Puerto Rico, curious about a place they know little about. That can only happen when you are in a place with such an open community.”
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“Coming from the mountains of Puerto Rico, I will always be a mountain lover.”
Edgar Gonzalez, 29 EDGAR GONZALEZ GAVE himself six months after graduating from college to find a good job in Puerto Rico, preferably one related to his forensic science degree. If it didn’t happen, he’d expand his search to the U.S. mainland. “I would leave the island,” says Gonzales, who grew up in Adjuntas, a mountainside municipality near the center of the main island. “I needed to stand on my own two feet and make my family proud.” Six months after graduation, Gonzalez had not found a job in Puerto Rico, so he began casting a wider net. Like Figueroa, he saw and was intrigued by an employment opportunity advertised in El Nuevo Día, even if the job was in service and not forensic science, and even if he had never before heard of the place where the job was, Wyoming. After some research, Gonzalez decided Jackson, Wyoming sounded interesting. “Coming from the mountains of Puerto Rico, I will always be a mountain lover,” he says. He, along with his older brother, Carlos Javier Muñiz, and their childhood friend, Amanda Rivera (no relation to Teresa), applied for the jobs. The three were hired and arrived in 70
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Jackson in November 2015. It was the first time Gonzalez saw snow. As soon as the trio arrived at their apartment and Gonzalez had deposited the forty-some books he had brought with him—he’s a voracious reader—he and Amanda went outside to make a snowman. For the next 15 months, Gonzalez worked from 7 a.m. to 12 a.m., five days a week, at two jobs. The service company that ran the help-wanted ad that he, his brother, and Amanda answered did cover their flights from Puerto Rico to Jackson Hole, but “never provided us with many of the promised benefits, like health insurance, and gave us less than the expected salary,” Gonzalez says. He stuck with it though because it was a steady paycheck and because “with time and hard work, I knew I would be able to find something better.” He did; now he’s a sales supervisor at Staples. Gonzalez also found a partner. In 2017 he proposed to Andrés González, who moved to Jackson from Costa Rica, at Rendezvous Park with a ring made from wildflowers. The two got married shortly after.
Edgar Gonzalez (middle, smiling) at the first gathering of Puerto Ricans in Jackson Hole at Mike Yokel Park last August. There were about 35 of the islanders at the party and they played dominoes, listened to salsa while admiring the Tetons, and ate Puerto Rican food. “Knowing I have met these people and knowing I have an immediate connection with all of them gives me hope of being able to create something similar here in Jackson to what I left behind in Puerto Rico,” Gonzalez says.
Emily Rivera, 27 “I NEVER THOUGHT I would leave Puerto Rico. I thought of myself as someone who would live her entire life on my island, near my family,” says Emily Rivera, the younger sister of Amanda Rivera, who moved to Jackson Hole with Edgar Gonzalez in 2015. “All of that changed after Hurricane María.” When María hit the island in September 2017 Emily was a recent college grad with a degree in child psychology and significant student debt. She had been unable to find a job that paid enough to cover her student loans or had anything to do with child psychology. Post-María, the job situation became even worse, and within several months of the hurricane, Emily left the island to live with several family members on the mainland East Coast. After a short time
“I know I will return to Puerto Rico one day, but for now, I have a lot to be grateful about in Jackson.” Celebrating 40 Years of
Wild. Open. Connected.
Emily Rivera works six days a week between her two jobs. During her limited free time, she takes mini road trips around Teton County and Grand Teton National Park with her husband or sister, exploring and connecting with their surroundings. Emily loves anything that has to do with fashion. Her favorite things are whatever her mother sends her through their frequent mail exchange from Puerto Rico. there, she says, “I decided to move to Jackson with my sister.” In Jackson Emily still doesn’t have a job related to her field of study, but she has had jobs that allowed her to pay off her student loans. (She made her final payment last February.) And she has her sister Amanda, and now also a husband, Nikola Naumovski, who moved to Jackson from Macedonia. Naumovski and Emily met in Teton Village, where Naumovski works at the Four Seasons Resort. Emily says she and Naumovski had an instant and deep connection; they got engaged shortly after meeting and married in the spring of 2019. “I know I will return to Puerto Rico one day, but for now, I have a lot to be grateful about in Jackson,” she says. JH
From the first easement on R Lazy S Ranch in 1980 to the recent Save the Block community conservation project and all 56,000 acres of protected land in between, the Jackson Hole Land Trust remains committed to keeping this landscape we all love wild, open, and connected. With your R Lazy S Ranch support, the Jackson Hole Land Trust is looking 349 acres protected by the forward to another 40 years spent building a legacy JHLT since 1980 of protected open spaces, wildlife habitat, working Kim Fadiman lands, and community spaces across Northwest jhlandtrust.org Wyoming that inspire current and future generations.
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(307) 690-0910 | 225 W. Broadway, Jackson, WY info@Grandtetonflyfishing.com | grandtetonflyfishing.com SUMMER 2020 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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Cut
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throatParadise: Jackson Hole The Upper Snake watershed is the last, best, and largest watershed dominated by cutthroat trout remaining in the West, but the continuance of this status isn’t a given.
O The portion of the Snake River that winds through Jackson Hole is one of the few areas in which the river’s native cutthroat are the dominant trout. The Snake’s native cutthroat are fine-spotted cutthroat, a subspecies genetically identical to the Yellowstone cutthroat.
BRADLY J. BONER
BY MIKE KOSHMRL
VER THREE COLD fall days last year, Rob Gipson’s Wyoming Game and Fish Department crew went through the motions of sampling the trout that swim the Snake River. The river stretch sampled oscillates annually—this time it was Moose to Wilson—but it’s a routine operation that relies on electricity. Some 250 volts of power and 2 amps of pulsed direct current course into the sloshing Snake via electric nodes that dangle from a raft. These shock and immobilize fish that are then netted, measured, weighed, and released to live another day. The tally from the late October threeday outing, exactly 1,149 fish, was somewhat ordinary. Also commonplace for the Snake River: 99 percent of the salmonids sampled had fine spots and a characteristic blood-orange colored slash under their gills. They were cutthroat, the native trout that evolved over eons to be here. What’s extraordinary is that these cutthroat trout are still here. “That intact native fish community we have is incredibly unique,” says Diana Miller, one of Gipson’s fisheries biologist colleagues. “And we have that with very few nonnative fish in general. That’s very unique.
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NEAL HENDERSON
Because of the dominance of fine-spotted cutthroat in the Jackson Hole watershed, the fly fishing in the area is different. “We work hard to educate clients about how special the cutthroat fishery is,” says Dave Ellerstein, the founder and owner of Jackson Hole Angler. “That’s part of our job, so they have an appreciation for it.”
“You can take an expert, well-traveled trout fisherman and put him on a cutthroat river, and he’s going to be a step or two off. That’s what I appreciate about the cutthroat.” —PAUL BRUUN, FORMER FLY-FISHING GUIDE WHO HAS FISHED THE SNAKE RIVER AND ITS TRIBUTARIES FOR MORE THAN 50 YEARS.
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Most places just can’t say that their native fish are the dominant fish, both game fish and otherwise.” The watershed’s still-thriving native cutthroat are the dominant trout from the headwaters of the Snake at Two Ocean Plateau all the way to Palisades Reservoir—and in tributaries reaching in every direction. They are an anachronism in a world where cutthroat trout as a species are reeling. There were 14 unique subspecies of the trout that evolved in western North American waters. Two are extinct. None is faring all that well. The local subspecies in the Snake watershed is the Yellowstone cutthroat. (Confusingly, the state of Wyoming recognizes Snake River fine-spotted cutthroat as a distinct species, although genetically it is identical to Yellowstone cutthroat.) There’s a complex web of impacts that threaten to worsen and have already driven down cutthroat populations and reduced their occupied range. Competition and hybridization from exotic, introduced salmonids—especially brook, brown, and rainbow trout—are big culprits. Agriculture has pulled water out of cutthroat watersheds, and dams have diced them up. Meanwhile, climate change is cooking the cutthroat habitat and will continue to warm the cold-water streams salmonids depend on: One 2011 Trout Unlimited study predicted that using a “middle of the road” greenhouse gas scenario, cutthroat would lose 58 percent of their remaining habitat by 2080.
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Fidelity partnered with the startup Ethic to launch a program helping advisors create portfolios based on clients’ values. “In the world of finance, a lot of people initially thought ESG investing was fluff— just another sales pitch or product,” says Chad Driewer, WRCM co-director and a member of the JH Land Trust’s Open Council. “But it’s not. It is something that is changing finance as we know it today. For the first time, clients can feel good about where they’re putting their money, and the investment returns are as good— sometimes even better—than other more traditional investments. This is something we really believe in.” Driewer and Lockhart believe in impact investing so much that it was among the reasons they took WRCM private in 2018. (Previously they were associated with Wells Fargo.) “We wanted the freedom to be able to provide innovative strategies investing in a way we truly believe in,” says Lockhart, who grew up in the valley and is the sixth generation of his family to be involved in the Lockhart Cattle Company. Also, the firm wanted the freedom to give clients the attention they felt they deserve. “We know people by their names, not their account numbers, and we’re excited to support their financial goals in a way that aligns their investments with their individual values,” Lockhart says.
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WRCM staff are as passionate about the community as their clients. They volunteer at local nonprofits including Teton County Search & Rescue, Jackson Hole Land Trust, and Hole Food Rescue, and often bike to work. WRCM is the premier sponsor and supporter of Slow Food in the Tetons’ weekly People’s Market.
307-733-9155 www.wrcmjh.com
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reek
cif
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Pa
Jackson Lake
Sna
ke R
i ver
Buffalo Fork
Gros Ventre Riv er
Flat
Cre ek
nite
Crystal Creek
Gra
JACKSON
Creek
Hoback R iver
Palisades Reservoir
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The Snake River in Grand Teton National Park.
Look at a map of historic cutthroat distribution versus where they dwell today, and the single largest remaining blob of still-occupied habitat is in the southern Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. It’s the sprawling web of cold-water streams and rivers that drain into the Snake River, which bisects the heart of Jackson Hole. The interconnectedness and dearth of dams and diversions is part of what keeps the Snake a cutthroat stronghold, U.S. Geological Survey research fisheries biologist Robert AlChokhachy says. “One of the things that makes the Snake so impressive is that you have a large river that is connected to tributaries,” he says. “That allows fish to have so many life histories. There are spring creeks that have stable hydrographs and stable thermal regimes, all
the way to larger rivers like the Hoback and the Buffalo Fork. And then you have small tributaries, like Ditch Creek. That diversity is what makes the Snake so special.” There are only two cutthroat-dominated river systems that come anywhere close to the Snake in scope, Al-Chokhachy says: the South Fork of the Flathead River in northwest Montana and the upper Yellowstone River above Yellowstone Lake. “In terms of freshwater trout in the Intermountain West, those are the three river systems that have a semblance to what they were,” Al-Chokhachy says. “All three have an abundance of public land. That’s probably what makes them so special.” But both the Flathead and Upper Yellowstone are backcountry environments, whereas the Snake flows
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through a community that harbors nearly 25,000 residents—and twice as many tourists and seasonal residents during the busiest times of year. Dozens of fishing guides make their living in Jackson Hole, and they can boast of their unparalleled hometown cutthroat fishery. While it’s a unique selling point, it’s not always intuitive to anglers who aren’t educated about native trout conservation and are accustomed to catching rainbow, brown, and brook trout that have been introduced into and invaded so much of the West. “I would say 85 percent of our clients have no idea coming in,” Jackson Hole Angler owner and founder Dave Ellerstein says. “But we work hard to educate them about how special the cutthroat fishery is. That’s part of our job, so they have an appreciation for it.”
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wyoming idaho & yellowstone Overnight River Camp on the South Fork of the Snake River Beginners and seasoned fish bums welcome Sign up for current fishing reports at: WWW.WESTBANK.COM Located on Teton Village Road | Open Daily 8 am - 6 pm | 307-733-6483 | info@westbank.com SUMMER 2020 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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“Fish can make it up [Spread Creek] now. “We’re just going to make it better.”
PRICE CHAMBERS
—LESLIE STEEN, TROUT UNLIMITED
Workers use heavy machinery to remove the Spread Creek Dam in September 2010. Project organizer Scott Yates says removing the dam opened up an importantant tributary of the Snake just east of Grand Teton National Park. “All this habitat up here is like a hotel, just waiting for fish to check in,” he says.
CONTINUITY OF THE past and present is not assured. Almost everywhere else—including watersheds just a hydrological divide away from Jackson Hole—cutthroat are spotty in distribution, relegated to the highest, most remote reaches of watersheds. Or they’ve been extirpated. Leslie Steen, the onewoman show running Trout Unlimited’s Snake River Headwaters Initiative, says you don’t have to go far to see the alternative: just take a drive over Togwotee or Teton Pass, or cruise past the Palisades Dam or over the Hoback Rim. “We are surrounded by highly compromised, non-intact watersheds,” Steen says. “They’re great fisheries, but they’re not like what we have [in Jackson Hole]. As time goes by and the climate warms, this might be one of the last best places for cutthroat, if we can hang onto it.” It’s at the heart of Steen’s job to ensure they hang on. In late November, she stood on the banks of lower Spread Creek, at the site of a where a 13-foottall, 125-foot-long concrete and metal 78
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diversion dam once severed the creek system from the Snake River. The barrier came down in 2010, but almost a decade later another problem had emerged: cutthroat trout, by the hundreds, were becoming entrained in the still-functioning diversion ditches, which sends Spread Creek water toward the Elk Ranch Flats area, grazed by Pinto Ranch cattle. “Fish can make it up [Spread Creek] now,” Steen says. “We’re just going to make it better.” Steen is trying to raise around $1.5 million to add fish screen and keep the irrigation channels in working order by stabilizing the dynamic creek. Trout Unlimited is driving and/or has a hand in many other projects like this, with the goal of helping out native cutthroat, and they take place all around the watershed. Tributaries of the upper Gros Ventre River severed by relic diversions have been reconnected. The culvert carrying Game Creek under South Highway 89 was swapped out so cutthroat can swim upstream. Floodplains
have been restored on tiny Tincup Creek in southeast Idaho, which feeds into the Salt River, which joins the Snake at Palisades Reservoir. Wyoming Game and Fish has also made it a mission to prioritize cutthroat, though that wasn’t always the case. Up until the 1990s, Gipson says, cutthroat weren’t held in such special esteem. That’s all changed, as views of the importance of native species have matured. Nowadays, Game and Fish has special “creel limits”—essentially, how many fish can be kept by anglers and of what size—meant to keep cutthroat alive and to target nonnative trout. The state agency also touts its “Cutt-Slam,” which rewards anglers with a certificate if they’re able to document landing the four varieties that are still widespread in Wyoming: the Snake River fine-spotted, Yellowstone, Colorado, and Bonneville strains of cutthroat. (Two more used to live here, the west slope and greenback cutthroat, but they may have been wiped out.) There’s also direct intervention meant to give cutthroat a fin up over nonnative counterparts throughout the Snake watershed. Brook trout are effective small-stream invaders with a track record of completely displacing cutthroat. They’ve basically completed the job in places like the Green River headwaters and countless other places around the West. In the upper Snake watershed, parts of the Buffalo Fork, Spread Creek, and even streams found in central Jackson Hole, like Game Creek, have been overtaken by brookies, which are native to the Great Lakes and Eastern seaboard. But Game and Fish has poisoned brook trout out of four corners of the watershed, including lakes in the Teton Wilderness and tributaries of the Greys and Salt Rivers. Next on the agenda is Game Creek, planned for this summer. “Over the last few years in particular we’ve been concerned about species like brook trout,” Game and Fish’s Miller says, “because with climate change and the issues that could be coming at us in the future, we want to give cutthroat the best possible chance of persisting. Having an eye to the future is always an important piece of what we’re trying to do.”
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Students in Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems working in the community garden 2020-SBC-JacksonHole-7.125x4.875-v4.indd 1
3/19/20 11:30 AM
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BRADLY J. BONER
An Idaho Department of Fish and Game fisheries biologists cradles a rainbow-cutthroat trout hybrid known as a cutbow that was caught with electrofishing equipment in the Snake River’s South Fork. Although this fish was released into a kid’s fishing pond and went on to live another day, rainbow trout and cutbows caught by Wyoming Game and Fish Department in Jackson Hole are usually killed in order to protect the native cutthroat trout population.
The same threat looms with highflying rainbow trout, an angler’s delight that’s native to the Pacific Coast and Alaska and even the lower Snake, but not anywhere in Wyoming. As close as the Snake River’s South Fork (downstream of Palisades Dam), rainbows are starting to dominate cutthroat, both by out-competing them for finite resources and by tainting the gene pool. Rainbows and cutties can crossbreed, creating “cutt-bow” offspring. Above Palisades, small populations of rainbows have held on in places like the Gros Ventre River near Kelly and in the Salt River—and there are no barriers ensuring they won’t spread. Brown trout, a native Eurasian fish, dwell in the Snake watershed too; but, like rainbows, they’re largely confined to just a few places. The best bet to catch a brown is in Jackson Lake, Palisades Reservoir, and naturally fishless Lewis Lake, but they can also be caught in the Snake and Salt Rivers, especially during the fall spawning runs. DURING GAME AND Fish’s fall 2019 fish survey of the Snake River, the 1 percent of non-cutthroat trout that Gipson, 80
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Miller, and colleagues stunned and netted consisted of 11 brown trout and three lake trout. Asked what became of the nonnative specimens, Gipson makes a garbled throaty sound, mimicking an empty radio channel. “They were removed,” he says with a smile. Death is the fate that nonnative trout meet when Game and Fish shocks and nets them out of creeks and rivers in the watershed. The idea of killing nonnative trout to help out the natives doesn’t sit perfectly with everybody. “I’m tolerating it, but I’m still not overly thrilled by it,” longtime Jackson Hole outdoor writer and former fly-fishing guide Paul Bruun says. Brook, brown, and rainbow trout are all prized game fish throughout much of their range; accepting that they pose a grave threat to cutthroat and ought to be destroyed didn’t come easy to Bruun. He even wrote a Jackson Hole News&Guide column about it in 2015, titled “It’s hard to accept my poor trout thinking.” Bruun hooked his first Snake River fine-spotted cutthroat 51 years ago, on the stretch of upper Flat Creek where the access road is so bad it’ll bust your struts. His initial excitement over a
new species evolved into a lifelong obsession. Cutthroat are known for their voracity and willingness to take a dry fly from the water’s surface, but their habits also differ from more ubiquitous rainbows and browns. “You can take an expert, well-traveled trout fisherman and put him on a cutthroat river, and he’s going to be a step or two off,” Bruun says. “That’s what I appreciate about the cutthroat.” There are various theories for why the Upper Snake’s native fishery has held up better than in other major river systems of the West. “There’s something about the Snake where, so far, cutthroat rule,” Jackson Hole Angler’s Ellerstein says with a knock on a wooden table. The Snake River basin in Wyoming is high elevation and it’s been fed by winter snowpacks that, to date, have held up relatively well as the atmosphere warms. There’s also a highly protected necklace of wilderness and national parks circling and feeding the watershed, helping ensure clean water and preventing development. AlChokhachy, the USGS researcher, says that taking out dams like the one on Spread Creek—he studied how cutthroat move upstream in the aftermath—will only help the watershed and its native trout. “It enhances the Snake because it offers another variant of a tributary,” he says. “Having each one of these streams be properly functioning is what makes the Snake that much more powerful.” The diversity and variability of streams and rivers in Jackson Hole are the “poster children” of what conservation and resilience to climate change are all about. “It’s all about genetic diversity, and what facilitates genetic diversity is diversity of environments,” Al-Chokhachy says. “You have fish that are exposed to a lot of different environmental stressors.” U.S. Forest Service ecological climatic modeling suggests that much of the Snake watershed’s higher elevation reaches will function deep into the 21st century as “climate refuge streams,” capable of harboring spawning cutthroat trout and their spawn and young. Still, looming threats weigh on AlChokhachy’s mind when he contem-
The diversity and variability of streams and rivers in Jackson Hole are the “poster children” of what conservation and resilience to climate change are all about. “It’s all about genetic diversity, and what facilitates genetic diversity is diversity of environments. You have fish that are exposed to a lot of different environmental stressors.”
plates a warmer, drier future. Brook trout will continue to radiate outward from their many strongholds throughout the watershed. The future is also likely to be more favorable for brown trout and rainbows, which better tolerate warmer water than cutties. Another concern is pressure from fly-rod wielding anglers partaking in a pursuit that’s growing evermore popular. The worry isn’t harvest but catching and then releasing fish into perilously warm water where they cannot recover. That’s not yet a problem in Jackson Hole, but there’s a good likeli- — ROBERT AL-CHOKHACHY, USGS RESEARCHER hood it will be down the road. Already, Montana fisheries managers implement routine “hoot owl” restrictions on rivers like the Madison, where fishing is banned after 2 p.m. when the water temperature exceeds 73 degrees for three days straight. Someday, rivers may need to be shut down entirely during the warmest times of year. “I think we’re naïve to think it’s not on the horizon,” Al-Chokhachy says. “When you walk in the lower portions of Pacific Creek, it’s pretty warm. And when it’s warm, what do fish need to do? Eat. In those situations, you’re just exacerbating these stressful conditions.” Jackson Hole scientists, advocates, and anglers tasked with conserving the cutthroat aren’t resting on their laurels, but they’re also relishing a fishery that remains in outstanding shape today. And they’re trying to spread the word. “When you fish the main rivers in Montana—the Gallatin, the Madison, the Bitterroot—you’re not guaranteed to catch a cutthroat,” Trout Unlimited’s Steen says. “Even on the South Fork [of the Snake], you have a higher chance at catching a cutthroat, but you’re also going to catch lots of browns and some rainbows. But if you fish on this side, you’re almost always going to catch a Snake River cutthroat that’s genetically pure and evolved to be here, whether in the Snake, Hoback, Gros Ventre, or a little tiny tributary you have to hike a couple miles to get into.” The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is known for its relatively intact state, HEIRLOOM QUALITY DOWN COMFORTERS & PILLOWS EUROPEAN BED & BATH LINENS with protected land, functioning migraScandia Home • 165 Center Street, Jackson, WY • 307.733.1038 tions, clean air and water, and the full suite of terrestrial wildlife that existed jacksonhole@scandiahome.com here historically. “Not that many people Follow us @scandiahome know that under the water, we also have something that’s similarly precious and unique,” Steen says. JH
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// PHOTOGALLERY
Training Ground
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PHOTOGRAPHY BY REBECCA NOBLE
For its cowboy competitors, the Jackson Hole Rodeo is like rodeo college.
FOR A FEW nights each week from June through August, the Teton County Fairgrounds belong to the Jackson Hole Rodeo. About two hours pass from the time the first bull flies from the chute and when the final cowboy packs his duffle bag, heading for wherever the next bucking horse or bull might be. But, for most of the young cowboys who line the deck behind those chutes, the next rodeo will be right back in Jackson. The Wilson family, lead by patriarch Phil Wilson, is in their eleventh year at the helm of the rodeo. A good share of the jackets worn behind the chutes have National High School Finals Rodeo patches stitched on (as opposed to pro rodeo patches), and that’s exactly the way the Wilsons want it. The Jackson Hole Rodeo is a training ground of all sorts for young cowboys—a place to learn and perform. Photographer Rebecca Noble was no stranger to shooting rodeo before embarking on this project, which emphasizes how the Jackson Hole Rodeo helps the development of young cowboys and cowgirls. “The kids are there with this crazy dream of ‘I want to ride bulls,’” Noble says. “And the Wilsons do a lot to make that happen.” The Wilson family ranch sits south of town off Highway 89. Over the past decade it has grown into something of a rodeo school. There’s a bunkhouse available for visiting cowboys to stay at for weeks at a time. There’s a small practice arena and carefully chosen stock to practice on. There’s even a weight room equipped with a mechanical bucking machine.
Buskin Wilson, left, gives his nephew Tipton Wilson feedback after his night’s ride. In addition to the array of Buskin Wilson’s duties around the rodeo, he still finds time to get on a bull himself and mentor young bull riders. SUMMER 2020 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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Left: Brothers Bodee and Brandon Wilson herd steers back to the stock truck after the conclusion of a Wednesday night Jackson Hole Rodeo at the Teton County Fairgrounds.
“WHAT WE DO is a little different than a pro rodeo or even an amateur rodeo,” Wilson says. Two sections of bull riding open and close at each Jackson Hole Rodeo night. The later section is more akin to traditional rodeo, where the cowboys receive their bull through a draw. The first round is like a development round, where the Wilsons often choose a bull to best match the young rider that will climb atop it. “We lean our livestock toward the learningtype livestock. It’s not the type of livestock you would see at a pro rodeo,” Wilson says. “Our livestock is all oriented toward the rider, not the animal.”
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The Jackson Hole Rodeo is almost a relic in the valley, a holdout of the old Western identity that was once at the heart of the area. Wilson estimates 75 to 80 percent of the spectators in his audience each night are at their first rodeo. They don’t know what makes a good ride and what doesn’t, so when the Wilsons line up livestock to match the level of the rider atop it, the transient crowd knows only that it is seeing successful rides, a few misses, and two hours of nonstop rodeo. “The crowd loves it, the kid learns from it,” Wilson says, “and it’s a better experience all in all for our rodeo.” JH – CHANCE COOK
The Wilsons’ official Jackson Hole Rodeo button-ups emblazoned with their first names hanging at the Teton County Fairgrounds.
From left, Jace Warinski, Tucker Wilson, and Tipton Wilson rest after completing the morning’s chores to prepare the Teton County Fairgrounds for the evening’s performance.
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// PHOTOGALLERY
Buskin Wilson’s daughter Dally (in cowboy hat) ropes and barrel races. Here, she chats with friends after competing at a Wednesday night rodeo.
Tucker Wilson, left, protects his hat from Jace Warinski, right, as they wrestle in the parking lot of The Virginian Lodge before a Wilson family and friends lunch. 86
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Living
HISTORY backcountry cabins are a part of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks’ human history. you can visit them, but no spending the night. BY KYLIE MOHR
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Mother Nature
Heart Lake Patrol Cabin
did most of the work in creating Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. But rangers and trail crews put in blood and sweat to preserve her work—and to allow you to better experience it—trudging through snowdrifts to foil poachers and performing the backbreaking labor of trail building. While doing so, they’d spend nights sheltered from the elements in cabins scattered across the rugged landscape, some of which are still standing and used today. A few are tucked away amidst meadows bursting with wildflowers at summer’s peak; others are prominently located at trail junctions or snuggled up against gently babbling streams. “It’s part of that visual history that showcases the traditions of public land management,” says Denise Germann, Grand Teton National Park (GTNP) public affairs officer, of the cabins. “They’re awesome visual reminders of our history that we are still using today.” Yellowstone National Park historian Alicia Murphy says she gets questions about the cabins all the time, mostly via email or phone, although some curious folks stop by her office. Everyone’s wondering what the cabins were for and when they were built, she says. “People are really intrigued by them. They come across one [while] hiking and they just think they’re fascinating.” At one time, GTNP had at least a dozen backcountry cabins. Today, seven remain—two newer ones, from the 1950s, in Moose Basin and Upper Berry Creek, and five listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The historic cabins are in Cascade Canyon, Death Canyon, the Leigh Lake area, Lower Berry Creek, and Upper Granite Canyon. Yellowstone once had 48 backcountry cabins. Today 35 still stand; 26 are on the National Register of Historic Places. The nine not on the national register were built within the last 50 years or moved and/or modified substantially from their original form. In both parks, employees like rangers and trail and fire crews still use these cabins. The public can’t overnight at them, but Yellowstone’s Murphy says she knows “a lot of people like to sit on the decks and porches and eat lunch. I know I’ve done that. They’re kind of a romantic structure to come across in the wilderness.”
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SEE FOR YOURSELF, GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK CABINS
GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK ARCHIVES
Berry Creek Cabin
WHAT? A 1949 National Park Service inventory of cabins details a one-room, one-story, 144-square-foot cabin near the mouth of Berry Creek. The survey claims the cabin was built in 1910 by the U.S. Forest Service and remodeled in 1938. But this is not the cabin now found at Lower Berry Creek. Today’s cabin dates from the 1950s. Historical sources point to a cabin on the Feuz Ranch near Spread Creek being disassembled, having its logs floated across Jackson Lake, and undergoing reassembly here. It is believed the original cabin was removed at the time the new one was constructed. WHY? This part of GTNP is little visited by humans and abundant in wildlife. (Don’t hike here without bear spray.) HOW? From Grassy Lake Road in the John D. Rockefeller Memorial Parkway just north of GTNP, take the flattish Glade Creek trail for 7 miles to the Berry Creek Cabin.
Grand Teton National Park Cabin Logbooks Logbooks provide fascinating glimpses into what happened at some cabins. A log from Upper Berry Creek includes an entry from a backcountry ranger who retreated to the cabin after being attacked by a bear. A log from Upper Granite contains day-by-day updates from an all-women trail crew in the 1970s about work they did to install the tool cache that now sits behind the cabin. Notebooks started in 1978 at the Lower Berry Creek and Moose Basin cabins include entries from Jim Bell, whose exact position at the park has been lost to history. He had no ranger number but was an employee of some type. In the logs he calls himself the “Berry Creek technician” and writes about rebuilding door and window frames, installing and maintaining a stove, and installing sheet metal to keep animals out at Berry Creek. Entries in the same logbook from rangers and other park staff reveal that Bell’s efforts were appreciated—there are numerous “thank-yous” dedicated to him. Bell’s time as the Berry Creek technician ended in November 1981. He does not explain his departure; his final entry merely reads: “Goodbye Berry Creek. I hope to see you again someday.” 90
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IN THE YEARS following Yellowstone’s founding in 1872, civilian superintendents struggled to protect animals inside the park, including elk and bison. On the western plains, the 1870s and 1880s were a heyday of commercial bison hunting; several hundred commercial hide-hunting outfits operated at any given time during this period. Individual hunters were known to kill as many as 100 animals a day. This situation in Yellowstone changed when the U.S. Army took over management in 1886. Specifically to address the poaching of animals within the park’s borders, the Army developed a system of soldier outposts to aid in patrolling. The cabins were constructed mostly with materials found in the area like logs, stones, and sod. Glass (for small windows) was carried in by horses or humans. The cabins were usually only one or two rooms. They were not manned year-round but used for a night or two by patrols passing through an area. In the beginning, floors and roofs were of sod, but concrete floors and cedar shingles eventually replaced the dirt. Covered porches served as space for firewood storage. In Yellowstone the Army built 17 cabins, 11 of which were standing by 1900. These early structures were referred to as “snowshoe cabins” because they were approximately 16 miles apart, about the distance a ranger could travel in one day in the winter on snowshoes or cross-country skis. “They kept these cabins stocked,” says Zehra Osman, Yellowstone National Park cultural resource specialist and landscape architect. “They were ready for a person to come in the door and have everything available they needed to stay there so they didn’t have to carry their belongings. It made it easier to do those patrols.” Reports from the time suggest patrols could be up to fifty miles in distance and 10 days in duration. After the Army turned over the management and protection of Yellowstone and its resources to the newly created National Park Service (NPS) in 1918, cabins continued to be built to fill in the blanks. A policy change in the 1940s restricted the cutting of trees for cabin construction; cabins built after that time were wood framed. The NPS built its 31st and last cabin in the park in 1973. SOUTH OF YELLOWSTONE, Grand Teton National Park administrators had the idea for backcountry cabins at the time the park was founded in 1929, according to a 2008 report from the University of Wyoming’s National Park Service Research Center. Fritiof Fryxell, a geologist and the park’s first ranger/naturalist, and other early park managers were keen on the idea of
the
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SEE FOR YOURSELF, GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK CABINS
GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK ARCHIVES
Upper Granite Canyon Patrol Cabin
RYAN DORGAN
Death Canyon Cabin
WHAT: This cabin was constructed in 1935 and nominated for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998. When the idea of locating a cabin here was proposed by park officials, it was opposed by a regional landscape architect who didn’t think it would get used enough to justify its expense. WHY: It’s on one of the park’s most popular trails. Make it your turn-around point on a hike part way up Death Canyon, or take a breather on the cabin’s porch if you’re doing the longer hike (about 8 miles one-way) to the 11,302-foot summit of Static Peak. HOW: From the Death Canyon Trailhead off the Moose-Wilson Road, the cabin is a 4.2-mile hike gaining approximately 1,800 vertical feet.
WHAT? This cabin built in 1935 sits in the extreme southwest corner of Grand Teton National Park and is deemed historically significant due to its association with the park’s development and with the National Park Service’s “Rustic” architecture style. The chevron-cut ends of the logs are characteristic of cabins built by the Civilian Conservation Corps at the time, but it is believed this is actually a tuskers’ cabin, the only one still standing in the Tetons. An old photo labels it as such. WHY? Need to cool off in the heat of summer? You’re in luck. Marion Lake, a subalpine lake tucked in a cirque, is just 2.5 miles farther up the Granite Canyon Trail. HOW? You can get here in more than one way. From the Granite Canyon trailhead at the southern end of the Moose-Wilson Road, it’s a bit under 10 miles round-trip. You can also take the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort Tram to the 10,452-summit of Rendezvous Mountain and hike down to the cabin, then hike out Granite Canyon and back to the base of the tram at Teton Village. This loop is about 13 miles.
cabins. Fryxell proposed a backcountry trail system and believed the cabins would support crews, offer shelter for patrols to protect wildlife, and serve as base camps for fire fighters in remote areas. The Park Service constructed the Leigh Lake Patrol Cabin between 1930 and 1932; also in 1932 the Civilian Conservation Corps built the Moran Bay Cabin. Today the latter is in GTNP, but in 1932 it was part of the Teton National Forest. In 1935, the U.S. Forest Service built the Hot Springs Patrol Cabin on the west shoreline of Jackson Lake, another area of the Teton National Forest that eventually became part of GTNP. The Hot Springs Cabin remained standing until at least 1949; the date of its final demise is unclear. The Moran Bay Cabin stood until 2000, when it was consumed by fire. In 1938, GTNP trail crews were busy building many of the trails still used by hikers today. Crews slept in tents, which then-GTNP superintendent Guy Edwards noted weren’t ideal living conditions due to the park’s heavy rain and snow. He advocated for additional cabins, saying they would provide more safety and also result in crews spending more time building trails. The cabins were still seen as helpful for rangers and fire crews, as well. While Grand Teton never faced the poaching pressure Yellowstone did, in 92
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Death Canyon cabin
GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK ARCHIVES
THE SURVIVING CABINS in both Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks still serve some of their original purposes. In Yellowstone, backcountry cabins become home bases for rangers in the instances of emergency bear closures, fires, or changes in backcountry conditions. Also, rangers still use them while patrolling for poachers. According to Yellowstone historian Murphy, “Poaching is still a thing and I think any wildlife big game species is vulnerable.” (For example, in 2019 two young men were caught after killing a mountain lion in the park.) The cabins “are an important part of how we protect Yellowstone today and they’re a great part of our legacy,” Murphy says. In the Tetons, both rangers and trail crews continue using the cabins. Trail crews tend to concentrate on the southern part of the park, Wonson says, while
GTNP cabins with square or rectangular floor plans, horizontal log construction, a lack of decoration, a front-facing gable, a single door under the gable, and a roof slope of less than 45 degrees are classified as “Rustic.” The look isn’t actually how early settlers would have built structures; rather, it’s how people in later years built “harkening back to what they think a pioneer would have built, that romanticized ideal,” says Katherine Wonson, director of the Western Center for Historic Preservation. The cabins in Death Canyon and Cascade Canyon are good examples of this. Structures built by the Civilian Conservation Corps, Wonson says, are “almost over-the-top Rustic … [with] really beautiful craftsmanship.” COURTESY PHOTO
the 1930s hunters were illegally harvesting animals near the park’s western boundary and trappers illegally catching marten and beaver, particularly in Granite Creek. Not all intended cabins panned out. In 1941, plans for structures in Alaska Basin and Paintbrush Canyon were cancelled. But by 1950 there were at least six official backcountry patrol cabins, and also a handful in and around Webb Canyon and Owl and Berry Creeks. It’s unclear who built the latter, though it’s thought to have been miners, hunters, and/or “tuskers,” who hunted elk for their teeth, most of which they made into jewelry. The last new cabins built in GTNP— small shelters at Moose Basin and Upper Berry Creek—date to the 1980s. For the Upper Berry Creek structure, logs were flown in by helicopter. An existing plywood shack nearby was turned into an equipment cache. It’s possible that renowned conservationist Adolph Murie used this shack as he and others conducted elk research in the area in the 1940s and ’50s says Katherine Wonson, director of the Western Center for Historic Preservation. This educational and resource center is dedicated to the preservation and maintenance of cultural resources in western national parks. But there’s not enough evidence supporting this theory for the structure to be eligible for historic designation, Wonson says.
Leigh Lake patrol cabin in Grand Teton National Park, date unknown.
Many Yellowstone cabins, and some in Grand Teton (Leigh Lake for example, and the White Grass Ranger Station), exemplify aspects of the “Rocky Mountain Cabin” architectural style. This derived from Finnish immigrants building cabins on the Great Plains. A distinct characteristic of this architectural style is an overhanging front porch.
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SEE FOR YOURSELF, YELLOWSTONE PARK CABINS Buffalo Lake/Boundary Creek cabin WHAT? Constructed by the U.S. Army in 1912, this is the oldest cabin in Yellowstone. WHY? The chance to see a relic of our country’s first national park, plus the likelihood of solitude. Don’t expect to see many other folks on the trail.
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
HOW? You’ll want to make this 33.6-mile (round trip) out-and-back hike an excursion of at least one overnight. From the Bechler Ranger Station trailhead pass the Cave Falls Cutoff Trail and continue to the Boundary Creek Trail. At the junction of the Boundary Creek and Bechler River Trails, take the trail on the right (north) to follow a tributary of Boundary Creek; less than a mile past the junction, ford the creek. Around 8 miles from the trailhead, you’ll be treated to two waterfalls. Buffalo Lake, a shallow 20-acre lake lined with trees, is another 8 miles past these falls. Backcountry campsite 9A5 is on the lake’s shore.
Peale Island Cabin
WHAT? The first Peale Island Cabin was built in 1924 as part of Yellowstone Lake’s fish hatchery operations. Its successor, the cabin that still stands today, dates to 1940. It was built by the Public Works Administration for the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife (now the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service). Ownership was transferred to the National Park Service in 1961. WHY? It’s a cabin on an island in the middle of the largest high-altitude lake in the country. And it won’t be there forever. The building needs to be moved in the near future due to increasing lake levels and shoreline erosion. HOW? Motorized craft are prohibited in this area of Yellowstone Lake, so you can visit Peale Island on a multi-day canoe or kayak trip or by hiking in with a packraft. Peale Island itself has no backcountry campsites, but sites 5L2 (Monument Camp, accessed by trail or boat) and 5L3 (Chipmunk Creek Outlet, accessed by boat only) are nearby. 94
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rangers spend time in the more sparsely used northern areas. Every summer in Grand Teton, trail and park crews doing restoration work stay in the Lower Berry Creek Cabin. The 2016 Berry Fire burned 21,000 acres in the area around the cabin; the structure was spared because park crews worked hard to save it. They applied a fire-resistant aluminum structure wrap, which looked like shiny silver tinfoil covering the entire cabin, installed a sprinkler system, and did a burn of the surrounding area to reduce fuels. “It’s incredible the amount of work and planning that goes into backcountry management,” says GTNP’S Germann. “All functions of the park administration use the backcountry cabins. I think it’s part of the story of Grand Teton National Park and so it’s fitting that today we use them in a very similar manner to years and years ago. They were instrumental in managing places and they still are today.” Annual routine maintenance is done on GTNP’s remaining cabins. This includes oiling logs, replacing shingles, switching out wooden roofs for more fireresistant sheet metal, and replacing rotted logs. Park employees who use the cabins over the summer are instructed to do “really simple things,” Wonson says, “like brush the pine needles off the roofs, keep debris off of window sills, and maintain drainage so water flows away from the building.” Whether or not structural changes can be made without compromising historical significance is specific to each cabin and depends largely on what features or uses influenced the decision to deem it “historic” in the first place. Preservationists utilize a standardized procedure whenever considering such changes. “The cabins have an uphill battle because they are in some of the worst locations as far as building maintenance goes,” says Wonson. “Any maintenance that would be routine in a normal building, you have that added layer of difficulty. You can’t just run to Ace [hardware store]. If you discover you don’t have what you need to fix the stovepipe, you need to take a whole day’s trip.” And wildlife can be a problem. GTNP learned that fire-resistant shingles have salt in them. How did it learn this? Some animals—maybe marmots—have gnawed on shingles. To complicate matters even further, GTNP’s 2016 Historic Properties Management Plan says all five historic cabins will continue to be maintained and preserved according to wilderness policies. “Wilderness policies” means that sometimes hand—not power— tools must be used, among other restrictions. “We don’t fly in materials; we pack them in unless it’s the minimum required tool to complete something,” Wonson says. “We have to complete our preservation
mandate while still preserving the wilderness mandate, too.” Currently, no major restoration or renovation projects are underway on any of the GTNP cabins. The most recent historic preservation report says they’re all in good to fair condition. Yellowstone cabins, however, do need maintenance. The cabin on Peale Island, in the south arm of Yellowstone Lake, offers a good example of the difficulty of the work sometimes required to preserve these structures. The building is primarily used by park scientists and crews, but sometimes also used to entertain visiting dignitaries, including members of Congress, donors to park projects, and even former President Jimmy Carter. In the late 1990s the structure was determined to be unsafe and a fire hazard. Yellowstone spent $50,000 to remodel/ repair the 432-square-foot cabin, which was built in 1940. Solar panels were installed to replace a generator and a new propane system was installed. Sheetrock replaced fiberboard walls. “It was mostly done to make it safe, not to make it nicer for VIPs,” then-park spokeswoman Marsha Karle told the Bozeman Daily Chronicle at the time. While this work made the cabin safer from fire, it’s still not out of the woods. Today, it is threatened by shoreline erosion. Cultural resource specialist Osman says the park is documenting the cabin and completing a historic structures report in case it needs to be moved in the future. Concerning all of the Yellowstone cabins, Osman says, “It’s quite a process they go through to plan and implement these repairs to the buildings. Our backcountry rangers are shouldering a lot of that work and that burden.” Wonson believes the effort is worth it. She has thought a lot about what these cabins add to the experience of visitors who come upon them, saying her mind goes to what humans do to eke out a living and how we choose to shelter ourselves in extreme environments. “It really gives you a sense of scale of how vulnerable and delicate we are, especially out here in this really rugged, harsh, amazing environment,” she says. “To me, it enhances the experience because it makes me think about my presence in the mountains and in the backcountry.” JH
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Living
LOOKING BACK
In 1964 Loring Woodman’s parents bought the Darwin Ranch and Woodman launched a 50-year stint as its manager.
On the upper Gros Ventre, standing the test of time
RYAN DORGAN
BY MIKE KOSHMRL
Loring Woodman, who ran the Darwin Ranch for 50 years, takes a break with his horse high in the mountains near the headwaters of the Gros Ventre River, five months after selling the guest ranch.
LORING WOODMAN WAS a New Jersey kid who’d fallen in love with wild Wyoming in the early 1960s. He’d notched formative early life experiences like summiting the 13,775-foot Grand Teton (at age 12) and summer adventures in Jackson Hole, which he helped fund by getting a job washing dishes at Trail Creek Ranch. When he was 21, he took his love for the area farther than most kids would or could: he convinced his parents to buy a 160acre, far-flung guest ranch that was tucked along the banks of the upper Gros Ventre River. “I talked my family into buying it, and they had never seen it,” Woodman says of the Darwin Ranch, which he’d go on to manage for half a century. “I was trying to turn that place into a way of life for myself.” Looking at isolated mountain properties in the greater Jackson Hole area in the early 1960s, Woodman found that the 96
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Darwin Ranch, then called the Hidden Valley Ranch, checked all the boxes. The Gros Ventre River’s meandering headwaters and a tributary, Kinky Creek, cut through the property, which was wholly surrounded by the Bridger-Teton National Forest (BTNF). The only way to access the property he’d quickly learn to love was a 5-mile-drive down a rutted two-track spur off Union Pass Road. “It was its isolation,” Woodman says; “… like living in Eastern Africa, basically—the enormous open space, mountains, wildlife, it’s not developed—and it still is. It’s absolutely wonderful country.” Although some owners prior to the Woodmans had operated the Darwin as a guest ranch, it was in poor condition when they bought it. “Everything was rotting out, everything was leaking,” Woodman says. There were about seven buildings
LOUISE JOHNS / JACKSON HOLE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
and a root cellar. Some buildings dated to 1901, when Fred Dorwin first homesteaded there. “All the buildings were sitting on the ground, and there were no footings and no foundations,” he adds. His family paid Loring, then a recent graduate of Harvard University, $1,200 annually to maintain and manage the ranch. His parents’ relationship with the property got off to a bumpy start, and not just because it was a big investment: “They bought it in early July, and they got out there to look at what they bought in September,” he recalls. “Back then, the last 42 miles of that trip, all the way from Cora, were over dirt road. It just about gave them a nervous breakdown, but after about two nights of getting settled in there, they fell in love with the place just as I had.” The Woodmans supported their son’s unusual choice of profession, he says, because he had a passion for it. Over his 50 years at the helm, Woodman transformed the ranch. He slowly improved the infrastructure, fortifying the existing buildings (which included putting them on foundations), remodeling cabins, and adding bathrooms and a hydroelectric system that ran off of Kinky Creek. Around the turn of the 21st century, after navigating a contentious, nine-year-long approval process, he convinced the BTNF to improve the 5 miles of road that accessed the property, which was badly deteriorated, partly from a landslide. (Kinky Creek Road, via Union Pass, is the only way to drive to the Darwin, though there are horse and hiking trails and snowmobile routes that access the property from the Gros Ventre Road.) In its earliest years under Woodman, the ranch was an easy sell with hunters. Though there were guests both seasons—summer and fall, that is—from the get-go, the summer experience took a bit more time to catch on. The clientele evolved along with the culture, which Woodman carefully cultivated into a unique brand reminiscent of old West-
style Jackson Hole guest ranches like the Whitegrass and the Bar BC. “There were log cabins and nothing fancy,” Woodman says. “People came for the experience in the outdoors and the camaraderie.” Summer guests were a mixed bag, from teachers to doctors and lawyers, but almost everyone had something in common:
An undated photo of the original Darwin Ranch lodge.
FRED DORWIN SUBMITTED A HOMESTEAD ACT CLAIM ON WHAT IS TODAY THE DARWIN RANCH IN 1901 AND “PROVED UP” THE PROPERTY BY 1903. A MISSPELLING SOMEWHERE ALONG THE LINE EXPLAINS THE DORWIN/DARWIN DISCONNECT; THIS ERROR CARRIES OVER TO THE GROS VENTRE RANGE’S THIRD-HIGHEST MOUNTAIN, 11,647-FOOT DARWIN PEAK. BUT THIS MIGHT BE FOR THE BEST: IN THE PAGES OF HISTORIAN FERN NELSON’S THIS WAS JACKSON’S HOLE, DORWIN IS DESCRIBED AS A “CRANKY OLD CUSS” WHO WAS MOSTLY AVOIDED BY OTHER EARLY GROS VENTRE SETTLERS. They’d come to love the Darwin as much as Woodman had. About 95 percent of guests were regulars. “Essentially, people made reservations for next year as they were leaving,” Woodman says. “We were completely full. I didn’t advertise for the last 25 years.” That tradition continues to SUMMER 2020 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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COURTESY PHOTO
the present, with local residents like Luther Propst and Liz Storer and Paul Hansen and Kay Stratman faithfully logging another week as Darwin guests every summer. Woodman’s parents deeded him the Darwin in 1972. (The property had climbed in value and they were planning ahead to avoid an estate tax that could force the family to sell.) By the middle of the first decade of the 21st century, after 40 years managing the ranch, Woodman was near typical retirement age and he started looking to sell. In 2008, a sale was in the works and contracts drawn up, but the Great Recession struck and foiled the transaction. A 2012 auction at the Wort Hotel fell flat when no one surpassed the minimum bid. Then, in 2014, exactly 50 years after Woodman started as manager at the Darwin Ranch, he finally found new owners to pass it on to, Kathy Bole and Paul Klingenstein. The couple already owned and ran the Codyarea Ishawooa Mesa Ranch, a working cattle operation. Woodman didn’t have preconditions for a buyer, but if he did Bole and Klingenstein would have met them. “They’re great conservationists and they want to take care of the place— and they have the wherewithal to do so,” Woodman says. “I think it’s extraordinarily lucky that we found people like that to buy it.” Like Woodman, “Paul was particularly drawn to its remoteness,” Bole says. “People say that it’s the most remote private land in the Lower 48 states. There’s 3 million acres in the Bridger-Teton, and [the Darwin] is in the middle of it.” Klingenstein and Bole enlisted their son, Oliver “Ollie” Klingenstein, to help manage the property. Like Woodman 50 years prior, Ollie was in his early 20s, just out of college, had a love for the outdoors, and wasn’t from the area. Guests drawing comparisons between the two came naturally. “We learned it all, before we changed too much,” Ollie says. “We learned why guests came back every year and why this place was so special to so many people. We changed it slowly over time to make it into our place, but there’s a lot of that model that Loring cultivated over 50 years that still exists—there’s no doubt about that. [Loring] cultivated something that I think was just right.” JH
Darwin Ranch’s main lodge.
The Darwin Today
The Darwin is still a guest ranch. Kathy Bole and her son Ollie Klingenstein split its management duties: Bole oversees most indoor things—lodge operations, the kitchen, cabins, and reservations—while Ollie, who is an EMT and farrier, manages recreation and the ranch’s herd of horses, physical plant, hydro-power system, and rotational grazing program. As was the case under Woodman, the Darwin has room for 16 guests at a time and is open from late June through midSeptember for summer guests and though late October for hunters. A hallmark of the Darwin experience is an acknowledgement of its tradition: unstructured days. As has been the case since Woodman’s guests first arrived in 1965, guests’ time at the Darwin today is unencumbered by scheduled activities; they’re given free rein to hike, fish, and even go out on horseback to explore the Gros Ventre Wilderness on their own. The Darwin is one of the last guest ranches in the West that allows unchaperoned riding, the current owners say. “I hear stories about the oldtime Western guest ranches, and I think a lot of them were kind of like us,” Ollie says. “This is an experience that doesn’t really exist anymore [elsewhere], and it’s a nod to the classic old-style experience where you can go ride your horse around in the mountains until it gets dark.” Bole and Klingenstein have made the Darwin their own, from tweaking décor to updating infrastructure that Woodman himself overhauled decades ago. A new option for ranch guests is a fully supported glamping experience at the Upper Falls Camp. Their family background includes sustainable agriculture, and Bole, a former chef, sees to it that the Darwin’s menus include as little store-bought food as possible. Beef, poultry, and produce come from the family’s Ishawooa Mesa Ranch and some of the pork sources can be seen roving the Darwin property. (Last summer, friendly swine named Lewis and Clark oinked and grazed around the property before ending up on dinner plates.) Coffee and other goods are sourced as locally as possible, often coming from Jackson. darwinranch.com
National Historic Register?
The Klingensteins commissioned Pinedale historian and writer Ann Chambers Noble to prepare an application to list several of the Darwin’s oldest structures on the National Register of Historic Places. (This process formally started in February 2020, and the application was still pending as this edition of Jackson Hole magazine went to press.) Chambers’ research is finished, though, and it makes a compelling case that the buildings have historic significance: Some are representative of the Anglo settlement era and others are excellent examples of western craftsman architecture. While interviewing people for a narrative summarizing its historic significance, the term “intellectual dude ranch” was thrown around to describe the Darwin. “The living room is lined with great books, and in that room intellectual conversations occurred,” Chambers wrote. “Guests who enjoyed reading and discussing deep, thoughtful topics have long been drawn to the place. The ranch ownership consisted of educated men and women.”
Who owned the Darwin when? Dorwin “proves up” the property. Dorwin sells to Winnifriede and Thomas Ray Black, who use the property as a private hunting lodge.
1901 1903 1917
Fred Dorwin submits a Homestead Act claim for the 160 acres.
Knowlton McKinley “Bob” Robinson and his wife, Wafie, buy the Darwin and operate it as an upscale dude ranch focused on hunting and fishing.
1923
The Severence family buys the ranch as a private getaway and hunting property.
1940
Phillip and Lalita Norton buy the ranch and keep it as a private retreat. “The Nortons were popular ‘gossip-material’ for Sublette and Teton County residents,” historian Ann Chambers Noble wrote. “They are remembered for their ‘stuck-up’ attitude and pampered lifestyles, available to them because of their financial means. Later owner Loring Woodman remembers using lobster crates for storage that were left by the Nortons—presumably from lobster deliveries.”
1946
Widow Ailee McIntyre buys the ranch, renames it Hidden Valley Ranch, and re-establishes it as a guest ranch.
1957
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1964
The Woodmans deed the ranch to Loring.
1972
EXPERIENCEDTEAM
Charles and Helen Woodman buy the ranch at their son Loring’s behest, change the name back to the Darwin Ranch, and pay Loring $1,200 a year to manage it as a guest ranch. Paying guests first arrive in 1965.
2014
After managing the Darwin for 50 years and transforming it into one of the most iconic guest ranches in the West, Loring Woodman sells it to Kathy Bole and Paul Klingenstein. The couple hires son Oliver as ranch manager and continues to operate it as a guest ranch.
DIANNE BUDGE
Dates and information from Ann Chambers Noble’s National Register of Historic Places application
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Living
OUTDOORS
BY MOLLY ABSOLON
Rising The Wind
Is sailing on Jackson Lake the best summer activity Jackson Hole?
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Laurie Thal and Dan Altwies sailing Thal’s 22-foot O’Day sailboat Pegasus on Jackson Lake. Thal says her boat, which has a retractable keel that allows her to beach the boat, is ideal for kids, family, wine, and cheese.
SUMMER 2020 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
DAVID J SWIFT
THERE ARE ALL sorts of extreme ways to celebrate milestones around Jackson Hole. You can climb the Grand Teton, bicycle 110 miles “Around the Block,” run the Teton Crest Trail, or “Picnic,” which involves biking from downtown Jackson to Jenny Lake, swimming across the lake, climbing the Grand Teton, and then reversing your journey to end up back at the Town Square. And then there’s what glass artist Laurie Thal and two friends came up with to celebrate a 50th birthday: On a brilliant early summer evening, the three women, together with Thal’s partner Dan Altwies, sailed from Signal Mountain across Jackson Lake to Bear Paw Bay where they settled in for the night, enjoying a meal on board while the sun set behind the mountains. At 1 a.m.,
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Top: Laurie Thal furling the mainsail on her boat Pegasus. Bottom: Thal sailing with daughters Alia and Sarina.
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the women awoke, crawled out of their bunks, went ashore, and climbed the Skillet Glacier to the summit of Mount Moran. After snapping a photograph, they skied perfect corn snow back down to the lake’s shore before returning to the sailboat where Altwies awaited them with a sumptuous spread of food and wine. “I’ve wanted to do that for forty years,” Thal says. “It’s a unique twist on sailing on a mountain lake.” Thal grew up sailing on Lake Huron, but when she came to Jackson in her twenties, it wasn’t sailing that drew her. She came to climb, hike, ski, and run rivers. Once here, however, it wasn’t long before she found herself itching to get back on a sailboat. For the last 18 years, she’s had a boat, a 22-foot O’Day sailboat named Pegasus. It’s moored at Leeks Marina on Jackson Lake. She says Pegasus, which has a retractable keel that allows her to beach the boat, is ideal for kids and family, and for wine and cheese. “I grew up racing on the Great Lakes,” Thal says. “But that’s entirely different from Jackson Lake. Sailing here is not for beginners. It’s unusual to have a lake entirely ringed by high peaks. The mountains can create challenging sailing conditions. It’s really exciting and a little bit scary. I love the lake so much. It has so many personalities. I enjoy sailing in a light breeze, and I enjoy it when things get really exciting.”
JACKSON LAKE IS a natural lake that was first enlarged in 1906 by a dam across its outlet. That dam failed in 1910 and was replaced by a bigger concreteand-earthen one built between 1911 and 1916. The new dam raised the lake 30 feet above its natural level. Primarily used to store water for downstream irrigation, Jackson Lake is 15 miles long, 7 miles wide, and as deep as 438 feet. It is one of the largest high-altitude lakes in the United States, and its western shores are wild—unreachable by road and with no boat ramps, docks, or facilities. The lake has always attracted boaters, especially anglers. Leeks Marina was established in the late 1800s before the first dam was built, and sailors have plied the lake’s waters for years, but their numbers have always been low. Sailing is not an obvious activity for Jackson Hole for several reasons. The sailing season here is short—the lake is usually frozen until early May and September typically marks the end of the season. Also, there are so many other mountain sports vying for people’s attention and time. The sailors who commit to the lake are a special breed. Many have sailing in their blood, and, after they raised their sails on Jackson Lake for the first time, found that, like most Jackson Hole activities, sailing here can be extreme.
“IT’S NOT LIKE OCEAN SAILING WHERE WINDS TEND TO BE MORE CONSTANT. ON JACKSON LAKE THE WINDS CHANGE ALL THE TIME. BUT IT’S EXCITING. IT KEEPS YOU ON YOUR TOES, BECAUSE YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN ALL HELL WILL BREAK LOOSE.” —SAILOR JOE WILLIAMS
Dan Heilig is one of the special breed. The senior conservation advocate for the Wyoming Outdoor Council, Heilig grew up messing around in boats: sailboats, rowboats, or whatever kind of watercraft he could get his hands on during his childhood summers on the New Jersey shore and later on lakes in New Hampshire. In college he discovered the mountains, and for the next couple of decades he spent his time hiking and climbing. Then his knees started to complain, and walking up and down hills wasn’t fun anymore. That’s when he rediscovered boats. He bought a Precision 23—a 23-foot sailboat that sleeps four— from a man in Salt Lake City. It was the largest sailboat he found that could be hauled around the West on a trailer. One of the first places he took it to was Jackson Lake where, he says, the mountain lake sailing took him by surprise. “You need to pay attention on Jackson Lake,” Heilig says. “The winds are erratic because of the topography. Once I was out there sailing and, in the course of an hour, the winds increased from zero to 35 miles per hour. I thought I could find shelter along the shore, but I couldn’t. It’s the one time I came close to running my boat aground. I saw the wind coming, but didn’t realize it was going to be that severe. I was having such a good time and didn’t act fast enough. But that’s typical of sailing on Jackson Lake. I’ve been on the lake when the winds are coming from three different directions at once. It goes from calm to chaotic within minutes.” Jackson Lake’s erratic weather is notorious. The lake’s position—nestled in a bowl surrounded by mountain ranges— is unusual and creates conditions not found on many other lakes in the world.
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Jackson Lake is one of the largest highaltitude lakes in the country. Its sailing season is short—the lake is usually frozen until early May and September typically marks the end of the season—but exciting. “You need to pay attention on Jackson Lake,” says local sailor Dan Heilig. “The winds are erratic because of the topography.
“I SAW THE WIND COMING, BUT DIDN’T REALIZE IT WAS GOING TO BE THAT SEVERE. I WAS HAVING SUCH A GOOD TIME AND DIDN’T ACT FAST ENOUGH. BUT THAT’S TYPICAL OF SAILING ON JACKSON LAKE. —DAN HEILIG, JACKSON LAKE SAILOR
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Wind is formed by pressure differences created by uneven heating and convective currents. This happens everywhere, but the orographic lift of air forced over a mountain range like the Tetons— where elevational changes alter temperatures dramatically—results in localized, strong, and unpredictable winds. On Jackson Lake, the orographic effect typically causes afternoon breezes. But those breezes are not constant; plus, they tend to get bent or funneled by the canyons etching the western side of the lake or recirculated by the mountains that surround the valley on all sides. On top of that, thunderstorms and squalls come up quickly and unexpectedly over the mountaintops, resulting in dramatic swings in both the direction and velocity of winds. It is this unpredictability that is the allure for many Jackson Lake sailors. Thal, who has sailed all over the world and is also an accomplished whitewater kayaker and mountain athlete, says it took a while for her friends to understand just what it was that attracted her to sailing on Jackson Lake. A few times she brought a group of her Grand Canyon kayaking buddies sailing. The canyon is known for its big, exciting rapids, so friends knew Thal was an adrenalin junkie. They were surprised by their first sailing excursions with her because they were tame. “It was what I call ‘lounge sailing’,” Thal says—light breezes, wine, cheese, and gorgeous sunsets. On their third trip, things changed. “It got really wild,” she says. “And my friends, who’d been with me in kayaks in the Grand Canyon, said, ‘Now we know why Laurie likes to sail.’”
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ALL BOATERS ON Jackson Lake, including sailors, launch from one of three marinas: Leeks, Colter Bay, or Signal Mountain. Colter Bay Marina, established in 1957, is the newest of the three. Leeks Marina was first used by boaters in the late 1800s, and Signal Mountain Lodge (and marina) was started in the 1920s to provide accommodations and fishing guides for wealthy outdoor recreationalists. Leeks Marina has 125 buoys for rent; Colter Bay has 86 slips and 38 buoys; and Signal has 45 buoys. Boaters without a slip or mooring trailer their boats to the lake each time they venture out. Austin Kritz, who has been a boat tender at Leeks Marina for five years, says most of the moorings and slips available on the lake are occupied by powerboats and cabin cruisers. He estimates that only five sailboats are moored at Signal, and fewer than 20 at Leeks. Powerboats also dominate Colter Bay. A mooring at any of these is difficult to get; Thal waited eight years for hers. When Heilig first looked into renting a mooring at Leeks, he was told his wait could be as long as 17 years. “I did the math,” Heilig says, “and figured I could be dead by that time, but it didn’t hurt to get my name on the list. Then, three years later, I got a call informing me that my name had come up.” Heilig isn’t sure why his mooring came up so quickly. Mostly likely, he guesses, others like him had their names on the waiting list just in case, but when they were called, circumstances had changed and Heilig’s name bumped up faster than anticipated. Kritz’s duties as boat tender include transporting people and supplies between shore and their
boats, as well as serving and supporting the boats at the marina. “The sailors are probably the craziest [of the boaters on the lake],” he says. “They go out when the power boaters come in. There is such a thing as a sailor species, no doubt. Unlike others, they want the wind. They go out in conditions other boaters would call crazy. I get that. I used to love going out in storms when I was a kid. Anytime I’d hear a severe thunderstorm alarm go off, I’d sneak out and take out a boat.” But sailing on Jackson Lake isn’t only about the adrenalin. Joe Williams, an instruction coach for the Teton County (Wyoming) School District and a Jackson Lake sailor since 2014, says he likes sailing on the lake because of its serenity and solitude. Seven years ago, while driving past Palisades Reservoir, he saw a sailboat on it and for the first time thought that he could have a boat in the Tetons. Williams, a California transplant who hadn’t thought much about water sports since his move to the mountains, bought a 19foot sailboat. It’s big enough to allow him and his wife and stepdaughter to sleep on board, but small enough to trailer. His family spends much of the summer on Jackson Lake, as well as on other moun-
tain lakes in the region. “I like the idea that I can travel in my boat with just the wind alone,” Williams says. “I like that sailing is low impact. That there’s no rush to get anywhere. It’s okay to be moving at two and a half miles per hour across the surface of the water. It’s meditative, and it gives you an opportunity to slow down in a world that’s outpacing itself.” Williams says one of his favorite parts of being out on Jackson Lake is pulling up his boat’s keel and beaching the boat for the night on the lake’s undeveloped western shore. He’s seen bear, elk, and his favorite bird, the kingfisher. Once he watched as an eagle hopped over and dropped part of a fish carcass in front of a group of ravens that had been eyeing the eagle for several minutes while it ate the fish. Williams is convinced the eagle was intentionally sharing with the corvids. Still, despite the serenity and calm the lake has given him, Williams treats Jackson Lake with a great deal of respect. “It’s not like ocean sailing, where winds tend to be more constant,” he says. “On Jackson Lake the winds change all the time. But it’s exciting. It keeps you on your toes, because you never know when all hell will break loose.” JH
Lisa Johnson and Ben Hammond
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“There’s an expression that sailing is about hours and hours of boredom punctuated by moments of terror,” says Lisa Johnson, who with her husband, cabinetmaker Ben Hammond, has had a sailboat at Leeks Marina since 2015. “I must confess, I like the calm,” she says. “I’ve been scared sometimes. You’ve got to be ready out there.” She adds, however, that even when it’s calm on Jackson Lake it’s not boring. The beauty of the Tetons, and the quiet of the lake—where seeing ten boats on the water on a given day feels like a crowd—makes even the tamest excursion a welcome respite from busy lives. Johnson says that she had to send photos of their sailboat to an insurance agent to secure coverage. The photos showed images of the couple’s sons swimming by the side of the boat with the mountains looming overhead. The agent called Johnson back, asking, “Where was that picture taken?” She had to pass it around the office because she thought it such a stunningly beautiful place. The Johnson-Hammonds have had two sailboats on Jackson Lake. Their first, which they purchased in 2013, was a fixer-upper from 1968 that they got for almost nothing from someone who was moving and desperate to unload it. The second, the Rita, bought in 2015, is a 23-footer built in 1972. Johnson says her husband needed a project when their boys grew up and lost interest in hanging out with their parents at the lake: an older boat requring work was the perfect thing. “There’s a joke in the sailing world that a sailboat is a hole in the water that you pour money into,” Johnson says. But, she adds, it’s a hole that also brings them pleasure and joy.
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ART SCENE EXPLORING JACKSON
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UPCOMING EVENTS
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ELEVATE YOUR
ADVENTURE VIEW HIKING TRAIL MAPS, O N - M O U N TA I N AC T I V I T I E S , A N D O P E R AT I O N T I M E S AT J AC K S O N H O L E . C O M
Jackson Hole Mountain Resort delivers summer adventure for all in a majestic natural setting — just 12 miles from Jackson Hole on the way to Grand Teton National Park. Start at the base of Teton Village to access hiking trails that will transport you high above the valley to stunning panoramic views of the surrounding mountain range. Hike through wildflower-covered fields and rugged mountain terrain to experience the best views in Jackson Hole — all within the resort’s boundaries.
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GETTING OUT
All
Try gravity riding to have a chairlift or car get you and your mountain bike to the top. Then, enjoy the down.
Downhill
AT THE PARKING lot on the top of Teton Pass, we buckle our helmets and double check to make sure someone’s got the keys to the car we just parked at the bottom. Then we’re off, pedaling along the ridge to Mt. Elly, working our way through the dense fields of wildflowers at the top of the pass. Ever since bikes have existed, people have been riding them downhill. There’s something addictive about rolling into a descent, letting the wheels spin as you coast to the bottom. That’s how mountain biking was invented after all, hippies hauling garage-modified road bikes up rugged dirt roads, then racing each other to the bottom. Gravity, or downhill, mountain biking is just the natural extension of that. All it takes is a bike with knobby tires, a helmet, and a trail that is set up to let a shuttle car or a chairlift do the work of hauling you back up the hill. And the Tetons are rife with great downhill riding. At the end of the ridge we stop to adjust the heights of our saddles, tighten our knee pads, and wipe down goggles. Last night it rained for the first time in weeks, and the trail known as Lithium should still be moist and tacky, which mountain bikers call “hero dirt” because the great traction it provides makes riding feel effortless.
BY CY WHITLING
JAY GOODRICH
JH
Andrew Whiteford descends the Lithium trail on Teton pass.
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Jackson Hole Mountain Resort’s Bronco trail is a popular intermediate trail. It doesn’t have any steep or technical sections, but does have banked corners and great flow.
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Jackson Hole Mountain Resort Bike Park
We drop in through waist-deep wildflowers just as the sun pops above the Gros Ventre Mountains on the east side of the valley. Our bikes dance along the six-inch-wide trail; it’s almost buried in blossoms. A rider ahead of me whoops hoarsely as we exit a meadow and drop into the first steep section. The dirt is as hero as we hoped it would be—just loose enough to let you slide the bike through rutted corners yet grippy and consistent. We descend the trail’s different sections, stopping to take turns riding the rock spine, “sessioning” it, as we dial in our lines. A few more loamy, bermed corners, a big compression, and we’re back at the bottom of Teton Pass, where we parked a van only an hour earlier. The elderly gentleman walking his dog doesn’t understand why we’re all giggling uncontrollably as we load our bikes into the van for another drive to the top. The Tetons are home to some of the best, most diverse gravity riding in the Mountain West. Downhill mountain biking needs a specific set of factors to really thrive. Obviously you need mountains with the vertical relief to be worth descending, and some sort of road or chairlift to get you back to the top; beyond that, local sentiment and culture play a huge part. Land managers like those at the United States Forest Service (USFS) are often skeptical of allowing downhill-specific bike trails to be built, and it can be hard to convince ski resorts to run their chairlifts for mountain bikers in the summer. Luckily, in the Tetons, the stars have aligned on all counts. Passionate riders had been building downhill trails on Teton Pass for years, but in 2004 the Teton Freedom Riders were officially formed to build and maintain legal downhill trails. The group partners with the Bridger Teton National Forest (BTNF) to develop and maintain one of the few public gravity riding areas in a national forest anywhere in the country. Along with the riding on the pass, both Jackson Hole Mountain Resort (JHMR) and Grand Targhee Resort have embraced mountain biking, building trails and running chairlifts all summer to cater to gravity riders. As downhill riding has grown in the Tetons, it’s also become more accessible. There are beginner-friendly trails at both bike parks, and even on Teton Pass. Both Targhee and JHMR offer bike and gear rentals, along with lessons.
JHMR OFFERS THE easiest-to-access and most family-friendly gravity/downhill mountain biking experience in the Tetons. Its Teewinot chairlift serves a handful of trails at varying levels, which are graded similarly to ski trails: green = easy, blue = intermediate, and black = expert. Laps are short and fast—Teewinot only climbs about 300 vertical feet—so it’s easy to get to know every trail on the mountain at your skill level, and find a favorite. Intermediate bikers often love Bronco, a mellow blue. It’s smooth and winding, and there are no steep or technical sections that ruin the flow. There aren’t any real
JAY GOODRICH
jumps, but there are rollers and berms galore. Every corner is bermed, and every berm is just a little bit different; they’re slow and low at the top, and gradually get steeper and faster. A Bronco challenge for experienced downhillers: Try to “pump”—maintain speed without pedaling—your way down. If Bronco is the ultimate intermediate/warmup trail, Bandit is the trail you want to ride four times in a row, sessioning until you have every jump locked down. Like Bronco it’s smooth and flowy. Unlike Bronco it is
packed with a huge variety of jumps. All jumps are tabletops, none have mandatory gaps, and they get progressively bigger as you descend. Riders who don’t want to catch air can roll over all of them and keep both wheels on the dirt. For riders who do want some wind under their tires, Bandit is the best JHMR trail for that. Open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily (conditions permitting) from mid-June into September. Lift tickets $37 for all ages. Fridays mid-June through mid-August between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. “Friday Night Bikes” feature $10 lift tickets and half-price bike rentals. jacksonhole.com, 307/733-2292 SUMMER 2020 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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Teton Pass Teton Pass is home to the highest concentration of and, arguably, the best gravity biking trails in Jackson Hole. People travel to Jackson Hole from elsewhere in the country just to ride the Pass. Originally—15 to 20 years ago—the only trails were illegal, scratched in by riders willing to risk the ire of the USFS. (The east side of Teton Pass is in the BTNF.) Now though, thanks to a partnership among Teton Freedom Riders, Friends of Pathways, and the BTNF, the gravity trails on the pass are legal, and well-constructed. Trails are also shuttle-friendly. Like all of the trails on the north side of the pass, Phillips Canyon requires a short uphill pedal to start, with about four and a half miles of rolling trail to the top. Once you’ve done this, the trail is one of the best descents in the valley. All-out singletrack sections mix with steeper, technical zones, although there are no big, challenging features. You’ll end about four miles up Fish Creek Road from downtown Wilson. Note that Phillips is not a directional-specific trail: there likely will be some uphill 112
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JAY GOODRICH
Andrew Whiteford riding the downhill-only Parallel Trail on Teton Pass. It has gap jumps and other man-made features, but for those who like to keep their wheels on the ground, most of these can be ridden around.
JAY GOODRICH
The Lithium trail on Teton Pass.
riders, who have the right-of-way over downhillers. If you feel like earning your turns, the ride up Phillips is about 3 miles and 1,700 vertical feet of climbing. The south side of Teton Pass is home to the valley’s most difficult and technical downhill trails. Of these, Blacks Canyon is the least challenging, but still not a cakewalk. The top section offers great views of the Snake River and Jackson Hole and the numerous mountain ranges that ring the valley. Also on offer are steep, loose, and exposed corners. Once you drop into the woods the trail has lots of fun, rocky features, but no big jumps or drops. Near the creekbed about two-thirds of the way down, it becomes tight singletrack lined with mossy trees and high ferns—it’s like flying through a greenish blur.
Lithium is one of the steepest, most technical, and most challenging descents in the area. Because it is one of the original downhill trails, dating to a time when riding was less about flow and berms, it highlights steeps and stunts. Make sure your brakes are working well when you drop in. A beautiful meadow quickly leads into steep forest; then there’s an awkward move onto a rocky ridge, more steeps, more rocky ridge, and a lower section that channels the Pacific Northwest with ferns, rock rolls, and loamy chunder. A few big jumps and drops round it out. Jimmy’s Mom, a classic Teton flow trail, starts at the parking lot about two-thirds of the way up the east side of Teton Pass and drops down to Old Pass Road (decommissioned for cars, but maintained for bikes, walkers, and rollerskiers) just above Crater Lake. “Teton flow” means it’s primarily jumps, drops, and berms, and a few technical sections. Most features require mandatory jumps over gaps. We recommend getting familiar with the trail before you huck your meat. If you don’t like your wheels leaving the ground, don’t ride this trail. Wondering who Jimmy’s mom is? Legend has it that she was the Teton Freedom Riders’ original volunteer accountant. The first feature on the trail, a big stepup jump onto a rock with a drop-off, is named the “stepmom.” The riding season on Teton Pass varies annually based on the melting winter snowpack. All trails here are free; Teton Freedom Riders runs shuttles on Saturdays through the summer that are free with a suggested donation. Tetonfreedomriders.org, 307/739-5414 SUMMER 2020 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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Grand Targhee Bike Park Grand Targhee offers a bigger bike park experience than JHMR, with two chairlifts, a vertical drop of more than 2,000 feet (if you take the lift to the top of Fred’s Mountain), and a wider diversity of trails, including steep technical ones, mellow rollers, and huge jump lines. A warning: If you ride from the top of Fred’s Mountain (via the Dreamcatcher lift), the tech trails, especially Rock Garden, are chunky and challenging. Blondie is the newest of these. It’s a classic downhill trail— hand-built and then ridden in—with plenty 114
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of big stumps and complicated off-camber line choices. There aren’t any jumps or traditional bike park features; instead, nature does the work. Bring it on Home starts at the top of the Shoshone lift (where Blondie ends), and is Blondie’s polar opposite in every way. It’s smooth, flat, and flowy, and the easiest gravity trail on either side of the Tetons. It’s also one of the most fun, as it serves up abundant berms and small rollers. This is the trail for young
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CY WHITLING
1255 South US Highway 89, Jackson WY 83001 307-733-6203
Collin Wheeler rides the Rock Garden Trail, one of the most challenging trails at Grand Targhee Resort.
kids, or that friend who hasn’t been on a bike in ages. More experienced riders shouldn’t write it off though—like JHMR’s Bronco, it’s a good challenge to pump it just right so you barely have to pedal, and plenty of the rollers turn into potential jumps with adequate speed. Open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily mid-June into September (conditions permitting). $41 for adults; kids under 12, $31. “Family Fridays” run from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. on the last Friday of every month and feature $10 lift tickets. grandtarghee.com, 800/TARGHEE. JH SUMMER 2020 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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GETTING OUT
The Road Less Traveled
Explore the valley’s dirt roads with a Utility Terrain Vehicle. STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY DINA MISHEV
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The Forest Service road up to Gunsight Pass climbs about 2,000 vertical feet. Cars with four-wheel-drive and high clearance could drive it, but “It was easier in a Razr,” the author says.
MY MOM IS the first to spot the beast in my driveway. Not that it’s hard to see. A human-sized lovechild of a Barbie Jeep and a Transformer, the Honda Pioneer5 1000 is bright yellow, snub nosed, and looks exactly like the vehicle you’d want at the End Times. Such a monster has never before graced my driveway. It’s 8:30 on a bluebird September morning and Jackson Hole Backcountry Rentals is dropping off the side-by-side—aka a Utility Terrain Vehicle (UTV). It is ours for the day. I immediately christen it “Neon Buffalo.” My plan is to take my parents deep into the Gros Ventre Mountains on the east side of Jackson Hole, where there are rutted, washboarded ribbons of dirt roads that I know from experience my Nissan XTerra SUV does not like. Within the Gros Ventres I don’t have a specific destination picked out. “We’ll go wherever looks the most interesting,” I say, as we rumble away from East Jackson and towards the tiny community of Kelly, about 13 miles on paved roads north and east of town. Not that either of my parents can hear me. The Neon Buffalo is loud. FORMERLY, LIKE THE first 18 (of 23) years I lived in Jackson Hole, when my mom and dad would make the trip from their home in Maryland to visit, I’d drag
them on difficult hikes up mountain passes. They’re athletic, but would never selfidentify as hikers. Still, they were always game for whatever hiking adventure I cooked up, even when I’d taken them on enough such adventures that they knew they’d be very, very sore for the rest of their visit. Once I even sent them off on a five-day guided backpacking trip in Yellowstone on which llamas carried all the food and supplies. This was not payback for grounding me my freshman year of high school after catching me climbing out of my bedroom window to go to a friend’s party. I did this so they could get a taste of why I love Jackson Hole and the surrounding mountains so much. I didn’t take them hiking to take them hiking, but because hiking was the easiest way to get to the remote, sprawling vistas that were among the reasons I decided not just to be a ski bum in Jackson Hole, but to build my adult life here. But now I’ve got arthritis in one knee and my parents are 76 and 83. So, enter the Neon Buffalo. In most ways—like noise, obtrusiveness, speed, and presence on the landscape—UTVing is the polar opposite of hiking. But now that UTVs are available to rent locally, they offer the easiest way to get to some of the remote mountain vistas I love so much, and even discover new ones.
The author and her parents headed up the Gros Ventre Road east of Kelly with a rental Honda Pioneer5 1000 utility terrain vehicle from Jackson Hole Backcountry Rentals, sandwiches from Kelly on the Gros Ventre market, maps, and a plan to explore any of the numerous dirt two-tracks branching off the main road that looked interesting.
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From the top of Gunsight Pass, about 9,700 feet in elevation, the Wind River Mountains, the largest and most glaciated range in the state of Wyoming, are visible to the east.
ABOUT ONE HOUR and twenty(ish) miles of washboarded dirt east of Kelly, shortly after driving over a bridge across the Gros Ventre River, and just as I’m getting impatient at the dearth of interesting two-tracks off the main road, we come upon a junction. Small, wood signs sticking out of the sage flats indicate Gunsight Pass is seven miles in one direction and the Cottonwood Creek Trailhead six miles in another. Purposefully not looking at the topo maps I downloaded onto my phone at home that morning—I’m looking to explore, after all; the maps are only in case I get us lost—I turn the Neon Buffalo onto the path to Gunsight Pass. In less than a mile, for the first time that day we’re finally on a road that would be challenging, or at least very slow going, in an SUV or truck. The Neon Buffalo eats it up though, progressing blissfully and easily, slowed by neither potholes nor deep ruts. I couldn’t be happier, but dust forces me to temper my smiling. (Part of the appeal of a UTV
WE LITERALLY HAVE AN EAGLE’S-EYE VIEW OF THE GROS VENTRE RIVER VALLEY WHERE OUR CLIMB BEGAN: AS WE UNPACK THE SANDWICHES WE BOUGHT AT KELLY’S LONE RETAIL ESTABLISHMENT, KELLY ON THE GROS VENTRE, AN EAGLE FLIES OVERHEAD. is that it doesn’t have windows, but no windows can mean a mouthful of grit if you open your mouth at an inopportune time.) About 600 vertical feet above the junction, I slow the Neon Buffalo after coming around a switchback to face a 100-foot section of loose, smooth, softball-sized river rocks. An SUV or truck could so easily sink into something like this and get stuck. But we’re not in an SUV or truck. The Neon Buffalo makes easy work of it and then gets back to climbing. And climbing. And climbing. Somewhere around 9,000 feet above sea level I drive into a dragonfly, which, because there is no front window, bounces off my right shoulder before flitting around the Neon Buffalo’s interior. After checking out my parents in the front and rear seats, it exits out the passenger side seemingly no worse for the wear. 118
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NUTS & BOLTS
The author’s parents enjoy a picnic lunch and views from the top of Gunsight Pass.
By the time the track finally peters out, we’ve climbed more than 2,000 vertical feet to the high point of a gentle ridge. We’re at an elevation—about 9,700 feet—higher than I was ever able to get to with my parents via hiking. We literally have an eagle’s-eye view of the Gros Ventre River Valley where our climb began: As we unpack the sandwiches we bought at Kelly’s lone retail establishment, Kelly on the Gros Ventre, an eagle flies overhead. The Tetons aren’t visible, but in the opposite direction the long, snaggly spine and glaciers of the Wind River Range are. Gannett Peak, that range’s, and Wyoming’s, tallest mountain (13,810 feet above sea level) is easily identifiable. So is Sheep Mountain, aka Sleeping Indian, one of the most prominent peaks in the Gros Ventres seen from Jackson Hole (although from this perspective it looks more like an impregnable fortress than a sleeping Indian). Other Gros Ventre mountains we spot include Black Peak and Mt. Leidy. To the north we can see the Absaroka Range, its telltale pinnacles and spires craggy even from this distance. We see no other people or UTVs. “I feel like we’re in the middle of nowhere,” says my mom. “And we’re not going to be sore tomorrow. We might still be dusty, but we won’t be sore.” JH
28THANNUAL
Rent a 2- or 5-person UTV for a full day from Jackson Hole Backcountry Rentals. Drop-off and pick-up (in the Town of Jackson) are included, as is a tank of gas, helmets, and some maps. Halfday rentals are available on a walk-in basis. Two worthy half-day trips are out-and-backs from the Elk Refuge Road, which starts 1 mile east of the Town Square: 1.) Up Curtis Canyon or 2.) Toward Flat Creek Ranch. Both of these are easily found on maps. Anything that goes north or east from Kelly, including Gunsight Pass, requires an entire day. UTVs, which can reach speeds of close to 60 miles per hour, can be legally driven on Wyoming highways; it’s 7 miles of highway driving and another 6 miles on a paved back road to get to Kelly. Earplugs and eye protection (sunglasses are fine) recommended. If available, a half-day rental is $199, full-day $299; 307/264-2525; jhbackcountryrentals.com.
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GETTING OUT
High Point BY LEXEY WAUTERS
PHOTOGRAPHY BY DAVID STUBBS
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Heading out to climb the Grand Teton isn’t always the adventure you expect. AT ABOUT 12,500 feet in elevation on the southern side of the Grand Teton, Jessica Baker, a guide with Exum Mountain Guides, and I are shrouded in clouds and battling inhospitable conditions. We can see only a few yards in front of us, clear ice coats the rocks beneath our feet, and the wind is steady at 25 miles per hour. We started hiking at 5 a.m. up from the Lower Saddle, an overnight camp at an altitude of 11,692 feet on a col between the Middle and Grand Tetons that’s used by Exum for its clients. The “hike” is up a steep couloir filled with lots of loose rock. I find myself often using my hands. Other climbers pass us, both ascending and descending. They are ghosts in the mist. Our goal is the 13,775-foot summit of the Grand Teton, the highest peak in Grand Teton National Park (GTNP) and the second-tallest in Wyoming. (Gannett Peak in the Wind River Range is about 35 feet higher.) There are numerous routes to the Grand’s summit. Baker and I, like the majority of Exum groups, are heading for the Upper Exum Ridge, named after the first person to climb it, Glenn Exum, who made a solo ascent of the ridge in 1930. Modern rock climbing grades rate it a 5.5, which is at the higher end of easy. (5.0 to 5.7 is considered easy; 5.8 to 5.10 is considered intermediate; 5.11 to 5.12 is hard; and 5.13 to 5.15 is reserved for the very elite.)
Exum guide Jessica Baker and the author make their way up the Grand Teton from Exum’s highaltitude camp on the Lower Saddle.
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Because of weather, Baker and the author were not able to climb the Grand. Instead they went up the Enclosure, a 13,285-foot-tall spire to the west of the Grand Teton that is less technical.
To get to the start of the Upper Exum from the Lower Saddle, a climber hikes up to a prominent feature called Wall Street, an upward-sloping ledge that gradually tapers to nothing at an elevation of about 12,800 feet. Here climbers do the “step across,” which is exactly what it sounds like—stepping across a span of air—to gain the route and ridge. And then the real climbing starts. From here to the summit it’s WE CAN’T HELP BUT LAUGH WHEN WE a gain of slightly unOVERHEAR A NEARBY CLIMBER SAY, der a thousand verti“IT LOOKED SUNNIER IN THE BROCHURE.” cal feet. After about two hours of walking we reach the aptly named Needle Buttress. There is just enough visibility to see Wall Street. It’s coated with a thin layer of white: snow. Exum and Jackson Hole Mountain Guides, the only two companies permitted to guide climbers up the Grand, offer
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trips from June until September. Clients at the beginning and end of the season are warned that snow and/or ice could be factors. Baker and I are on the mountain the first weekend in September, definitely the end of the season. We can’t help but laugh when we overhear a nearby climber say, “It looked sunnier in the brochure.” THE FIRST ASCENT of the Grand is contested. It was either first climbed in 1872 or 1898. William Owen and Franklin Spaulding definitely climbed the peak in 1898; there’s photographic proof. But Nathaniel P. Langford and James Stevenson, members of the 1872 Hayden Survey, claimed they reached the summit in 1872. But they had no proof to substantiate their claim, and their description of the summit they reached is closer to that of the Enclosure, a side peak of the Grand, than it is to the Grand’s summit. Owen and Spaulding
Aspiring climbers of the Grand Teton who go with Exum Mountain Guides start their climb with a hike up from the Lower Saddle, seen below with a patch of snow on it. Exum maintains a temporary Quonset hut there where clients spend the night before their summit day.
climbed the Grand via a route on the west side that today bears their names. The Owen-Spaulding route is the easiest way to the summit, but still requires technical climbing skill and equipment. (Today it is the most popular summit route.) After Owen and Spaulding’s climb, the summit went unvisited again until 1923, when three Montana State University students climbed it August 25. Two days later, Eleanor Davis became the first woman to stand on the peak’s summit. Paul Petzoldt, a southern Idaho transplant from Iowa, climbed the peak in 1924. He was only 16 years old at the time. By 1925, Petzoldt was guiding others up the mountain. He met Glenn Exum, a music student at the University of Idaho at the time, in 1929. That same year, Exum and Petzoldt formed a partnership that became the Exum-Petzoldt School of American Mountaineering. It was the following year that Exum pio-
neered the route up the south ridge that now bears his name, and that Exum Mountain Guides takes most of its clients up. In a departure from the traditional European guiding method of “short-roping” guests up and lowering them down, Exum-Petzoldt guides taught guests basic climbing skills. Never-ever climbers learned balance and foot placement, rope handling, knots, rappelling, and belaying. This is the school that is today Exum Mountain Guides. (Notably, Petzoldt went on to found NOLS, the National Outdoor Leadership School.) BECAUSE I AM a never-ever climber, before I can head up the Grand with Baker I was required to do a six-hour basic rock climbing class, aka “climbing school.” It doesn’t always happen that clients get the same guide for the Grand as they get for climbing school, but I was lucky to get Baker for both. The 43-yearSUMMER 2020 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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AFTER A FINAL SLAB PITCH SLICK WITH RIME ICE— OVER WHICH BAKER KEEPS ME ON A TIGHT BELAY— WE’RE ON TOP, AND WE HAVE THE ENCLOSURE TO OURSELVES.
Exum guide Jessica Baker on the summit of the Enclosure, a consolation prize after weather kept her and client Lexey Wauters from climbing the Grand Teton.
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Guides usually take clients up the Grand Teton between June and early September; clients at the end of the season are warned that snow and/or ice could diminish their chances of summiting. It is sometimes possible to do a less difficult climb if the ascent of the Grand is deemed too dangerous.
old mother of two has guided in Alaska, Norway, the Andes, Canada, and the Arctic, and, here in the Tetons with Exum, since 2006. She’s guided clients up the Grand about 130 times. Exum’s climbing school is on a wall of rocks on the western shore of Jenny Lake. There I learned friction walking (ascending a smooth angled rock surface using your weight and balance, and shoes with really sticky rubber) and how to set up a belay and to rappel. At the end of the day I felt more prepared, albeit with a very healthy dose of nerves. IT IS TWO weeks after climbing school that Baker and I stare across at a snow-covered Wall Street. Our climb started the day before at the Lupine Meadows Trailhead, one of the most popular in GTNP because it is the starting point for trails into Garnet Canyon and to Amphitheater and Surprise Lakes. It is the former that, eventually, leads to the Grand Teton. Undaunted by threatening clouds, we leave the trailhead at around 10 a.m. At a very moderate pace and with plenty of breaks we cover the seven(ish) miles and 5,000 vertical feet from the parking lot to Exum’s temporary Quonset hut on the Lower Saddle in about five hours. Rain squalls move over us several times during the day, some of them drenching downpours, others light showers. That night, the hut, which sits on a col, or saddle, that looks into both Idaho (to the west) and over Jackson Hole (east), is the overnight home for four other Exum clients. (Jackson Hole Mountain Guides’ summer base camp is about 700 feet lower in an area called the Upper Moraine.) Although quarters are close—the hut is 25-by-15 feet—the atmosphere is convivial. After dinner—I carried up lasagna for myself; other climbers eat dehydrated meals—Baker gives me a general preview of the
morning. She will wake me up at 3:30 a.m., we’ll have coffee and breakfast, assess the weather, pack our day bags, and start hiking up towards the route. With such an early start, we go to bed early, but sleep initially proves elusive. The wind picks up and the canvas hut billows and buffets. Rain and hail start shortly after midnight. The weather outside sounds horrible, but inside the hut I am cozy. I do finally drift off and then sleep hard. We leave the hut at 5 a.m. The rain has stopped, but clouds hang low. Baker’s pack bulges with climbing gear; I carry only my personal gear, clothing, snacks, and lunch. The rocks glisten wet in the artificial light cast by our headlamps. Our progress is slow but consistent and the footing is slick. While it rained on the Lower Saddle, above it the precipitation fell as sleet and snow. We negotiate features including the Briggs Slab, Black Rock Chimney, and the Dance Floor. It is around 7 a.m. when we arrive at Needle Buttress and get our first view of Wall Street and the snow covering it. Immediately Baker says, “It’s a deal breaker.” The precipitous ledge is tricky enough when dry; slick with snow and ice it’s too dangerous. There is no way onto the Upper Exum Ridge other than Wall Street. It is a bittersweet moment. I am happy not to have to do a snow-covered Wall Street, but disappointed I will not stand on the summit of the Grand Teton today. But not too disappointed; it’s thrilling just to be out on the mountain. It could be argued the consolation prize Baker comes up with is at least as interesting as summiting the Grand. A couple of hours after abandoning our intended climb, we stand atop the Enclosure, a 13,285-foot-tall spire to the west of the Grand. The second tallest summit in GTNP, the feature got its name from a small horseshoe-shaped “enclosure” early white climbers found on its summit; it is believed Native Americans built this as part of vision quest rituals. The scramble to the Enclosure is generally an easy effort with considerably less exposure, and therefore risk, than our planned route up the Grand. After a final slab pitch slick with rime ice—over which Baker keeps me on a tight belay—we’re on top, and we have it to ourselves. Clouds backlit by a weakly emerging sun swirl around. Sunspots reveal glimpses of peaks around us, and then clouds again swallow the peaks. I find I don’t care we’re not on the summit of the Grand. I’m standing on a spot from which I can climb no higher. To get here, I friction walked, belayed, and rappelled— none of which I had ever done a month ago. It is exhilarating to be on this peak in this otherworldly atmosphere. The Enclosure was not the adventure I set out on. But as often happens in the wilderness, the adventure I do have ends up being profoundly and distinctly what I want. JH
NUTS & BOLTS
Exum Mountain Guides’ Classic Grand experience is a four-day program that includes two days of group instruction followed by a two-day climb. Exum also offers private guided climbs. The Classic Grand starts at $1,055/person; a private guided climb starts at $2,055/person; 307/733-2297; exumguides.com. Jackson Hole Mountain Guides offers 2-, 3-, and 4-day trips that include climbing instruction. Group climbs from $1,580/ person; private trips from $2,370; 307/733-4979; jhmg.com SUMMER 2020 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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BODY & SOUL
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Jackson Hole mixologists make sure no alcohol doesn’t mean no fun. BY MELISSA THOMASMA
ADOBE STOCK
BEHIND THE BAR at Trio Bistro, Forrest Jillson makes a Valley Breeze. He adds cranberry, lime, and grapefruit juice to a cocktail shaker, vigorously shakes, and then pours the frothy beverage into a glass garnished with a slice of fresh cucumber and a pinch of salt. A waiter quickly whisks it away into the buzzing dining room, delivering it to a diner in the middle of an animated conversation. Jillson, who has been bartending since 2017, says he especially enjoys making Valley Breezes because the drink is interesting, but alcohol-free. For Jillson, a professional skier with a bevy of sponsors, offering libations lacking booze is personal. His final heavy drinking session, with fellow fishermen in Soldotna, Alaska, ended with a tumble down a flight of stairs and a life-threatening head injury. He was life-flighted to Anchorage, and hospitalized for nearly a week. “I made it out really lucky,” he says, though he lost his senses of smell and taste for a full year. He hasn’t had a drink since. “I think it’s awesome to have nonalcoholic drinks on the menu, and it’s deeply respectful of clientele to offer them,” he says. Being a non-drinker—regardless of the reason—can be tough, though, and Jillson sees well-crafted, zeroproof drinks as a way to alleviate social pressure and also offer an enjoyable drink to those avoiding alcohol. “It’s important for everyone to be able to enjoy a drink and feel at home,” he says. An increasing number of people are opting to avoid alcohol, for reasons ranging from heart health to weight loss to cancer prevention to any number of other potential benefits. “Many people are becoming more intentional in their everyday lives,” says Jessa Smout, founder of Amrita Beverages, which offers cocktail and “free spirit” catering in the valley. “Whether that’s with alcohol consumption or healthier food choices, waste and recycling, or buying local versus online. This is just one part of the whole—why not make beverages healthier and delicious?” Trio and Amrita are not the only
drink purveyors in Jackson Hole to notice the trend. Mixologists and bartenders around the valley are crafting beverages with the stylish look and complex flavor profile of a cocktail, but lacking spirits. “Thoughtfully made non-alcoholic drinks are absolutely a trend across the nation,” says Dave Hemphill, wine and beverage director for Snake River Grill. “But it also just fits really well with the culture here.” Over the past five years, he’s seen more diners opting for what he calls “no proof ” drinks. Sometimes they’re avoiding alcohol entirely, he says, or simply looking to take a break between cocktails, or end the night with a more low-key drink. “We don’t want to just hand people a glass of juice,” Hemphill says. “We want to offer something that’s more complex and is a blend of really interesting ingredients.” Smout says that even if a catering client hasn’t specifically requested what she calls “free spirits,” she’ll have some available. “On special occasions where there is alcohol, I personally feel that if I am offering the freshest of cocktails, and then only offering a soda pop or store bought lemonade [as a non-alcohol alternative], I am doing a disservice to my customers.” Don’t assume an alcohol-free cocktail is easier to create than one with alcohol. Smout says a challenge with free spirits is making the drinker learn to slow down and savor it. With an alcoholic cocktail, the spirit itself encourages sipping—not guzzling. “Fresh, delicious, non-alcoholic drinks are harder to hold back on,” she says. “There lies the challenge: Make them enjoyable and memorable, balanced and creative, while finding a way to incorporate mystery. Maybe with that curiosity of the mysterious, the customer will slow down and enjoy the offering.” There’s also a challenge in balancing the sweetness of a non-alcoholic cocktail. “Some try to mimic an overly sweet cocktail,” says Smout, who likes to mix drinks like the “I Mint To Tell You I Love You,” which is fresh-juiced cucumber, mint, and amaranth topped with sparkling water. “The key to a great beverage, whether it has alcohol in it or not, is balance.”
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SNAKE RIVER GRILL “The balance of a non-alcoholic drink is really important,” Hemphill says. “It’s about allowing flavors to not be fully masked by one another, but also keeping any one from becoming overpowering.” He says it often takes him longer to design his “no proof ” options on the cocktail menu, since there’s no spirit as a starting point. But his creative process has led him to incorporate flavors like smoky grapefruit in the Bittersweet Symphony (Bittermilk No. 5 Charred Grapefruit Tonic, club soda, fresh lemon, tonic). Hemphill makes sure that every season comes with a new non-alcoholic option. Enjoy one while relaxing at the grill’s rustic-chic bar or pair it with food from executive chef Jeff Drew, who has been nominated four times as “Best Chef: Northwest” by the James Beard Foundation. TRIO AMERICAN BISTRO Jillson and the rest of the Trio team develop new non-alcoholic drinks every summer and winter. The Valley Breeze (cranberry juice, lime juice, grapefruit juice, simple syrup, club soda, cucumber, sea salt) is gently sweet and also refreshing, says Jillson, who recommends pairing it with the restaurant’s signature bleu cheese waffle fries; the brightness and acidity of the drink offset the richness of the fries. Jillson enjoys seeing minors sipping one because he thinks it makes them feel more involved in the family’s overall dining experience. ASCENT LOUNGE Tucked into the Four Seasons Resort and Residences in Teton Village, the Ascent Lounge offers Pan-Asian fare in a relaxed yet sophisticated Western atmosphere. Head bartender Adam Reed’s goal is to send out alcohol-free drinks that look and taste as great as his signature cocktails. “Booze-free drinks are important to have in alcoholic social settings,” he says. “It gives everyone—drinking or not—a way to feel involved and connected at the table.” Reed recommends the Cucumber Mojito (fresh cucumber juice, lime juice, mint simple syrup, sparkling water) and suggests pairing it with the lounge’s veggie spring rolls. “[It] pairs incredibly well with the fresh herbs and julienned vegetables, which complement the mint, lime, and cucumber flavors of the mojito.” Reed also makes shrubs, non-alcoholic drinks that he says “come from pre-Prohibition days when vinegar was used to keep fruit from going bad.” They’re a balance of fruit, herbs, and vinegar, and served with sparkling water. He creates a variety every summer, always featuring seasonal produce and fresh herbs.
FIGS FIGS’ non-alcoholic drink menu is as unique as its Wyoming-influenced Lebanese food. Its Minted Lemonade (mint, rose water, lemon, lime, simple syrup, soda water) is a grownup and exotic spin on a classic. “It’s also a bit of a play off our Lebanese Lemonade cocktail,” says Michael Gray, FIGS’ director of operations. “It’s light and refreshing, which is perfect for warm summer days. The rose water gracefully brings it all together. And it pairs really well with the Mediterranean cuisine.” Somewhat similar is the Mockingbird (ginger, lemon, lime, pineapple, soda water). Both are refreshing in their simplicity, but have an air of sophistication. Gray adds that all of the juices are squeezed fresh in-house every day.
SNAKE RIVER BREWING Snake River Brewing launched Sparkling Hop Water in 2019. It’s alcohol-, sugar-, and calorie-free, and available at the downtown brewpub and at several grocery stores around the valley. “The hop blend that we use offers up a lighter, citrus-forward note to the beverage,” says Luke Bauer, the brewery’s marketing director. “Imagine a LaCroix, but with a vague hint of your favorite pale ale.” Bauer says the hop character of the water would “attract an IPA or pale ale drinker, but hops are very approachable for everyone once the bitter character is taken out of the equation.” He likes pairing it with the pub’s salads, and also uses it as a palate cleanser between bites of richer dishes. “This is a health-conscious town and the occasional non-alcoholic, locally produced, zero-sugar beverage certainly is a great thing to enjoy,” he says. JH
Don’t Call it a Mocktail
Jessa Smout, founder of Amrita Beverages, cringes at the word “mocktail.” “As if you can’t have fun without the alcohol!” she says. “I prefer to call them ‘Free Spirits.’” Smout isn’t alone in her disdain for the term. Many bartenders and mixologists feel that it implies something fake, an impostor on the menu. Says Dave Hemphill of Snake River Grill: “It’s certainly not my favorite term. I suppose it gets the point across, but I feel that it somehow cheapens the drink.” But Adam Reed, head bartender at the Ascent Lounge, disagrees. “The word ‘mocktail’ is trendy. It’s fitting for a non-alcoholic cocktail,” he says, adding that the label makes it simple for a guest to know exactly what they’re getting; a mixed drink lacking alcohol. While some menus around town don’t shy away from labeling their non-alcoholic choices with the mocktail moniker, others rely on different terms: Zero Proof
No Proof
Free Spirit
Non-Alcoholic
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Alcohol-free
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Why No Alcohol?
The reasons for making an alcohol-free selection are diverse—from addiction recovery to pregnancy to a desire to improve overall health. Studies have shown that drinking comes with serious long-term health risks. The American Institute for Cancer Research concludes: “While the risk of breast and esophageal cancers increases at even low levels of consumption—one standard drink for women, two for men—alcohol beyond moderation also raises the risk of cancers of the colorectum, stomach, liver, mouth, pharynx, and larynx.” Further damage can occur “from the free radicals formed as alcohol is metabolized, forming acetaldehyde, a recognized carcinogen. Alcohol may also act as a solvent, increasing other carcinogens’ ability to damage cells.”
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515 West Broadway Ave. 307.739.9247 tetontails.com
Mary Ryan is a registered dietician and addictions therapist at the Curran Seeley Foundation, a local nonprofit that provides alcohol and drug counseling, treatment, and prevention services. “Alcohol can interfere with sleep patterns leading to difficulty getting to sleep, staying asleep, or reaching the deeper stages of sleep necessary for optimal health,” she says, adding that the list of harmful side effects goes on. Consumption can increase blood pressure and triglycerides, and negatively contribute to diabetes and heart disease. Additionally, alcohol can exacerbate mental health issues including depression and anxiety. Ryan says that when her clients make the choice to stop drinking, they observe a range of benefits. In addition to weight loss, clearer skin, increased energy, and improved sleep patterns, many report a newly discovered clarity and sense of control. “They describe being more productive at work and more present in their relationships. When these changes result in positive feedback from bosses, co-workers, partners, parents, and friends, then the impact is even greater. Selfworth goes up and they feel more capable.”
Tee up magnificent Grand Teton views on an Arnold Palmer Signature Golf Course. Savor an extraordinary meal at Teton Pines Restaurant featuring exceptional cuisine and service. Always welcoming, we look forward to providing you with a Jackson Hole experience to be remembered.
Forrest Jillson of Trio has reaped these benefits and more, he says, especially through the lens of his skiing career. “Since I quit drinking, I can take my training to a whole new level. This is the strongest I’ve ever been. My training schedule isn’t ever derailed by hangovers, and I’m putting on muscle more quickly than ever. And mentally, it really gives me more of a professional attitude.” In the years since he quit drinking, Jillson’s career has picked up momentum. While he acknowledges that this isn’t solely due to his sobriety, he wholeheartedly believes that leaving behind his drinking habit gave him a critical leg up. The best trainers, he says, won’t even work with athletes who are drinkers. “Overall, I just have a much more level, even-keeled life. If you want the best advantage, you just don’t drink,” he says.
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NIGHTLIFE
Get with the Program
As recently as a decade ago, cocktails in Jackson Hole were mostly limited to the classics. Now inventive, well-crafted cocktails are the norm.
ADOBE STOCK
TEXT AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY JR RODRIGUEZ
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BOOM-ASS COCKTAILS meticulously crafted by smartly dressed bartenders in a dimly lit, velvet- and chandelier-rich lounge wasn’t something the valley had yet seen when David Kaplan and Alex Day opened The Rose in downtown Jackson in 2012. But Kaplan, who grew up in Jackson, and Day thought the town was ready for it. And they had a pretty good idea of how to do a cocktail bar well. In 2006 in Manhattan’s East Village, Kaplan and master bartender Philip Ward opened Death & Co., which, thanks to complete dedication to using only the purest of ingredients, was quickly recognized as “America’s Best Cocktail Bar” and as having the country’s “Best Cocktail Menu.” The tome Death & Co: Modern Classic Cocktails was published in 2014 (find it locally at Mountain Dandy). Yes, during the early years of The Rose, locals snickered at the pretentiousness of the phrase “cocktail program,” which was unknown in the valley in 2012. The snickering lasted only until those locals had their first cocktail from the program. In the years since The Rose kick-started the valley’s cocktail scene, other bars and restaurants have jumped aboard. Here are some favorite cocktails around the valley.
Glorietta’s Spicy Pineapple Margarita
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ou might have trouble finding Glorietta, with its white exterior that makes it look like a private residence. Once inside, though, you’ll find that it’s an obviously popular restaurant and bar. Have a seat at the latter and feel like you’ve entered a time capsule: tile bar, wood stove, and neon signs. Bartender Tony Berner says, “The [drink] menu is always changing. Every season is different and we don’t repeat our drinks.” That said, you can always order a Spicy Pineapple Margarita (fresh pineapple juice, infused jalapeño tequila, smoked Alderwood salt). The lights dim, I take a sip, and Berner asks, “Isn’t that smoked Alderwood salt the best part?” Open daily 5 to 10 p.m.; 242 N. Glenwood St., Jackson; 307/733-3888; gloriettajackson.com
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ess than one block from the Town Square, ride a Samurai Tide (Roku Gin, JH Stillworks Vodka, Lillet Blanc, sea bean, lemon peel, salt) at the Japanese-inspired restaurant Suda. The sea beans come all the way from Hawaii’s largest island and the gin from a place even more distant: Japan. (The vodka is local.) The Tide’s simplicity is its strong suit, but don’t think simple means wimpy. Bartender Rob Denton says, “That thing doesn’t mess around. Lillet Blanc is a fortified wine, it’s 17 percent.” If the Samurai Tide doesn’t sound like your cup of alcohol—it’s definitely for the martini lover—Suda has a large selection of sakes. “We make cocktails out of those, too,” Denton says. “I’d recommend the Saketini with Grey Goose or the Pineapple Sake Margarita.” Open Monday through Saturday 5 to 9 p.m., closed Sunday; 140 N. Cache St., Jackson; 307/201-1616; sudajh.com
Samurai Tide at Suda
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“I
The Rose’s Ty Webb
nspiration can come from anywhere,” says Chad Taylor, a bartender who started at The Rose when it opened in 2012 and in 2013 was inspired to invent the Ty Webb (Hendrick’s gin, Darjeeling simple syrup, cucumber shrub, lemon juice, egg white) because of a personal drink preference. “John Dalys were popular at the time. I liked them but wanted to switch it up a little,” he says. Taylor swapped out vodka for Hendrick’s gin, made simple syrup with Darjeeling tea, added muddled cucumber, put in a smidge of lemon juice, and used just a bit of egg white to give the drink a silky texture. It was good, but not great. After feedback from other Rose bartenders, Taylor swapped the muddled cucumber for cucumber shrub. “That was when it became a home run,” he says. “The shrub makes the cucumber much more present; muddled, it got lost.” The name is a home run, too: Ty Webb is Chevy Chase’s character in the movie “Caddyshack”. Open Sunday through Tuesday 8 p.m. to 1 a.m., Wednesday 5:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m., Thursday through Saturday 5:30 p.m. to 2 a.m.; 50 W. Broadway Ave., Jackson; 307/733-1500; therosejh.com
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eton Tiger, a Pan-Asian restaurant heavy on Indian dishes, made a misstep when it opened in 2014: Its name wasn’t “Teton Tiger” but “The Indian.” While it took three years for it to course-correct its name, its cocktail menu has always been on point. If you’re lucky, your drink will be crafted by Rene Woody, who, when not at the Tiger, runs the mobile cocktail enterprise Bar-SIP-Bar. “Bar Sip lets me be creative outside of work and I bring new drinks to Tiger,” Woody says. One of those new drinks is a remake of the gin-based Prohibition-era cocktail Last Word. Woody’s version uses tequila instead of gin. In keeping with the spirit of Prohibition, Tequila Last Word (lime juice, green chartreuse, tequila, Luxardo maraschino cherry) isn’t on the menu. But, says Woody, “I’m trying to teach all the other bartenders these off-menu drinks because word gets around.” This cocktail is worth a try even if you’re not the biggest fan of tequila. “If it’s too much, the cherry cuts everything,” Woody says. Open Monday through Saturday 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 5:30 to 10 p.m., closed Sunday; 165 Center St., Jackson; 307/733-4111; tetontiger.com
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The Paloma sloshie at Rations
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ou don’t necessarily think “cocktail” when you hear “converted minimart,” but that’s only if you haven’t discovered Rations, at the base of Teton Pass in Wilson. Occupying a portion of the Basecamp convenience store/gas station, Rations has its own sloshie mixologist. Yes, sloshie mixologist. Rations manager Jimmy Fraser hired The Rose’s former manager, Mckenzie Weinhold, to make Rations’ sloshies—frozen drinks (think ICEE or Slurpee) with alcohol added; they’re a Jackson Hole summer staple— the best in town. And Weinhold has obliged, with an interesting variety of flavors and alcohols available. (There’s always at least one each of a tequila, whiskey, rum, and vodka sloshie.) Weinhold says her sloshies are “not too boozy but packed with flavor from our housemade syrups and freshly juiced citrus.” I’m always torn between the cucumber lime (fresh lime juice, tequila, spicy cucumber tequila) and paloma (fresh squeezed grapefruit juice, tequila, lime juice); but I usually settle on the paloma. I’ve heard the argument that sloshies are not a cocktail, but I don’t go for it: They’re served chilled and mixed with liquor and fruit juices and are between 7 and 10 percent alcohol. Sounds like a cocktail to me. While it’s tempting to start drinking right away, do not break the tamper-resistant tape applied to the cup until you get to your destination; breaking the tape makes the drink an open container, which is illegal to have in your car. Sloshies available daily 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.; 5720 Wyoming State Highway 22, Wilson; 307/201-1995; rationswilson.com JH
There is something magical about mixing fresh clean air, big skies, magnificent views, hiking, skiing and fly fishing at their best. Add in an abundance of wildlife with Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park as neighbors. I invite you to visit our spectacular little corner of the world and experience the connection… Get that mountain feeling every day.
• Dedicated Realtor for 33 years and former Realtor of the Year • Jackson Hole resident for 44 years • Certified Residential Specialist and Graduate Realtors Institute • Officer Teton Board of Realtors and Chairman of Highschool Scholarship Committee • My philosophy is very simple………..It’s all about YOU!!
NANCY MARTINO Associate Broker, CRS,GRI
nancymartino@jhrea.com | 307.690.1022 80 W. Broadway | Jackson, WY SUMMER 2020 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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DINING OUT
It’s a Small World After All
Jackson Hole’s options for ethnic eats are expanding. BY MELISSA THOMASMA
GROWING UP IN Jackson Hole came with innumerable benefits, but a diverse array of ethnic cuisine was not among them. It was possible to enjoy Mexican, Chinese, and Italian, but discovering more varied fare often required a trip to a cosmopolitan locale. Happily, this is no longer the case. “It has been such a delight to see the explosion of ethnic options grow in Jackson Hole, particularly in the last three years,” says Allison Arthur, co-founder and editor of Dishing magazine, which focuses on the valley’s dining scene. “In addition to the strong Thai presence we have had for some time, we have seen the emergence of Indian, Korean, and Japanese.” Once, the trouble was that the choices were limited. Now, the challenge is picking from so many excellent alternatives. Hopefully we can help you narrow them down. Here are some of the ethnic restaurants locally celebrated for their authenticity and ambiance.
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BAPP Hunyam Kim Degman, born and raised in South Korea, opened her first Korean restaurant in 2011 in a tiny corner of Powderhorn Plaza. Despite its out-of-the-way location, it quickly became popular. Degman’s representation of her culinary heritage has remained a Jackson favorite throughout location changes. After a five-year stint inside the Snow King Center, she opened Bapp in a prime restaurant real estate location—on Broadway just a few blocks from the Town Square. Bapp’s menu offers fusion-style dishes like the Bapp Steak Burger, a beef patty topped with a crispy fried egg and kimchi, and chicken wings slathered in zingy “K-Red” sauce. Degman’s menu also offers a diverse lineup of traditional South Korean options like Bibimbap (a rice bowl heaped high with varying combinations of meat, vegetables, and other toppings), udon and rice noodle dishes that range from mild to spicy, and Jjigae, a traditional Korean stew made with clams, shrimp, and mussels; kimchi, pork, and tofu optional. Bapp also offers classic Korean pork and beef barbeque. Open Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Saturday from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m.; 340 W. Broadway Ave.; 307/201-1818, no website
Tom Kha Kai at Teton Thai Plate
TETON THAI PLATE Teton Thai Plate sits almost directly across from the Town Square, yet it’s one of the most difficult restaurants to find in the valley. At the end of a dead-end sidewalk, it’s as close as Jackson Hole gets to a hole-in-the-wall restaurant. And we mean “hole-inthe-wall” as a compliment: the energy at Teton Thai Plate goes into the food—fried rice, noodle dishes, and satays—rather than décor. Yes, that picture calendar hanging on the wall, which itself needs some paint retouching, is from 2015. Beautiful photos are timeless though, right? And who cares, anyway, when you’ve got a steaming bowl of Tom Kha Kai, rich with flavors of kaffir lime, lemongrass, and ginger, in front of you? Note that spice levels go from 1 to 5, and most people find 3 plenty spicy. A 5 has been known to bring some diners to tears. Open daily from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.; 135 N. Cache St.; 307/734-2654; no website
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BRADLY J. BONER
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Beef bibimbap, right, with miso soup at Bapp
FIGS Featuring Lebanese fare, FIGS offers Middle Eastern favorites, sometimes with a distinctly Wyoming twist. The intimate restaurant, which boasts a refined, relaxed ambiance, is tucked into the downtown Hotel Jackson. With its rustic-meetsmodern materials palette of steel, glass, stone, and iron, the property was deemed “The Most Beautiful Hotel in Wyoming” by Architectural Digest. Though the family behind Chicken kebabs and pita bread at FIGS FIGS and Hotel Jackson—the Darwiches—has called the valley home since 1977, their roots lie in Lebanon. True to this Lebanese culinary heritage, many FIGS dishes are grain and vegetable-forward, making it a great spot for vegetarians and vegans. The house-made pita arrives within minutes of emerging from the oven, still steaming. It’s perfect with made-to-order hummus, which we recommend topping with a sautéed or shawarma meat, or infusing it with garlic, sun dried tomato, and/or Aleppo pepper olive oil. (The restaurant imports over 400 gallons of organic Lebanese olive oil every year.) Open daily from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.; 120 Glenwood St.; 307/733-2200; hoteljackson.com
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ALPENROSE The menu at the Alpenrose fits with its exterior architecture. From the outside, the building looks as if it were transplanted to Teton Village directly from Tyrol. (Alpenrose is inside the Alpenhof Lodge, one of the first buildings built in the base area of the nascent Jackson Hole ski resort in the mid 1960s.) The menu has schnitzel, spatzle, and pfeffersteak (featuring bison), and also pheasant and rainbow trout. Although many Jackson Hole restaurants have since been awarded Wine Spectator’s Award of Excellence, Alpenrose was one of the first two restaurants in the state to receive this honor. (Since first receiving the award, Alpenrose has received it annually.) Its wine list highlights interesting bottles from Austria, France, and Italy. Dessert options include chocolate fondue, house-made apple strudel (with cranberries and almonds), and Engadiner Nusstorte, a traditional lemony tart from Graubunden, Switzerland, that the Alpenrose tops with salted caramel ice cream. Open daily from 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.; 3255 Village Dr., Teton Village; 307/733-3242; alpenhoflodge.com/eat
LINDLEY RUST
Alpenrose house-made apple strudel
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Suda’s Land and Sea Roll
SUDA IZAKAYA Like Sudachi, its sister restaurant off Teton Village Road, Suda Izakaya offers sushi and Japanese cuisine in a setting that celebrates the Asian nation’s aesthetic: bright spaces, clean lines, and warm wood accents. The menu uses ingredients like locally raised meats and regionally farmed vegetables to create traditional Japanese fare with a Wyoming flair. Kushiyaki (skewers) can be stacked with veggies, regionally sourced pork, salmon, or Wyoming bison ribeye. The Land and Sea roll includes a tartare with beef from the local Lockhart Ranch. Even dessert balances Japanese roots with local ingredients: dig into the Sudachi Sundae, made of black sesame ice cream from Moo’s Gourmet Ice Cream, chocolate sauce, and the sweet crunch of sesame brittle. Open Monday through Saturday from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.; 140 N. Cache St. Suite B; 307/201-1616; sudajh.com
LATHAM JENKINS
Steamed dumplings at Everest Momo Shack served with a tomato and roasted sesame seed dipping sauce
Miazga’s pierogi and kielbasa 136
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EVEREST MOMO SHACK Named for traditional Nepali dumplings, Everest Momo Shack serves hearty curries alongside other dishes from Tibet, India, and Thailand. Its bright downtown space is decorated with photographs of Himalayan peaks and Buddhist spiritual leaders. Owners Sange and Rita Sherpa emigrated to the United States from the Everest region of Nepal. It’s clear that they draw deep inspiration from the mountains and celebrate the similarities between Jackson Hole and their place of origin. The menu’s signature items are momos: steamed thick-skinned dumplings stuffed with bison, chicken, and vegetables, served with a tomato-and-roastedsesame-seed dipping sauce. Alternatively, order them fried with bell peppers, onion, and tomatoes, accompanied by a spicy chili dipping sauce. There’s also Thali, an Indian/Nepali meal of small portions of several items like rice, vegetable and lentil soup, papadum, and chicken or lamb. Open Tuesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.; 245 W. Pearl Ave.; 307/201-1674; everestmomoshack.com MIAZGA’S When Miazga’s opened in January 2019, it was the first time in Jackson Hole that you could get homemade pierogi—pasta pillows stuffed with sweet or savory fillings like potato, cheese, ground meat, sauerkraut, and fruit. (Don’t ask for the recipe; it’s “top secret.”) But the siblings behind the restaurant, Jennifer and Joe Miazga, didn’t start offering pierogi, considered the national dish of Poland, just to do something new. Miazga’s entire menu of Polish and Italian fare has its roots in their childhood. They grew up in upstate New York surrounded by grandparents and great-aunts and -uncles who ran a family bakery and catering business. It is recipes from these—representing the intersection of the family’s Polish
KATHRYN ZIESIG
and Italian heritage—that now populate the menu of the siblings’ restaurant in Wyoming. In addition to hand-pinched pierogi, there’s grilled kielbasa and sauerkraut, which they make, of course; and “their grandmother’s” pasta with red gravy and meatballs. The Miazgas claim their Reuben sammie is the valley’s best, and they make their desserts daily. These skew Italian—éclairs drizzled with chocolate and filled with thick pastry cream; crispy, sugar-dusted cannoli; and pies featuring seasonal fruit. Open daily from 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.; 399 W. Broadway Ave.; 307/733-2784; miazgas.com
El Abuelito Family Mexican Restaurant’s nachos deluxe: corn tortilla chips covered with beans, melted cheese, onions, tomatoes, sour cream, and guacamole
EL ABUELITO El Abuelito opened in November 2001 and, unlike other valley restaurants at the time, offered authentic Mexican fare, not TexMex or Americanized versions of Mexican dishes. While the menu is extensive enough to have something for everyone—fajitas, substantial burritos, enchiladas, mole, and, of course, baskets of fresh-made chips and salsa—it’s the restaurant’s Jumbo Mexican Original Margarita that is almost universally ordered and loved. What makes these margs so special? Fresh-squeezed limes, and the choice of five different tequila flavors (raspberry, blackberry, strawberry, peach, or banana). Back to the food: classics like tacos, enchiladas, tostadas, burritos, and fajitas come with your choice of chicken, beef, or seafood. If you’re feeling adventurous, go for a whole pan-fried tilapia; Tampiqueña (skirt steak grilled over charcoal, topped with baby shrimp, mushroom sauce, and melted cheese); or Camarones Jalisco, prawns cooked with slices of ham and sautéed in a spicy sauce. Open daily 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. (11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday); 385 W. Broadway Ave.; 307/733-1207; elabuelitojh.com JH
SLEEP IS OUR PASSION Visit Linen Alley, your local Vispring dealer, for more information about the World’s Finest beds. TETON SIGNS
LINEN ALLEY
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linenalleyjh.com LINENALLEY.COM 307.734.7424 185 SCOTT LANE, JACKSON, WY 83001 185 Scott Lane TEL: 307-734-7424 Jackson Hole
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DINING OUT
RESTAURANT
LOCATION
PHONE
BREAKFAST
LUNCH
DINNER
ALPENHOF LODGE Bistro
Teton Village
307-733-3242
$ $/$$ $$/$$$
Dining In Catering & The Wildwood Room
Victor, ID
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Jackson
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Jackson
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Top of Bridger Gondola
307-732-3177
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HOTEL JACKSON FIGS
JACKSON HOLE MOUNTAIN RESORT Piste Mountain Bistro
$$$
Palate at National Museum of Wildlife Art Jackson
307-201-5208
$
Pinky G’s Pizzeria
Jackson
307-734-PINK(7465)
$
$$
Leek’s Pizzeria: Leek’s Marina
Grand Teton National Park
307-543-2494
$
$
Peaks Restaurant
Grand Teton National Park
307-543-2831 x220
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Trapper Grill/Deadman’s Bar
Grand Teton National Park
307-543-2831 x220
$/$$
Jackson
307-734 3351
Snake River Brewing Co.
Jackson
307-739-2337 $ $$
Teton Pines
Wilson
307-733-1005
Teton Thai
Teton Village
307-733-0022 $$ $$
The Silver Dollar Bar and Grill
Jackson
307-732-3939
SIGNAL MOUNTAIN LODGE
$
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SNOW KING MOUNTAIN Kings Grill
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ALCOHOL
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Family-friendly brewpub since 1994
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Experience exceptional food, service and ambiance
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Enjoy Rocky Mountain cuisine at 9,095
Lunch with a view, amazing food, private events Voted Best Pizza in Jackson since opening in 2011
Homemade pizza on Jackson Lake in GTNP
Casual sustainable dining in a relaxed setting
Average entree; $= under $15, $$= $16-20, $$$= $21+ SUMMER 2020 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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CATCH OF THE DAY
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BEST TAKE OUT FOOD IN JACKSON
S. Glenwood St
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W. Broadway PINK GARTER THEATRE
Pearl Ave
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50 W. BROADWAY • 1 BLOCK FROM THE TOWN SQ
PalateJH.com (307) 201-5208 info@palatejh.com Lunch at The National Museum of Wildlife Art 2820 Rungius Road CATERING AND EVENT SPACE AVAILABLE
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ART SCENE
Caption
The Art at the Heart
Jackson Hole is known as an art town for its galleries and its National Museum of Wildlife Art and annual Fall Arts Festival, but a 55-year-old nonprofit arts organization is the heart of the valley’s art scene. BY JULIE FUSTANIO KLING 142
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BRADLY J. BONER RYAN JONES
Art Association of Jackson Hole executive director Bronwyn Minton hangs stars in the nonprofit’s gallery. She asked the community a month earlier to create stars for the exhibit and received hundreds of submissions.
One of the biggest fundraisers for the Art Association is the annual WhoDunnit show, for which local artists create works that are sold anonymously. Art Association fundraisers support the nonprofit’s more than 225 yearly classes, which about 1,000 students of all ages take.
BRONWYN MINTON HAD her first solo show at the Art Association of Jackson Hole in the mid-1990s. At that time the Art Association was on Pearl Avenue, in a space just west of the post office. Minton was a bright young graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute and Rhode Island School of Design recently relocated to Jackson Hole. On the opening night of her show, which included pieces inspired by the valley and the craggy Tetons, Minton could never have imagined that, three decades later, the Art Association would have a home that included a gallery, paint shop, ceramics studio, photo lab, multiple classrooms, and multi-purpose studio for woodworking, encaustic painting, and jewelry making. In all, it’s a 10,000-square-foot space in the Center for the Arts, a building shared with numerous other local creative-oriented nonprofits. Nor could Minton anticipate that she would assume the position of executive director of the Art Association in the spring of 2019. Between her first show at the Art Association and taking on the role of executive director, Minton wore many hats at the nonprofit. This is partially because she is a working artist, educator, and parent, and also because there are so many different hats one can wear at the association. With more than a thousand students and more than 225 classes a year, the Art Association is the place in the valley for aspiring artists to learn and for veteran artists to grow. Enrollment is at an all-time high for classes, with students ranging from preschoolers to octogenarians. The Art Association currently has thirteen full-time employees, including two teachers for youth programs. Tuition for ongoing classes is between $40 and $400 and if you don’t want to enroll in a class, but do want to use Art Association facilities, there are punch card passes that can be used during open studios and “Try Nights” for everything from stamp making to watercolors. In the Art Association’s 2019 annual report, Lisa Walker, a local fashion designer, is quoted as saying she uses the Art
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Association studio for her printmaking and photography. “I’m really glad not to have to outsource production and to keep it right here in this community,” she says. “Making and looking at art has a myriad of benefits for community members of all ages. Art connects people, has cognitive benefits, builds community, and has physiological benefits.” To further expand its reach and make its programs more accessible, the Art Association collaborates with more than two dozen other area nonprofits and offers scholarships and donation-based classes. For example, its partnership with Community Entry Services allows a young girl and her mother to take a class together. “Basically, we are a school and a studio space for all kinds of media that collaborates with artists from all over the world,” Minton says. “We make a big point of having well-rounded, well-educated artists on staff. We employ creative people and we support them, too.”
Realizing Dreams PRICE CHAMBERS
IN 2016, EMILY Boespflug, an art teacher turned plein air painter, was the Art Association’s Artist of the Year, catapulting her into a successful career as an independent artist. After leading the Art Association’s children’s and adult programs, raising funds, and teaching for nearly ten years, she became one of the many artists whose career has been helped Artist Emily Boespflug was the 2016 along by the association. Art Association Artist of the Year; since then, she has had a successful career as an independent artist.
BRADLY J. BONER
Boespflug, who studied art in school but never thought she had what it took to be a professional artist, says teaching classes for kids at the Art Association was a resume builder. As she took on additional roles directing programing at the nonprofit she gained the confidence to strike out as a full-time artist. Since 2016, Boespflug has had numerous solo exhibits at local cafes. emilysart.net
Shannon Marie Schacht
IN 2015, SELF-taught artist Shannon Marie Schacht set a goal: get her charcoal drawings of wildlife into a local gallery. But every gallery she approached— and she approached almost all of the galleries in town—turned her down. “Every single one of them said, ‘We like your style, we like your detail, but come back with paintings,’” she says. So, in the fall of 2015 Schacht enrolled in a four-week painting class taught by Sharon Thomas. During the class, which was the first painting class she had taken, Schacht learned how to highlight, shadow, and choose acrylic paint colors. Six months later, she walked into West Lives On Gallery, one of the galleries she had approached earlier with her charcoal drawings, with a portfolio of acrylic paintings of wildlife. The gallery agreed to represent her, and still does, as does Caldera House Gallery in Teton Village. “I needed that kick in the pants and the support that the Art Association offered to gain the confidence and learn the technique that has made me successful,” Schacht says. In August 2019 Schacht quit her job as the marketing and administrative assistant at Simply Health to become a full-time artist. In addition to painting wildlife, she takes commissions to do family pets. Beyond the two galleries representing her in Jackson Hole are galleries in Park City, Utah, and in Whitefish and Billings, Montana. “It was the Art Association that gave me the courage to go out and ask galleries in mountain towns to represent me,” she says. shannonmarieartistry.com 144
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JACKSON HOLE IS rated as the number one “arts-vibrant small community” in the country in the most recent Arts Vibrancy Index released by SMU DataArts, the National Center for Arts Research at Southern Methodist University. This arts vibrancy, although on a different scale today, was simmering back in 1963. That year Georgie Morgan, Pam McCool, Francie Corbett, Lee Vandewater, and Fran Lang established a collaborative artists’ studio to create together, teach, and show their work. Morgan, who passed away in the fall of 2019, recalled that the collaborative’s roots actually went back to the 1950s, when employment opportunities in the valley were sparse. “It started out to help develop craft and art skills which might supplement the summer’s wages, and to introduce art as an essential part of our lives,” she told former Art Association executive director Karen Stewart, who is now on the board of directors for the Center for the Arts. Early on, classes were held in the basement of the American Legion Hall and, after its completion in 1987, at Teton Pines Resort. Today the exhibits continue to go beyond the walls of the Art Association’s gallery in the Center for the Arts: kids’ artwork is on display at the Teton County Library and the work of senior artists at the Senior Center. The Art Association also collaborates with the Center for the Arts on a residency program for international artists: artists-in-residence travel to Jackson and create installations in the courtyard in the middle of the Center. Last year, the Art Association Gallery was filled with vibrant sounds and colors of a gamelatron, a sound-producing kinetic sculpture and light show designed after a traditional Tibetan form of music, providing sound therapy. “The strategic planning process we recently undertook made it very clear about what we are doing for our community in terms of providing excellence,” Minton says. “We are a space for professional artists. We are not just providing afterschool care.” Board member Shari Brownfield says, “We’ve been through a lot in the past 55 years and we are now secure in our mission—to en-
SCENIC SAFARIS
courage a vital creative community by providing exposure to and space for the arts.” Minton adds, “Sometimes as an artist you get squirreled away in your studio. I know I do, so I feel super grateful that I have this community. It provides a really amazing opportunity to create.” JH
SAY YES TO ADVENTURE 1255 South US Highway 89, Jackson WY 83001 307-734-8898
PRICE CHAMBERS
What every visitor to Grand Teton National Park needs, all in one place.
The Art Association’s annual Art Fairs include photography, jewelry, painting, knitting, and more by artists from across the country.
Shop for Art–Support the Art Association LIKE MANY ARTS organizations, which often fall to the bottom of the needs list when it comes to public funding, the Art Association has dabbled in experimental fundraising events, such as the Cirque du Soleil-inspired Revelry Party (in 2017) and the pop-up Mountain Craft store (2019). Most Art Association fundraisers are in the summer, anchored by two outdoor Art Fairs, one in July and one in August. These fairs, opportunities for artists talented and lucky enough to get juried in to sell their work, have a $5 entrance fee for the public. The 2020 Art Fairs, which will include photography, jewelry, paintings, knitting, and more by artists from across the country, are July 10 through 12 and August 7 through 9. Traditionally the fairs have been held in Miller Park, but this summer they’ll take place at the base of Snow King. Takin’ it to the Streets, an Art Association-organized art fair for local artists, happens on the Town Square September 13. There is also an annual Christmas bazaar, December 5; an anonymous art sale called WhoDunnit, February 27; and a ceramics sale, November 19 through 20. You can shop at the Art Association’s professional art supplies retail store the year around. The profits from this shop, open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday (and the only art supply store in the valley), contribute almost 2 percent to the association’s annual programming and administrative budget.
A FULL SERVICE RESORT, OFFERING:
(307) 543-2831 signalmountainlodge.com Signal Mountain Lodge L.L.C. is an authorized concessioner of Grand Teton National Park
• Lodging • 2 Restaurants, Pizzeria and a Full Service Bar • Camping (electric hookups) • Public Showers and Laundromat • Boat Rentals • Gift Shops • Guided Fishing • Scenic Snake River Float Trips • Gas/General Store • Located on Jackson Lake, 25 miles from Yellowstone
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THE COEUR D’ALENE ART AUCTION
Best of
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GALLERIES
WHETHER YOU’RE PASSIONATE
about plein-air, a serious collector of Western paintings by contemporary or deceased masters, or a casual art fan searching for a keepsake to remind you of your time spent here, in Jackson Hole you have the opportunity to enjoy art in its multitude of forms. Over the past two decades, Jackson Hole has grown to become one of the most heralded art centers of the West, popping off the tongues of aficionados alongside the likes of Santa Fe, Palo Alto, and Scottsdale. Begin by visiting some of the galleries highlighted here that show the diversity of art available in the valley, from traditional wildlife and Western art to contemporary paintings and sculptures.
Charles M. Russell, Frederic Remington, Thomas Moran, Henry Farny, and Carl Rungius are among the featured artists in this year’s auction of the finest classical Western and American paintings. For over 30 years the Auction has represented past masters and outstanding contemporary artists. To be held July 25 at the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno, Nevada.
208.772.9009 cdaartauction.com
CRAZY HORSE
Crazy Horse Jewelry celebrates its 42nd year in business this year! Open since 1978, Crazy Horse has one of the largest collections of authentic handmade Native American Indian jewelry and crafts in Jackson Hole. Navajo, Hopi, Zuni, and Santo Domingo artists create jewelry, pottery, baskets, fetishes, rugs and beadwork in classic and contemporary designs. Visit our store in Gaslight Alley in downtown Jackson to see this beautiful work!
125 N Cache St 307.733.4028 CrazyHorseJewelry.com 146
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DANSHELLEY JEWELERS
Reflecting our beautiful surroundings is definitely exciting! Experience a delightful look into the world of gems. A visit to this gallery is a must with designs that have truly been inspired by living and loving life at 6,000 feet.
125 N. Cache, Jackson, WY 307.733.2259 danshelley.com
DRIGGS SUMMER ARTS
Driggs Summer Arts features the 9th Annual Driggs Plein Air Competition July 26 – Aug 1, 2020. Hundreds of plein air paintings by 75 artists featured for sale at the Teton Arts Gallery. All are invited to the free ‘Downtown Sounds’ concert by Ben Winship and the Growling Old Men at 4pm followed by the Opening Reception on July 26. Awards Ceremony on July 31 at 5pm. Schedule may change. Updates at driggspleinair.org.
60 South Main St. Driggs, ID 83422 307.690.2234
GALLERY WILD
Gallery Wild showcases contemporary works of art inspired by wildlife, wild places, open spaces and conservation. Gallery Wild’s works and philosophy are inspired by and directly impacted by thousands of hours in the field observing, studying and falling in love with all things wild. Gallery Wild features established and emerging artists who offer a variety of mediums that includes, painting, sculpture and photography. Gallery Wild also features a working artist studio where Carrie Wild and visiting gallery artists showcase their techniques and share their process with guests as they produce new work.
80 West Broadway 307.203.2322 gallerywild.com
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF WILDLIFE ART
The National Museum of Wildlife Art is consistently recognized as a top attraction in Jackson Hole. The stunning building overlooks the National Elk Refuge and features 14 Masterwork Galleries, Museum Shop, Palate Restaurant, Children’s Discovery Gallery, Library, and outdoor Sculpture Trail. World-class exhibitions change regularly so there is always something new to see. Featuring work by prominent artists such as Georgia O’Keeffe, Andy Warhol, and Carl Rungius, the Museum’s unsurpassed permanent collection inspires humanity’s relationship with nature. The National Museum of Wildlife Art is a private 501(c)3 non-profit organization.
2820 Rungius Rd. 307.733.5771 WildlifeArt.org
HINES GOLDSMITHS
Celebrating 50 Years Hines Goldsmiths is Jackson’s Fine Jewelry, hand etched Crystal and Glass Gallery. Our famous Teton Collection is available in Karat Golds or Sterling Silver in a range of sizes and prices with our Diamond pave and inlays of Opal or Turquoise highlighting our superb craftsmanship. In our Jackson studio we also create the Wyoming Bucking Bronco and custom Elk Ivory jewelry as well as Wyoming’s largest collection of unique gold and silver charms. Our dazzling collection of crystal and glass bar and giftware is hand etched with local wildlife. Custom pieces can also be created for weddings, anniversaries or business promotions.
80 Center Street 307.733.5599 hines-gold.com
RARE GALLERY OF JACKSON HOLE
RARE Gallery, a collector’s destination! At 6,100 square feet, one of Jackson Hole’s largest and most acclaimed galleries, we represent nationally and internationally collected artists. Featuring museum exhibited artists in mediums of painting, sculpture, photography, glass, 3 dimensional art, and designer jewelry. RARE Gallery was named Mountain Living Magazine “Hot Shop in Jackson Hole.” Our Curator is available for private gallery or in home consultations.
60 East Broadway 307.733.8726 raregalleryjacksonhole.com
NATIVE JACKSON HOLE
Native has been serving clients in Jackson Hole since 1983. We feature contemporary, museumquality fine art work and artisan, precious and semiprecious jewelry. Our fine art collection includes local landscapes, wildlife and one-of-a-kind Native American art. Whether you are searching for a handcrafted gold ring of the Tetons highlighted with a diamond or fine art painting featuring the beauty of the area, our curated selection and decades of experience will to connect you to Jackson Hole’s rich living history.
10 West Broadway 1.800.726.1803 NativeJH.com
A TOUCH OF CLASS
Add a little sparkle to your life by stopping by A Touch of Class. Showcasing spectacular jewelry and sparkling keepsakes, A Touch of Class has been serving Jackson Hole since 1983. Our familyowned boutique features premium selections and exclusive charms from internationally renowned brands such as Swarovski® and Pandora, plus locally made charms and jewelry to serve as a thoughtful memento of your time in Jackson Hole.
125 N Cache St 307.733.3356 Facebook.com/ATouchofClassJH SUMMER 2020 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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WEST LIVES ON
WESTERN DESIGN EXHIBIT + SALE
WOMEN ARTISTS OF THE WEST
“Last Rays of the Sun” Leslie Kirchner
The West Lives On Gallery features fine art reflecting the rich heritage of the American West. Featuring Western, wildlife and landscape art in our traditional and contemporary galleries. The West Lives On Gallery has been representing over 100 national and regional artists since 1998.
55 & 75 North Glenwood 307.734.2888 westliveson.com
September 10-13 The preeminent exhibition of the finest Western design in the world with a twist. From cowboy to contemporary, meet the maker and shop direct at every price point during this festive event. Over 100 national artists present contemporary and traditional handcrafted, original creations of furniture, fashion, jewelry, and accessories for the home during the Fall Arts Festival.
Women Artists of the West celebrates their 50th anniversary with an on line art exhibition and sale. Available June 15th until July 30, 2020, this Jubilee exhibition will celebrate women in the arts and the beauty in the world around us. Works include traditional fine art in many genres and of varied subject matter from contemporary to wildlife and portraiture. Help us celebrate our 50th year as we share the unique vision of over 300 professional women artists from all over the United States in our online shows during 2020. WAOW is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.
100 E. Snow King Avenue 307.690.9719 WesternDesignConference.com
TERRY AND CLAUDIA WINCHELL
Mary Ann Cherry, President 208-524-1284 maryanncherry@icloud.com waow.org
375 South Cache Street - PO Box 3790 - Jackson,Wyoming 83001 - 307.733.2669 or 307.690.2669 Email: TW@fightingbear.com Website: fightingbear.com 148
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AS THE HOLE DEEPENS
March Mindfulness BY TIM SANDLIN // ILLUSTRATIONS BY BIRGITTA SIF
THE PROBLEM KICKED off when Juniper Walsowski-Smith asked her grandmother Heather Heidi for two-thousand dollars toward a certification in Forest Bathing. Juniper was steeping fennel fronds in almost but not quite boiling water from Iceland, making a tea guaranteed to out-relax Xanax. She said, “I aspire to guide spirits into tranquility.” Heather Heidi tossed a bar of Dr. Bronner’s Castile Soap at her granddaughter. “Bathe in the forest with this. Cuts down on toe jam and saves two grand.” Juniper wouldn’t touch the Castile. It was too harsh even for her fingertips. “We bathe ethereal cores in the forest, Grandma. Tree bark invigorates chi.” Heather Heidi opened the refrigerator and pulled out a Red Bull. “Is your chi naked when you wash it in the woods?” “Some choose to Forest Bathe nude. Personally, I wear Stio.” Heather Heidi popped the top. “Last time I got naked in the woods I was your age. Came home with four ticks. Those buggers love damp and dark.” Juniper said, “Ew, Grandma. TMI.” Heather Heidi had no clue what TMI meant, so she plowed on. “What’s the difference between Forest Bathing and sitting on a rock next to a babbling creek, besides two-thousand?” Juniper drew out the little wicker basket of fennel, leaving a lime Jell-O–looking liquid in the cup. “They’re nothing alike. Sitting on a rock leads to daydreams. When done with purpose, Forest Bathing blossoms into mindfulness.” “That’s my second least favorite word, after karma. Why can’t you say ‘Pay attention’? I pay attention outdoors. Otherwise you step in a badger hole and break your ankle like your grandfather Clyde did in college when he went Forest Pot Smoking.” Juniper sipped her tea, made a wrinkly face, and stirred in two tablespoons of locally harvested honey. “Mindfulness is absorbing your surroundings, soaking the very substance of the world into your blood. You never soak nature into your blood. You hike.” 150
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“Okay, smarty-shorts, which needle makes better floss—spruce or fir?” “Those are trees?” “Your spirit guide can’t tell a lodgepole from a totem pole.” “She concentrates on audio and odor, not artificial labels.” “Can she smell the difference between bear and coyote poop? I can. I can tell you the gender of an elk at a hundred yards without seeing it.” On this last rant, Clyde wandered into the kitchen, searching for food. He said, “Black bear poop has berries. Grizzly poop has tiny bells.” Juniper ignored him. “I also need a trip to Japan. The authentic bathing forests are in Japan. That’s where haiku comes from.” Clyde said, “There’s a national forest out the back door. You can stay home and still win the first-place trophy.” Now, he’d hit on the current family sore spot. Juniper almost raised her voice, but, of course, she didn’t. “Forest Bathing is not competitive.” Clyde stole Heather Heidi’s Red Bull. Couples who have been together for fifty years do that sort of thing, especially if the one doing the stealing is male. “Nonsense,” Clyde said. “Everything in America is competitive.” Clyde’s been taking a load of grief from his loved ones of late for signing up for a hiking contest. The winner has to have hiked every mapped trail in Grand Teton and Yellowstone, stopping for a selfie once a mile for authentication. All of it ends up on Instagram. Competition hiking gets Heather Heidi so incensed that for the moment she forgot the Forest Bath. “Walking in the mountains is the human way to touch God,” she said. “It’s spiritual. It’s not how we win a medal.” Clyde chugged Red Bull. “At least I smell the rosehips. Randy Anders speed climbs. Fastest one from the car to the peak and back wins. He doesn’t even pretend to see nature.” Heather Heidi made a tut sound. “That’s obscene. Some
things should be done for inner grace. Not to beat your peers.” Clyde either laughed or smirked. With him, it can be a trick to tell which is which. “There is no point in an action if you can’t win at it.” “Fly fishing?” “There’s folks making thousands of dollars catching and releasing fish, although trout pay a lot less than bass.” Juniper said, “Mandy Jane is in Santa Barbara at a yoga meet right now. She aspires to be a master yogini.” As usual, Heather Heidi was outraged. “Yoga is a practice, not a game. Competing goes against the whole spirit of being spiritual. It should be no more scored than singing in the shower or a detox body cleanse.” “I’ll bet dollars to donuts there’s a detox circuit,” Clyde said. “They’ll start meditation next.” “That’s already a sport,” Juniper said. I’m thinking of trying out.” “Meditation as sport?” “They have one-on-one single elimination tournaments. March Mindfulness. The athletes wear brain-sensing headbands that pick up EEG brain waves. You get five minutes and the one whose machine registers the blankest is declared Mellowest Dude.” Heather Heidi opened the refrigerator for another Red Bull.
She protected it with both hands. “A prize for not thinking. Clyde would win that in a heartbeat.” Clyde jumped on his phone to Google Things that shouldn’t be competitive but are. “Here’s a Bible verse contest series. This one I’m reading about second place shot the winner.” Juniper tossed her green tea down the garbage disposal and went for her own Red Bull. “I read about that. He said the winner cheated on Leviticus. Used an Alexa earpiece.” “Here’s one that’ll set your receptors tingling,” Clyde said. “The Air Sex National Championship in Austin, Texas.” Heather Heidi put her imagination at play but failed. “How?” “Like Air Guitar, only . . .” “I don’t want to know.” “Says here Austin is the Air Sex capital of America.” “Won’t the girls in Wilson be jealous.” “Only rules are no nudity and you must have an imaginary person or object.” Juniper wrinkled her nose. “Object?” “And no real orgasms,” Clyde said. Heather Heidi said, “How can they tell the difference? You never do.” JH SUMMER 2020 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
151
JUST A FEW THINGS TO DO IN
JACKSON HOLE
JACKSON n Try Puerto Rican food at the
Whistling Grizzly (p. 64).
n Check out the Jackson Hole
Historical Society & Museum (p. 36).
n Visit the Teton Boulder Park
(p. 24).
n Grab a snack at the Flying
Squirrel (p. 24).
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JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2020
n Get a bagel at Wyoming’s first
bagel bakery (p. 27).
n Sip Sparkling Hop Water at
Snake River Brewing (p. 126).
TETON VILLAGE n Take a to-die-for-photo from
the top of the JHMR Bridger Gondola (p. 22).
n Enjoy a Bittersweet Symphony
n Enjoy Tyrolean food at
n Eat Bibimbap at Bapp (p. 134).
n Go downhill mountain biking
at Snake River Grill (p. 126).
n Visit the Art Association Gallery in
the Center for the Arts (p. 142).
Alpenrose (p. 134). (p. 109).
GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK
n Snap a photo from Schwabacher’s
n Try to catch cutthroat trout on the
n Hike around Jenny Lake.
Landing (p. 22).
Snake River (p. 72).
n Go sailing on Jackson Lake
(p. 100).
n Climb the Grand Teton with a
guide (p. 120).
FURTHER AFIELD n Treat yourself to a week at the
Darwin (p. 96).
n Check out Grand Targhee’s lift-
WILSON n Get a sloshie at Rations (p. 130). n Ride the Lithium trail on Teton
Pass (p. 109).
accessed mountain biking (p. 109).
n Take a UTV into the Gros Ventres
(p. 116).
Go to jacksonholemagazine.com for more details. SUMMER 2020 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
153
Best of
JH
CALENDAR OF EVENTS
REBECCA NOBLE
Summer 2020
This calendar was compiled in April and reflects the status of events at that time. Some may since have been cancelled or rescheduled, so please check with organizers in advance.
The annual Fourth of July Parade through downtown is one of the highlights of summer in Jackson Hole.
Area code 307 unless noted
ONGOING
JACKSON HOLE RODEO: A long-standing Jackson tradition, the rodeo shows off Jackson’s cowboy culture. 8 p.m. Wednesdays, Saturdays, and some Fridays through Labor Day, tickets start at $21, 733-7927, jhrodeo.com GONDOLA RIDES: Just because you can’t ski the slopes doesn’t mean the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort lifts stop running. The resort’s aerial tram is closed this summer for maintenance, but the Bridger Gondola will be running, although hours and prices were not available at press time. From the 9,095-foot top of the Bridger Gondola, enjoy beautiful views of Jackson Hole, Grand Teton National Park, and the Gros Ventre Range, access to hiking trails, and endless photo ops. 733-2292, jacksonhole.com 154
JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2020
GRAND TETON MUSIC FESTIVAL OPEN REHEARSAL: Watch the Festival Orchestra as it prepares for its weekend performances. 10 a.m. Fridays from July 12 to August 16, Walk Festival Hall, $20, 733-1128, gtmf.org
JACKSON HOLE PARAGLIDING: Tour Teton Village from above. No experience necessary to fly tandem with a professional pilot. Daily at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort base, from $295, 690-8726, jhparagliding.com
GRAND TETON MUSIC FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA: Enjoy some of the country’s best musicians playing in an unparalleled setting. Fridays (8 p.m.) and Saturdays (6 p.m.) from July 3 to August 14, Walk Festival Hall, 733-1128, gtmf.org
JACKSON HOLE PEOPLE’S MARKET: Browse fresh, local produce while enjoying prepared foods, music, and beer. 4-7 p.m. Wednesdays June 10 through September 23, base of Snow King, free, tetonslowfood.org/peoples-market
YOGA ON THE TRAIL: Do downward dog surrounded by sculptures of wildlife and overlooking the National Elk Refuge at these free yoga classes at the National Museum of Wildlife Art. Led by teachers from several valley yoga studios, the class is B.Y.O.M. (bring your own mat). Thursdays at 11 a.m. between July 9 and August 27, Free, wildlifeart.org
JACKSON HOLE FARMERS MARKET: This weekly event at the Town Square is the perfect way to start your weekend—with a fabulous showcase of fresh produce and goodies grown and made nearby. Local chef/restaurant demonstrations and entertainment changes weekly. 8 a.m.-noon, Saturdays from June 20 through September 19, Town Square, jacksonholefarmersmarket.com
THE SLOW FOOD FARM STAND sells local produce. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays from June 25th through September 25th. Next to Twigs Garden Center (890 US-89, Jackson), tetonslowfood.org JACKSON HOLE SHOOTOUT: The longest continuously running gunfight in the U.S., the Jackson Hole Shootout has been a Wyoming tradition since 1957. 6 p.m. Monday to Saturday through Labor Day, Town Square, free, 733-3316 STAGECOACH RIDES: Take a ten-minute ride in a stagecoach around downtown Jackson. Daily through Labor Day, corner of Broadway and Cache, tickets start at $6
REBECCA NOBLE
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF WILDLIFE ART: This museum presents an expansive view of the wildlife art genre with its 5,000-plus-piece permanent collection. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily through October, tickets $15 (adults), $13 (seniors), $6 (1 child), $2 (additional children), free (4 & under), 733-5771, wildlifeart.org Catch the Jackson Hole Rodeo on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and some Fridays through Labor Day weekend.
MAY 23: “TUCKER SMITH: A CELEBRATION OF NATURE” opens at the National Museum of Wildlife Art and hangs through August 23. 733-5771, wildlifeart.org 28: MIX’D MEDIA celebrates the exhibit “Tucker Smith: A Celebration of Nature.” 6-9 p.m., National Museum of Wildlife Art, free, 733-5771, wildlifeart.org
JUNE 6: JACKSON HOLE HALF MARATHON & 5K is a unique opportunity to run from Teton Village to East Jackson. 8 a.m. run start/7 a.m. walk start (half only), $70 for half marathon/$25 for 5k, Phil Baux Park (finish), jhhalf.com 6: “URBAN WILDLIFE: LEARNING TO CO+EXIST” opens at the National Museum of Wildlife Art and hangs through August 16. 733-5771, wildlifeart.org 20: 9TH ANNUAL PLEIN AIR FEST, ETC. has over fifty invited artists painting outside. Collectors bid on the artwork later in the afternoon. 9 a.m.-3 p.m., National Museum of Wildlife Art’s Sculpture Trail, free, 733-5771, wildlifeart.org
20: ANNUAL SNOW KING HILL CLIMB begins at the Town Square; runners do 2.3 miles to the top of Snow King Mountain. 9 a.m., Town Square, 733-5056, tetonparksandrec.org
4: ANNUAL 4TH OF JULY 10K is a sure way to get your Independence Day off to a great start. 8 a.m., Owen-Bircher Park in Wilson, 733-6094, skinnyskis.com
25-27: JACKSON HOLE FOOD & WINE FESTIVAL is a three-day event celebrating food, wine, sprits, and brews. Tickets start at $150, 690-4824, jhfoodandwine.com
4: PATRIOTIC POPS is a concert by the Grand Teton Music Festival celebrating the Fourth of July. Attend in person or experience the concert audio broadcast live throughout the Teton Village Commons. 6 p.m., Walk Festival Hall, $25 (outdoor broadcast is free), 733-1128, gtmf.org
27: TETON OGRE ADVENTURE RACE is an eight- or twelve-hour multisport adventure race for teams of two, three, or four people that includes trekking/trail running and mountain biking. Teton Valley, Idaho, $95/ person, 208/970-0999, tetonogrear.com 27: WRUN FOR WRAY, THE GRAND TARGHEE HILL CLIMB is a roughly 3-mile uphill run beginning at the base of the Dreamcatcher chairlift and ending, after a 1,840 foot climb, at the top of Fred’s Mountain. 9 a.m., Grand Targhee Resort, wrunforwray.athlete360.com
JULY 3: GTMF PRESENTS: BERNADETTE PETERS. 8 p.m. Walk Festival Hall, tickets start at $37.50, 733-1128, gtmf.org
10-12: ANNUAL ART FAIR JACKSON HOLE is an outdoor, juried art fair that draws artists and artisans from across the country. Friday & Saturday 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Sunday 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Snow King Ball Park, $5, kids under 10 are free, 733-6379, artassociation.org 10-12: TARGHEE FEST brings world-class musicians to play three days of outdoor concerts on the western side of the Tetons. Grand Targhee Resort, single-day tickets from $85, 353-2300, grandtarghee.com 17-26: TETON COUNTY FAIR is the ultimate slice of local life, with games, rides, 4-H competitions, and concerts. Teton County Fairgrounds, 733-5289, tetoncountyfair.com SUMMER 2020 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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Old Bill’s Fun Run for Charities, an annual event, is the biggest community fundraiser of the year.
12: LOTOJA challenges amateur cyclists to complete 206 miles over three mountain passes and through Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming, all in one day. It ends at Teton Village. 801/546-0090, lotojaclassic.com
RYAN DORGAN
12: OLD BILL’S FUN RUN FOR CHARITIES is Jackson Hole’s biggest community fundraiser and includes race and fun divisions. 10 a.m., Jackson Town Square, 739-1026, cfjacksonhole.org
23: MIX’D MEDIA celebrates the opening of the exhibit “Urban Wildlife: Learning to Co+Exist,” 6-9 p.m., National Museum of Wildlife Art, free, 733-5771, wildlifeart.org 26-AUGUST 1: 9TH ANNUAL DRIGGS PLEIN AIR FESTIVAL COMPETITION is a week full of wonderful art experiences in Teton Valley, Idaho. An exhibition remains up though Sept. 7. 10 a.m.-7 p.m. daily, Driggs City Plaza, free, driggspleinair.org
SEPTEMBER
AUGUST
9: JEWELRY & ARTISAN LUNCHEON combines an elegant lunch with beautiful jewelry, clothing, and accessories crafted by artisans from across the country. A portion of event proceeds goes to the National Museum of Wildlife Art. 10 a.m.3 p.m., National Museum of Wildlife Art, from $150, 733-5771, wildlifeart.org
1: RENDEZVOUS MOUNTAIN HILL CLIMB to the top of the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort tram. 8 a.m., Teton Village, $40, 733-2292, rendezvousmountainhillclimb.com
4-7: 11TH ANNUAL WYDAHO MOUNTAIN BIKE FESTIVAL is a weekend of talking bikes, guided group rides, live music, races, and parties. Grand Targhee Resort, passes start at $89, 208/201-1622, tetonbikefest.org
9: 40TH ANNUAL JACKSON HOLE LAND TRUST ANNUAL COMMUNITY PICNIC is a celebration of Jackson’s present and future land conservation efforts. 4-8 p.m., R-Park, 733-4707, jhlandtrust.org
9-20: 36TH ANNUAL JACKSON HOLE FALL ARTS FESTIVAL is one of the premier cultural events in the Rocky Mountain West. 733-3316, many events free, jacksonholechamber.com
7-9: ANNUAL ART FAIR JACKSON HOLE is an outdoor, juried art fair that draws artists and artisans from across the country. Friday & Saturday 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Sunday 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Snow King Ball Park, $5, kids under 10 are free, 733-6379, artassociation.org
11: PALATES AND PALETTES GALLERY WALK is the Fall Arts Festival’s official kickoff. More than thirty galleries partner with local restaurants to participate. 3-5 p.m. at the National Museum of Wildlife Art, 5-8 p.m. at downtown galleries, free, 733-3316, jacksonholechamber.com
14-16: GRAND TARGHEE BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL Grand Targhee Resort, single-day tickets start at $85, 353-2300, grandtarghee.com
11-13: WESTERN DESIGN EXHIBIT + SALE brings together artists from across the country who create museum-quality functional art inspired by the West. 10 a.m.5 p.m., Snow King Center, $15/day, 6909719, westerndesignconference.com
23: HUIDEKOPER RANCH PARTY: A locally sourced community dinner at the historic 156
Huidekoper Ranch in Wilson. Time and price not available at time of printing, at the base of Teton Pass, tetonslowfood.org
JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2020
17: WESTERN VISIONS SHOW & SALE features works by the country’s leading wildlife artists and offers the opportunity to bid on beautiful pieces of art. 5-9 p.m., National Museum of Wildlife Art, from $200, 733-5771, wildlifeart.org 19: FAREWELL TO FALL ARTS BRUNCH ends the annual Fall Arts Festival with a morning/ afternoon of gallery walks and food from local restaurants. 11 a.m.-3 p.m., downtown galleries and the National Museum of Wildlife Art (11 a.m.-1 p.m.), free, 733-3316, jacksonholechamber.com
OCTOBER 22: “SAGE GROUSE: ICON OF THE WEST, PHOTOGRAPHY BY NOPPADOL PAOTHONG” opens at the National Museum of Wildlife Art and features photography of greater sagegrouse and the high-desert Sagebrush Sea; it hangs though May 3, 2021. 733-5771, wildlifeart.org 31: “LIVING LEGENDS: WITH A SPECIAL TRIBUTE TO ROBERT BATEMAN” features artworks by living artists from the National Museum of Wildlife Art’s permanent collection. It hangs through May 16, 2021. 733-5771, wildlifeart.org
NOVEMBER 5: MIX’D MEDIA CELEBRATES THE OPENING OF EXHIBIT “LIVING LEGENDS: WITH A SPECIAL TRIBUTE TO ROBERT BATEMAN” and includes free admission to the National Museum of Wildlife Art, and the museum’s galleries are open late. 6-9 p.m., National Museum of Wildlife Art, free, 733-5771, wildlifeart.org
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