SUMMER 2014
Wilderness Act Turns
Explore Jackson Hole’s wilderness areas and meet some of the locals behind the passage of the landmark act.
GETTING OUT
Hike the Indian
HISTORY
CULTURE
Jackson Unsung Turns 100 Rodeo Heroes
NIGHTLIFE
Star Spotting
T R A I L S I D E G A L L E R I E S : E X C E L L E N C E I N A R T S I N C E 19 6 3
John Clymer (1907-1989), Grizzly Country Estimate: $50,000 - $75,000
Bob Kuhn (1920-2007), Resting Cat Estimate: $250,000 - $300,000
Richard Schmid (1934- ), Yellow Roses Estimate: $75,000 - $100,000
Interior View of Trailside Galleries in Jackson Hole
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Jackson Hole
MIKE CAVAROC
Summer 2014
Page
Features
P H O T O G A L L E RY
64 Jackson’s Whole History
90 Shooting High
Our town turns 100 this year. BY RICHARD ANDERSON
80 The Need for Speed
Mountain athletes go for more than Teton summits. BY BRIAN P. HARDER
96
Alpine photography requires more than skills with a camera. PHOTOGRAPHY BY GREG VON DOERSTEN
96 What’s in a Letter?
The Wilderness Act turns 50.
BY MOLLY LOOMIS
ON THE COVER: Sheep Mountain, known by locals as Sleeping Indian for its distinctive profile, dominates the skyline of the Gros Ventre Wilderness, one of fifteen wilderness areas in Wyoming. A “wilderness” designation is the strictest that can be given to any federal land. One and a half million acres (of 3.1 million) of the state’s wilderness lands are near Jackson Hole. The Gros Ventre Wilderness is the closest; its western edge is about six miles up Cache Creek from the main trailhead, itself a mere two miles from the Town Square. Read more about wilderness areas, and the act that created them, on page 96. Get details on hiking up Sleeping Indian on page 132. 8
JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014
the
Coeur d’Alene Art Auction Fine Western & American Art
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Jackson Hole
Summer 2014 Page
142
JH Living 22
TETONSCAPES
The Quirks of Kelly, Rock Camp, Climb The King, and Historic Homesteading
PIQUED
Some of our favorite summer stuff
LOCALS
34 Meet Some Jacksonites
Jane Carter-Getz, John Carney, and Ashley Potzernitz
ON THE JOB
40 Invisible Cowboys
Pickup men of the JH Rodeo
BY JAYME FEARY
BUSINESS
Entrepreneurship thrives here.
44 Jacksilicon Hole?
BY JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE STAFF AND WHITNEY ROYSTER
40
JEFFREY KAPHAN
Breakfast and dinner cruises
BY DINA MISHEV
128 A New View
A photo safari showcases wildlife.
BY KELSEY DAYTON
132 Scratching the Belly of the Indian
Hike to the best views of the Tetons.
BY DINA MISHEV
50 Building Smarter, Smaller
BODY & SOUL
Today’s Jackson Hole homes aren’t just large and log.
BY MIKE KOSHMRL
Dogs thrive in the valley’s active, social lifestyle.
LOOKING BACK
BY JOHANNA LOVE
NIGHTLIFE
BY MOLLY ABSOLON
DINING
BY JOOHEE MUROMCEW
114 Drift Boating in Jackson Hole
ART SCENE
A (not-so) brief history
BY PAUL BRUUN
Our tiny Wyoming valley is a presence in the art world.
BY JOOHEE MUROMCEW
DESIGN
108 Gamblers, Guns, and Ghosts
Million Dollar Cowboy Bar is a living relic.
BY JIM STANFORD
OUTDOORS
JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014
GETTING OUT
123 A Feast for the Eyes, and Tummy
AS THE HOLE DEEPENS 118 Adventures of the Checklist Tourists 12
Page
Best of JH
BY TIM SANDLIN
138 Puppy Love
142 Party with the Stars 148 Haute Vegetables 158 Small Town, Big Art
172 JACKSON HOLE MAPPED 174 CALENDAR OF EVENTS
MIKE CAVAROC
30
Unmatched ExpEriEncE exceptional rEsults
#1 SEllIng REAl ESTATE AgEnT 2013 JAckSon HolE SoTHEBy’S InTERnATIonAl REAlTy 307.739.8149 direct TomEvansRE@JHSIR.com Associate Broker TomEvansRealEstate.com
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Greetings from the Editor VANCE JACOBS
WHEN I MOVED to Jackson the summer after graduating from Northwestern University (go Cats!), I was shockingly ignorant about this area. I never went for jackalope hunting, but I wasn’t entirely certain an elk wasn’t a mature deer. I had no idea Yellowstone was nearby. I knew there were mountains, but didn’t know: 1) they were the Tetons; or 2) the Tetons were only one of a halfdozen ranges in the area. Thinking there was only one trail up a canyon in Grand Teton National Park, I hiked Death Canyon every weekend. Still, I never tired of it. I thought Jackson Hole so remote the grocery store wouldn’t carry such delicacies as Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. I expected winter to be the busy season. I can’t help but laugh at my former cluelessness. This morning, seventeen years after my arrival here, I spent an hour watching hundreds of people walk through the Town Square. Come afternoon, it was lunch at Pearl St. Market, devouring cheeses and salumi from around the world. Early evening was a hike up Snow King, marveling at the Tetons and the green expanse of the National Elk Refuge stretching north. Yes, the Jackson Hole I first met nearly two decades ago was different in some ways than the Jackson Hole of today. Salumi certainly weren’t around. The area’s essence is unchanged,
though. Yellowstone and the Tetons are still here. Summer is still the season most people come for, and also the reason most locals, myself included, stay. Death Canyon is still a beautiful and challenging hike, and the Tetons are still only one of several mountain ranges in the area. This issue touches on both the things here that will never change and also the newer sophistication. Richard Anderson’s collection of articles honoring the Town of Jackson’s 100th birthday this year includes reminiscences from East Jackson resident Marjorie May Ryan (p. 70). While Jackson turns 100, the Wilderness Act celebrates its 50th year of protecting land. Writer Molly Loomis explains the history behind the strictest designation any federal land can get—and also the importance of several Jacksonites to the act’s passage—in “What’s in a Letter?” (p. 96). She also suggests how to make the most of the millions of acres of designated wilderness in and around Jackson Hole. In separate but related articles, Mike Koshmrl (“Building Smarter, Smaller,” p. 50) and Joohee Muromcew (“Small Town, Big Art,” p. 158) address the valley’s changing design and art aesthetic. Read these two articles and then flip to Brielle Schaeffer’s piece on the Miller House, built in 1895, restored in the early 2000s, and open for the public to tour daily (“Historic Homesteading,” p. 28). And then, perhaps, hike up Death Canyon. It’s every bit as beautiful as it was seventeen years ago. — DINA MISHEV
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JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014
magazine
Jackson Hole
Summer 2014 // jacksonholemagazine.com
What’s the best way to enjoy the sunset here? PUBLISHER
Kevin Olson Eating tempura portobello fries on The Deck at the top of the gondola.
EDITOR
Dina Mishev ART DIRECTOR
Colleen Valenstein
At the top of Ferrins on a postworkday mountain bike ride, overlooking town and the valley and out toward the Tetons.
PHOTO EDITOR
Bradly J. Boner The roof at Dornan’s. Who can beat that view?
COPY EDITOR
Pamela Periconi
Atop the Red Hills up the Gros Ventre Road.
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Molly Absolon Richard Anderson Lower Saddle. Looking east or Allison Arthur Paul Bruun west, you can’t lose: the setting Kelsey Dayton Jayme Feary sun or the silhouette of the Brian P. Harder Mike Koshmrl whole range cast on the valley. Molly Loomis Johanna Love Caroline Markowitz Joohee Muromcew Whitney Royster Tim Sandlin From the top of Mt. Glory. Jim Stanford Brielle Schaeffer Greg Zeigler On the Snake, just upstream of Dornan’s. CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS
From the North Fork of Cascade Canyon.
Mike Cavaroc Price Chambers David Gonzales Jeffrey Kaphan Aaron Kraft Derek Stal Greg Von Doersten
Walking on the Snake River dike; either direction is glorious. Sippin’ a cold local beer while sittin’ on the dock (of the bay) at Slide Lake. There’s nothing like a cocktail and watching the sun set at Dornan’s.
DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING
Over a huckleberry margarita at Jackson Lake Lodge’s Blue Heron Bar.
Adam Meyer ADVERTISING SALES
Deidre Norman
Hard to beat the top of Shadow Mountain! With a cold PBR from the Saddle of the Grand! You get unreal cloud formations and mind-melting sunsets.
ADVERTISING ACCOUNT COORDINATOR
Heather Best AD DESIGN & PRODUCTION
The top of Angle Mountain on Togwotee Pass is beautiful; if you’re not up for a hike, the overlook parking area is incredible, too.
Lydia Redzich Andy Edwards Sarah Grengg BRAND MANAGER
Amy Golightly DISTRIBUTION
Hank Smith Pat Brodnik Jeff Young Kyra Griffin OFFICE MANAGER
Kathleen Godines
© 2014 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) 733-2047, Email: dina@jhmagazine.com. Visit jacksonholemagazine.com. SUMMER 2014 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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Contributors
DONNA GOLDMAN
FINE RUGS Serving Jackson Hole Since 1990
MARLENE WUSINICH
Joohee Muromcew has written about food and lifestyle for Town & Country, Departures, Black Ink, and San Francisco magazines, and is the author of The Baby Bistro Cookbook. Muromcew moved to Jackson from the Bay Area with her husband and four children. She plays violin for the Jackson Hole Symphony Orchestra and serves on the boards of the Jackson Hole Ski Club and Teton Science Schools.
Molly Absolon juggles writing and editing with spending time outside. A columnist for the Jackson Hole News&Guide, she has written eight books on outdoor skills that cover a wide range of topics from winter camping to hiking, camping with kids, backcountry cooking, and trailside first aid. Absolon’s writing has also appeared in the Lander Journal and in Nature Conservancy publications.
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JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014
KATIE TUFTE
Contact us - Schedule an appointment - Services offered nationwide Mike Cavaroc is a wildlife, nature, night and astro photographer. Originally from New Orleans, Cavaroc moved to Jackson Hole to develop a deeper connection to nature and now feels most at home in remote reaches of the mountains. His photos emphasize apex predators and dark skies. Cavaroc’s work has been featured by local nonprofits and also publications like National Geographic Traveler.
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Teton
scapes community
The William Kelly homestead was one of several dozen on Mormon Row in the late 1800s. In 1914, when a second post office was needed in the area, the name Kelly was chosen in honor of William Kelly.
Originally, Kelly and nearby Mormon Row were called Grovont—a bastardized version of the French Gros Ventre— because the U.S. Postal Service wouldn’t allow foreign names to be used for post offices.
Graduate students come from across the country to work on degrees emphasizing place-based education and field ecology at Teton Science Schools.
In 1925, 50,000,000 cubic yards of debris flowed down the northern face of Sheep Mountain—the Gros Ventre Slide. It dammed the Gros Ventre River, creating Slide Lake. The next winter and spring was abnormally wet, and after two weeks of consistent rain, on May 17, 1927, the river breached the natural dam. A fifty-foot-high wall of water hit Kelly. Six people died.
Bison, which once roamed throughout the Northern Rockies by the millions, often browse in the sage flats surrounding Kelly. The Teton bison herd was reintroduced from Yellowstone in 1948.
A hearty and eclectic crew of “yurt-arians” has lived, yearround, at Kelly Yurt Park for more than thirty years. Yurtarians own their yurt, lease the land, and, because yurts don’t have plumbing, share bathroom and shower facilities.
Craighead Beringia South, an independent, research institute, helps protect wildlife through projects like studying the effects of energy development on bald eagles and the distribution of lead-free bullets to local hunters.
Teton Valley Ranch Camp opened outside Kelly in 1939 to teach kids Western ways. It relocated to Dubois in 2002.
The Quirks of Kelly This tiny town is big on charm. BY MOLLY LOOMIS ILLUSTRATION BY JOSH QUICK
22
JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014
SCENIC, RUSTIC, QUIRKY, yurty—no matter what you call it, Kelly is a gem of a community that gets passed by in the dash between Grand Teton National Park’s Moose entrance and the big-city lights of Jackson. Not that Kelly’s approximately 140 residents mind—this tight-knit community of park employees, mountain guides, educators, and artists like the peace and quiet.
Prior to the 1927 flood that decimated the town, Kelly was one of the valley’s largest communities. It had a Ford dealership and dance hall and was in the running for county seat. Today, it’s an island of private land ownership surrounded by Grand Teton National Park where, on most days, elk, bison, and antelope outnumber the town’s two-legged inhabitants. JH
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Teton
scapes music
For Those About to Rock At Rock Camp, kids learn how to play from the pros.
BRADLY J. BONER
BY JIM STANFORD
and give the music a fuller sound. Spence, sixteen, comes away from the lesson, in the parlance of Nocentelli, “funkified.” “I’ve kept it with me since,” Spence says. “Funk is my favorite genre of music to play.” Nocentelli was teaching at Rock Camp, a five-day educational program for teens put on by the nonprofit Jackson Hole Music Experience. In its eleventh year, the camp features a rotating staff of visiting and local musicians with backgrounds in rock, jazz, funk, and even hip-hop. In addition to Nocentelli, instructors have included Stephen Perkins, drummer for Jane’s Addiction; Regi Wooten, the eldest of the marvelously talented Wooten
DYLAN SPENCE WATCHES with rapt attention as the guitar instructor’s fingers prance up and down the fret board. The teacher— goateed and with tinted glasses and tattooed forearms—is none other than Leo Nocentelli of New Orleans funk band The Meters. Some twenty years before Spence was born, Nocentelli and his bandmates toured with The Rolling Stones and played a famous riverboat party for Paul and Linda McCartney. Last year, they were nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Now the master is demonstrating for a classroom of young musicians a technique known as “chicken scratch,” a way of muting the strings to add rhythm between notes 24
JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014
Makina Waatti belts out the chorus to Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” with her band, Brick Figure, during the 2013 Rock Camp concert at the Pink Garter Theatre.
brothers; drummer Gregg Bissonette, who has played with David Lee Roth and Ringo Starr; and Steve Bailey, chair of the bass department at Berklee College of Music. Rock Camp helps kids make the transition from learning an instrument to playing in a group. “Our original mission was to put all our students together and show them how, in a band, the whole can be so much greater than its parts,” says Andy Calder, a camp cofounder who teaches and serves as director.
Kids may participate individually or with a group. For those on their own, faculty puts together ensembles based on similar ages, experience, and tastes. “Rehearsing four hours a day under the supervision of somebody experienced, it’s a different band at the end of the week,” Calder says. The program accepts about two-dozen students in middle and high school. Some are beginners, while others are looking to write their own songs. In contrast to similar camps around the country, Jackson Hole Music Experience recruits professionals who stay and teach for days, rather than making a brief appearance. Jon Finn, a Berklee guitar professor who has taught at Rock Camp the last two years, appreciates the enthusiasm of the youngsters. Whereas college students sometimes take a businesslike approach to music, “When I come out to Jackson Hole, here are these people who’ve been waiting for this for months, and they’re having the time of their lives,” Finn says. “For me, that becomes infectious. I come away feeling renewed.” Spence has participated five times, once individually and four times with his band, Organized Chaos, a rock and jazz trio formed in 2009. Besides playing high school gigs, the band opened one of the Concerts on the Commons last summer at Teton Village, and Spence has jumped onstage at Grand Targhee to play guitar with Michael Franti and Spearhead. “Rock Camp probably gave me the confidence to do that,” he says. Camp alumni have gone on to careers in music. Shawn Fleming, former drummer for the Jackson rock band Rotating Superstructure, is now a recording engineer in Portland, Oregon. Michael Scalabrino, a guitar prodigy who took part in the camp three times, recently was accepted at Berklee. The camp “got me really motivated,” Scalabrino says. But not every participant aspires to be the next Eddie Van Halen. The program is designed to be fun, no matter the skill or age level. “I don’t want to scare parents by saying we want your kids to be dirtbags,” Calder says. “The experience itself is valuable, no matter what they decide to do in life.” This year, Rock Camp is July 28 to August 1. Tuition is $650. Scholarships are available. www.jhme.org JH
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Teton
scapes outdoors
Climb The King Hiking to help others
IN 2006, THE Jackson Hole Community Counseling Center (JHCCC) was struggling to complete a capital campaign. One day while hiking Snow King, campaign chair Tom Hickey had a eureka moment. “There is nothing more local than Snow King,” he thought. “Nothing comes more naturally to Jacksonites than exercising in the outdoors.” Climb The King, which has since become one of JHCCC’s major fundraisers, was held for the first time the following summer. The event challenges climbers, as individuals and/or as part of a team (often centered around employers), to hike up Snow King as many times as they can between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Climbers must raise a minimum of $25, but most far exceed that. In 2013, there were 57 Climb The King teams and 697 individual hikers who, all combined, logged 8,559 hikes up the King, raising more than $100,000. CELEBRATING ITS FORTIETH anniversary this year, JHCCC is a state-certified mental health center serving Teton County. Half of its clients—the total has grown from six hundred to nine hundred over the past eight years—earn less than $20,000 a year, yet no one is denied services, which are billed on a sliding scale. “We see anybody,” says Deidre Ashley, the center’s executive director. Many Climb The King climbers do the fundraiser because they have first- or secondhand experience with JHCCC’s services. Ashley says, “Climb The King gives clients of limited means a chance to give back by seeking sponsors.” Friends and family members of clients also get involved. In last year’s annual survey of participants, one climber responded: “Dealing with mental illness in my family has not always been easy. JHCCC has been a valuable resource.” Of course, this being Jackson Hole, there are also those who participate because they 26
JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014
BRADLY J. BONER
BY GREGORY ZEIGLER
Sandy Anderson makes what she says was her 285th summer ascent of Snow King Mountain during the 2011 Jackson Hole Community Counseling Center’s Climb The King fundraising effort.
like the exercise. Each climb up is just under two miles and covers just over 1,500 vertical feet. From the top, climbers either hike down or ride the mountain’s chairlift (they get discounted tickets). THEN THERE’S SANDY Anderson, who did it for both reasons. And did it more than anyone else. Anderson, a native of Omaha, Nebraska, started hiking the King in 1992, shortly after she and her husband moved to the valley. It soon became a ritual. “Like brushing my teeth,” she says. When Climb The King started, employees of JHCCC who knew about her penchant for hiking the mountain approached her to participate. “Because I struggle with depression and anxiety, I loved the idea of helping others while helping myself,” she says. Anderson won the event four times between 2007 and 2011. In 2012, at age sixty, she won again. She also broke her own record (of 295) for the most climbs ever completed during the event: 306. “Only a mountain goat could beat Sandy’s amazing record,” Hickey says. Anderson, who was diagnosed with and had surgery for uterine cancer ten years ago,
has since retired from the competition. She continues to hike the King in winter and summer, though. She recently calculated that her combined hikes on Snow King equal walking around the world 1.3 times. Intense, but attentive and kind, Anderson, during her record-setting summer, had to average three climbs a day. Working two jobs, however—she owns Teton Courier with her husband and also works at Eddie Bauer—this wasn’t always possible. She focused instead on doing twenty-one climbs a week, sometimes hiking five or six laps on her free days. Always moving at a slow but steady pace (taking between fifty and sixty minutes to reach the top), Anderson’s best was seven ascents in a single day. She almost always rode the chair down. Anderson occasionally hiked with family and friends, but more often was alone. Once she was nearly struck by lightning. Another time she had to dodge small boulders a black bear searching for grubs had rolled down the mountain. “I would love to shake the hand of the person who beats my record,” Anderson says. “But even if someone only does five hikes a summer, they’re helping others and helping themselves.” JH Join Climb The King—you can register online anytime before the competition ends Labor Day—or sponsor a climber at JHCCC.org.
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Teton
BRADLY J. BONER
scapes history
The Miller House on the National Elk Refuge
Historic Homesteading Live local history at the Miller House BY BRIELLE SCHAEFFER ROBERT AND GRACE Miller were one of Jackson Hole’s earliest power couples. In 1885, Robert arrived in the valley as the third permanent resident and, in 1914, founded the valley’s first bank. In 1920, Grace, his Illinois-born wife, ran for mayor and was elected along with an all-woman Town Council. The Millers also built the valley’s first trophy home. Nestled in a grove of cottonwood trees nearly a mile down the Elk Refuge Road, it’s still standing today and open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. from late May to early September. It was one of Jackson’s first—and today, one of the last remaining—homesteads. The wooden and whitewashed structure has been restored and renovated with the purpose of telling Jackson’s history. Seasonal workers (who volunteer in exchange for a nearby RV spot) do tours. The downstairs, remodeled with antique-looking wallpaper, is plastered with historic photographs and 28
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placards. Rooms are peppered with original documents and interesting artifacts such as a pedal organ, typewriter, and chamber pot. MILLER, WHO WAS born in Argyle, Wisconsin, in 1863, came to Jackson Hole to claim land under the Homestead Act of 1865. Homesteaders got 160-acre tracts of land for a small fee and a promise they would improve it and live there for at least five years. For his homestead site, Miller chose property near a spring. It already had a small cabin on it, built by well-known outlaw Teton Jackson. Teton Jackson had left the area— not by choice, but because he was in jail for horse thieving. Miller lived in Teton Jackson’s shack and got into ranching. In addition to ranching, Miller offered financial services, making his first loan in 1889: It was a winter’s worth of hay to the Cheney and Wilson families who had just ar-
rived in the valley. It wasn’t long before he had the nickname “Old 12 Percent” because of the exorbitant rates he charged for money and hay. In 1893, Miller briefly left the valley and went to Illinois, where he married girlfriend Grace Green. He brought her to Jackson, and two years later, they started building the house you can tour today. At the time, most other homesteads were two-room dirt shacks. (Proof of this in the form of a trio of historic photographs now hangs in the Miller House.) The Millers’ was not. Two stories tall, it had wood walls. It quickly became one of the community’s gathering spots for social events and also more formal functions, sometimes acting as a temporary post office and also as a polling place for the town’s first elections. The Millers continued ranching on the property while Robert diversified even further, serving as the first supervisor of the Teton National Forest in the early 1900s. His office was in a separate building that still sits on the property. IN 1914, THE Millers were among a couple dozen locals who sold their property to the federal government. (The homestead had grown to 1,200 acres; they got $44,000 for it.) Because much of the valley’s historic winter range for elk was planted with crops and/ or fenced off, and elk were dying of starvation, it was decided to create a National Elk Refuge. These homesteads were the earliest bits of the refuge. The Millers moved into town, and their former house became the headquarters for the new National Elk Refuge, and also the home of the refuge manager, until 1942. The house was then vacant and began to deteriorate until 1965. That year, there was a move to tear it down, but the Jackson Hole Historical Society and Museum mobilized to save it. Thanks to the organization, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1969. In 1984, the Miller House was retrofitted with modern amenities to house refuge employees, but the exterior was kept the same. It wasn’t until 2005 that serious work was put into revitalizing the home. The house opened to the public with limited displays that year. In 2007, the interior was more authentically restored to the home’s original Victorian style. JH For more information, visit www.fws.gov.
Walton Ranch JACKSON, WYOMING
The Walton Ranch in Jackson, Wyoming, is truly an icon of the American West - an exceptional property in an extraordinary setting. With a resident elk herd and abundant wildlife that includes bear, deer and eagles, the 1,848-acre working cattle ranch abuts three miles of the legendary Snake River, home to native cutthroat trout. Close to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks yet only ďŹ ve miles from Jackson, Walton Ranch offers an ultimate escape and proximity to a world-class destination resort, lively art scene, and sophisticated dining in an area that is home to some of America’s top corporate leaders. This rare legacy ranch features postcard views, vast hay meadows and 750 acres of water rights. Offered for $68,700,000
B I L LY L O N G 970.948.1333
RON MORRIS 970.535.0881
THE WEST IS OUR HERITAGE. MAKE IT YOURS. RMABROKERS.COM
JH Living
1 Play the Field 1
piqued
Have questions about Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks? The new Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks Field Guide undoubtedly has the answers. Written by wildlife biologist Kurt F. Johnson, it’s as good as having your own naturalist along. $24.95; available at Valley Bookstore
2 Who’s Your Tailor?
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We’re not sure what’s cooler: 1) AION Apparel’s intimate storefront and world headquarters by Powderhorn Park; 2) being able to scan a QR code on every single AION garment and seeing the factory where it was made (in Bali) and the people behind it; or 3) AION’s funky, functional aesthetic. Slipping on a Simplicity Hooded Sweatshirt or rocking a Jackson Hole Trucker Hat, we wonder if the answer matters. 960 Alpine Ln., #4; aionmfg.com; 307/734-7900
3 Netting Like It 3
This year, Fishpond introduced fourteen new products using nylon produced from recycled commercial fishing nets. Our favorite? The Black Canyon Backpack. Its adjustable external frame, offset air mesh back, and padded, contoured shoulder straps not only carry fly-fishing gear, but also heavy loads, whether for a giant picnic on Flat Creek or everything you need for a day deep in the Yellowstone backcountry. $180; fishpondusa.com
4 Backcountry Barcalounger A decade ago, Big Agnes revolutionized sleeping pads and bags. Now they’ve turned their attention to camp chairs. After one camping trip with Big Agnes’ new Ground Chair—weighing a mere 1.2 pounds—we took all of our Crazy Creek chairs to Browse ’N Buy. Why? The Ground Chair doesn’t actually make you sit on the ground. It’s also got a more supportive back and nothing digs into your hamstrings. $109; bigagnes.com
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5 Go-Go Gadget The BioLogic FixKit multi-tool aims to be compact and ultralight. Still, it splurged on one big feature: a 15 mm wrench, a necessity when dealing with pedals and axle nuts mid-ride. Even with this wrench included in the FixKit’s twenty tools, it’s way (way) smaller than a pack of playing cards. $34.95; thinkbiologic.com
6 Comfy and Compressible
6
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Packing running/walking shoes is the worst. So is wearing them in public for something other than walking or running. No longer. Meet the new SKORA FIT, equally at home on a jaunt around Jenny Lake as at the bar at Hayden’s Post. Also, FIT packs down to almost nothing. $95; skorarunning.com
Six miles of river frontage and a Tom Weiskopf-designed golf course are among Snake River Sporting Club's many attractions.
N o w We l c o m i n g A D V E N T U R E R S , NAT U R E L OV E R S AND OUTDOOR ENTHUSIASTS OF ALL KINDS Featuring a newly completed Clubhouse and an unprecedented array of outdoor amenities, our 1,000-acre sanctuary allows members to fully embrace Jackson Hole’s legendary sporting life. Golfing, fly-fishing, hiking, cross-country skiing, horseback riding—the thrills available at Snake River Sporting Club are virtually endless. And now that our Club estates and 3,975-sq-ft luxury cabins are available for ownership, you even can make this world-class playground your home.
Life, Well Played
For details on Club memberships, including pre-golf season incentives, please contact: Jeff Heilbrun • 307-201-2560 • jheilbrun@srsportingclub.com To schedule a tour of our exceptional real estate options, please contact: Chip Marvin or Fred Harness at Obsidian Real Estate • 307-739-1234 • chipmarvin@gmail.com
JH Living
piqued
7 Dangerous Toys for Big Boys New West KnifeWorks was already cool—making kitchen knives using some of the highest performance steel ever and having its eight-inch chef knife singled out in Playboy ’s “60 Things, Ideas & Actions Every Man Should Own, Know, or Do.” Recently expanded to include The Mountain Man Toy Shop, with wall displays of axes and the sexiest pocket knives around, it might now be the best store in the valley. Did we mention tomahawk throwing in the back alley? 98 N. Center St., Unit C; mtnmengifts.com
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8 Tough and Tender With an attached inner brief—with seamless construction, naturally—made from merino wool, SmartWool’s new PhD Run Shorts had us wondering whether we were dressing to hit the trail or go to bed. They’re that comfy. Because they’re SmartWool, they’ll also last forever. From $75; available at Wilson Backcountry, Teton Mountaineering, and Skinny Skis
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9 Virtual Home Tour Most of Ward + Blake Architects’ work is hidden. Which is the point. The Jackson-based firm, recently named Firm of the Year by the AIA Western Mountain Region, is intensely site-driven. A new book, In the Shadows of the Tetons, highlights the firm’s greatest hits, including a low-slung home woven into a site burned by the Green Knoll Fire and a home made from rammed earth. $60; available at Valley Bookstore
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10 Save Your Skin LAFACE skin care products are paraben-free, organic, not tested on animals, and hypoallergenic. After nine years of R&D, they’re also rather revolutionary: The entire line, now available here for the first time, is based on plant stem cells. A standout in our extreme weather and altitude is the Deflection Day Cream (with SPF 30). Solitude Spa’s eighty-minute LAFACE C-Cell Facial uses all LAFACE products. Prices range from $48 to $300, facial $225; available at Teton Mountain Lodge
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11 Dr. Seuss, Dr. Schmuss
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Local artist Scott Steen’s silly creatures are just as imaginative and 100 percent local. Yetis in Granite Canyon. Vikings canoeing the Snake River. A Loch Ness-like monster in Jenny Lake. Our favorite comes from Steen thinking the buttes in the valley look like “huge lizard-like creatures.” His The Hills Are Alive shows the true nature of Snow King, East Gros Ventre Butte, West Gros Ventre Butte, and High School Butte. Don’t worry, Steen’s lizards are friendly. From $50 to $180; available at Backcountry Baby or imaginepilly.wordpress.com
EXCLUSIVE PROPERTIES at Jackson Hole’s exciting new multi-sport club
Life, well-played.
– COMPLETION –
SPRING
2014
NEW CONSTRUCTION
SNAKE RIVER BEND RANCH
MARTIN CREEK CABINS
CUSTOM LODGE
Three 3,975 square foot, 4 bedroom, 4.5 bathroom cabins with detached 700 square foot 2-car garage are currently under construction along the banks of Martin Creek. Each residence will be finished in a style of rustic elegance including heavy timber ceiling beams, granite and marble countertops, slate and travertine tile, Kohler fixtures, Sub-Zero and Wolf Appliances.
This beautiful move-in ready custom home of old world style and modern convenience perches 300 feet above the braided channels of the Snake River on 35 acres of the River Bend Ranch. The home is 8,179 square feet with 4 bedrooms, 4 full bathrooms, 2 half bathrooms, a three-car garage and many more custom features.
• Designed by award-winning Poss Architecture + Planning of Aspen, Colorado • Interior packages available by WRJ Interiors, Jackson Hole, Wyoming
CHIP MARVIN 307.690.2657 FRED HARNESS 307.690.0417 110 E. Broadway, Jackson, WY www.jacksonholeobsidian.com
locals
BRADLY J. BONER
JH Living
Jane Carter-Getz Fashions for you, and your home WHEN IT COMES to stocking your kitchen with beautiful accessories, Jane Carter-Getz, forty-five, is the local expert. But when it comes to her own home, the former law school student and current owner of Belle Cose (home goods) and Goodie 2 Shoes (women’s accessories) rarely breaks out anything fancy. Her go-to items? A griddle where she cooks quesadillas and pancakes for four-year-old Jack, and anything gold or diamond. One of the reasons Carter-Getz, along with her husband, Kevin Getz, doesn’t mess with pasta makers or Prada at home is that they’re often too busy moving. In addition to her shops, she has a passion for flipping homes. During her twenty-two years in Jackson Hole, Carter-Getz has built or remodeled and then sold four homes. She recently moved downtown—walking distance of two of her stores—into a “cool, old house. We had to gut the whole thing,” she says. 34
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Q: Were you into homes or home goods first? A: Home goods. Q: Which is more difficult, remodeling or starting a home goods store? A: Remodeling. There are lots of variables. Starting a home goods store is a whole other process. Q: You started with one small store and now have three; what’s the timeline? A: My partners and I started Good Goods in 1994. Fourteen years ago, we purchased VandeWaters, which occupied the space that is now Belle Cose. Goodie 2 Shoes came ten years ago.
Q: What inspires you? A: Stores across the country, from highend boutiques to local coffee shops. If something is being done well, no matter the type of business, there is always a lesson or idea to bring away. Q: You spent a day browsing in Lech, Austria. What aesthetic does Austria have in common with Wyoming? A: I always love to see how other retailers display things and what lines they carry. In Austria, retailers had mixed a warm lodge vibe with modern European sensibility. Q: Where does your love for fashion come from? A: My mother and I always shopped together when I was younger; our Saturday ritual included wandering stores in St. Louis. Q: How would you characterize Jackson style? A: The focus here is on being relaxed and effortless, definitely anything goes as long as you don’t look like you are trying too hard to pull off a certain style, be that Western, glam, or sporty.
Let us show you where
the wild things are!
Q: You’ve got a Goodie 2 Shoes downtown and a smaller one at the Four Seasons; do they carry different lines? A: We overlap merchandise from all three stores, but each store has its own specific customer. I think any store has to evolve and stay interesting. Q: As far as trunk shows go, you do tons of them. Why? A: We bring in entire collections for a short time to give customers the opportunity to really appreciate a designer’s talent and scope. This amount of merchandise couldn’t be supported yearround, but it works for a limited time. Q: Jacksonites have no problem spending money on gear; has it been hard getting women to spend money on designer accessories instead? A: No. Jackson women have great taste, and they recognize quality. Q: Do you have a favorite line of jewelry? A: Honestly, I love it all! What’s not to like when it comes to gold and diamonds? INTERVIEW BY ALLISON ARTHUR
Wildlife & Photograpy Safaris into Grand Teton & Yellowstone National Parks Photography Workshops - Hiking Safaris - Experienced Local Guides
JACKSONHOLEWILDLIFESAFARIS.COM | 307.690.6402 SUMMER 2014 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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locals
PRICE CHAMBERS
JH Living
John Carney Designing Man JOHN CARNEY CAME to Wyoming as a young kid in a “reverse Beverly Hillbillies thing.” When he was fourteen, his dad plucked the entire Carney clan from their Beverly Hills home and moved them to a ranch near Cora. John fell in love with the place, and lifestyle, and spent many summers at the ranch through college (Stanford) and architecture school (Harvard’s Graduate School of Design). In 1992, he took a gamble on moving permanently to Wyoming. Today, Carney Logan Burke Architects has a staff of twenty-plus and has designed many of our most iconic buildings: the Laurance S. Rockefeller Preserve, Jackson Hole Airport expansion, and Jackson Hole High School, in addition to numerous private residences. John, who turns sixty-five this summer, is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and served two years as a county commissioner and four years on the Teton County Planning Commission. 36
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Q: Jackson’s aesthetic in 1992—how would you describe it? A: Coming here, I was absolutely delighted at how urban Jackson was compared to, say, Pinedale, which at the time was the town in the state I knew best. I could see the potential and appreciated the fact Jackson was aggressively doing planning and Teton County was concerned with community character. It was a great town that needed work. I was inspired to contribute and make it better.
Q: Do you feel you have? A: I’m very proud of the fact that in a small community, one firm—and we are a really collaborative firm—could have an impact with the number of buildings it has done. It is so great to look around and say, “Look at those Carney Logan Burke buildings that have contributed to the growing vibrancy here.” Q: Favorite project? A: I think all of us think of our projects as our children, and we love all of our children, but some do have characteristics that are favorites. Also, it’s not just a building, but clients. It takes a good client to produce good architecture. Q: What’s some of your best architecture? A: We try to make every project the absolutely best it can be. But St. John’s Episcopal Church was the first in this valley that totally made it for me. It was one of the earliest buildings I did, and I still smile every time I drive by it. It was a great volunteer committee from the church we worked with, and we were able to preserve the beautiful park that, even though it belongs to the church, is felt by the entire town. Imagine if that green space was gone. Q: Describe your style. A: It’s important to me not to be pigeonholed into one particular style. When you compare St. John’s church to our own office building on King Street with concrete piers—they are clearly very different, but still have lots of the same values underlying their designs: how they fit into their sites, honesty, expression of structure, simplicity of form, and a reductionism in use of materials. My training was very disciplined. I learned not to do things because I liked the way they looked; there had to be an underlying logic. Q: Jackson’s aesthetic today? A: I think Jackson has fared much better through the boom of the last fifteen to twenty years than many other mountain communities. The boom completely changed the character of some places. Jackson has changed, but we’ve been able to accommodate growth without compromising values. INTERVIEW BY DINA MISHEV
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locals
BRADLY J. BONER
JH Living
Ashley Potzernitz RoboGirl SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD Ashley Potzernitz is a self-described nerd. And she’s proud of it. As a part of the Jackson Hole High School (JHHS) RoboBroncs robotics team her sophomore and junior years, Potzernitz spent long hours—sometimes forty a week— writing papers, securing sponsors, offering design ideas, and, when the team needed a break, having “spontaneous dance parties” in the lab, she says. Last year, at Utah’s Regional FIRST Robotics Competition, she was honored as a Dean’s List Semi-finalist. Potzernitz wasn’t on RoboBroncs this year—she wanted to focus on college applications, her after-school job as a camp counselor for Teton County Parks and Recreation, and scholarship opportunities—but being on it was one of the best parts of high school, she says. She’s still friends with RoboBronc-ers. When they’re together, they call themselves the “nerd herd.” 38
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Q: Why robots? A: It was different. I’d never been involved with something like that. I was curious, and it sounded like fun. Q: Fun? A: It was new, innovative, and different. Also, it was a challenging and continuous project. Q: What was the first robot you built? A: Archie. He was built to shoot basketballs into hoops and climb and balance on a pyramid. Last year’s robot was Cowboy Joe; he flung Frisbees. Q: Fifty years from now, what kind of
robots do you think we’ll have? A: That’s hard to say. Twenty years ago in the movies, everyone thought we’d have flying cars by now. We don’t. We have a Snuggie.
Jackson Wyoming Real Estate
Q: In large part because of the RoboBroncs’ success, the Town of Jackson declared February 13 “Robotics Day.” What do you do on Robotics Day? A: [Last year], myself and the other captain, Nick Pampe, [showed off Cowboy Joe] to more than six hundred elementary school students. Q: Were they enthralled or bored? A: The kids were so involved. I had a lot say, “I’m going to do that when I’m older.”
live where you love
Q: Do other Wyoming schools have robotics teams? A: Yes, other Wyoming schools have robotics teams, but there are not very many, and they are mostly middleschool and elementary-level FIRST groups. Part of our outreach last year was writing letters to Wyoming legislators to help us increase education and/ or funding for the start of more FIRST teams throughout our state. Q: Is robotics more art or science? A: It’s more art than science because there’s no right way to do something. There’s so much experimenting and brainstorming and ideas. At competitions, the fifty teams all designed robots to do the exact same thing, and they look nothing alike. Q: Your favorite movie robot? A: Bumblebee from Transformers. Q: Do other JHHS students recognize how cool the stuff is that the RoboBroncs are doing? A: Other JHHS students realize that our robot is complex and amazing, and recognize that we are developing very interesting designs, but don’t understand the amount of time, dedication, and work that actually goes into the club. Q: What does your future hold? A: I think I’ll go into a math or science field. I’ve seen the power in them; it changes the way you think about things and gives you a new aspect of your capabilities and what you can achieve. INTERVIEW BY BRIELLE SCHAEFFER
JacksonListings.com WilsonListings.com TetonVillageListings.com Broker/Owner
Representing Buyers and Sellers in Jackson Hole since 1989 Teri@TeriMcCarthy.com 307.690.6906
www.JacksonWyomingRealEstate.com SUMMER 2014 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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JH Living
on the job
Invisible Cowboys Pickup men of the Jackson Hole Rodeo BY JAYME FEARY PHOTOGRAPHY BY JEFFREY KAPHAN
JACKSON HOLE RODEO, Saturday night. The gate jerked open on bucking chute #2, and out came a 1,000-pound equine convulsion. The cowboy spurred out hard over the saddle bronc’s shoulders, holding his free hand high so that it didn’t touch the horse and lead to disqualification. The cowboy slapped against the bronc’s back like a screen door in a hurricane. The bronc bucked 40
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three licks in a circle, and then in longer and faster strides humped toward the far rail where it wheeled hard left and almost launched the cowboy over the fence. The spectators barely noticed the arrival of three “pickup men” whose job is to help saddle bronc and bareback riders dismount safely and to keep livestock safe. The pickup men funneled their horses behind the bronc to rescue the
A cowboy hitches a ride from Jim Stoddard while Bart Westergard comes in close to pick up the rider’s saddle bronc at the Jackson Hole Rodeo.
cowboy. The buzzer sounded, and the crowd applauded. The cowboy grabbed hold of the bronc like a monkey on its mother’s back. One pickup man galloped behind, whooping, hollering, and slapping his rope against his chaps. Another pickup man crowded the bronc’s hip and pinched the horse along the fence, keeping it just out of kicking range. Spectators focused on the gyrating rider, his teeth clenched and eyes bulged as big as ostrich eggs, his head swiveling around looking for salvation. And here it came. Jim Stoddard, fifty-three, all jaw, mustache, and hat, a toothpick clamped in the corner of his mouth as
if in a vise. With his leg smashed between his gelding and the bronc, he was already ahead of the bronc’s shoulder. His arm extended across and hooked the cowboy under the armpit. As if about to drown, the cowboy reached out and clamped around his rescuer’s waist. Stoddard’s gelding slowed. The bronc ran out from beneath the cowboy, who released his bear hug on Stoddard, dropped to his feet, and rolled in the soft dirt. Ninety points, high score of the night. The crowd roared. The cowboy raised his arms and tossed his hat into the air, spinning, tilting, and flying like a Frisbee toward the ether. This sight was what the people had paid to see: the rodeo rough stock rider, all muscle, sinew, and courage—the hatted, booted, and chapped icon of the American West, symbol of freedom and wild, open country. Long live cowboys! BUT THE REAL hands of the Jackson Hole Rodeo may be the pickup men. While the cowboy took his bow, they galloped off unnoticed, urging the riderless bronc around the fence toward the stock pens. Stoddard leaned down and grabbed the bronc’s lead rope, or “buck rein.” He took two dallies around his saddle horn and slowed his gelding in a circle. The bronc continued bucking, its nose tied one foot from Stoddard’s saddle, almost nailing the rear pickup man. Stoddard hollered at his partner and nodded toward the bronc’s offside. The
nothing more than the normal bumps and bruises. But eventually, every rough stock rider has his wreck. Case in point: the cowboy in chute #6 the following Wednesday night.
nightmare: being dragged. According to several witnesses, the horse fell on Gillett and then stepped on his head. He died competing in the sport he loved. “That’ll be an image I’ll never forget,” Stoddard
ANY SPORT IN which 100-somepound humans ride 1,000-some-pound livestock inevitably leads to accidents. Though injuries to man and beast are common in rodeo, few are fatal. According to the Rodeo Catastrophic Injury Registry, the catastrophic injury incidence rate from 1989-2009 was 9.45 per 100,000, only 4.05 being fatal. Compare that to vehicle and firearms statistics: According to the Centers for
Pickup crewmen Jim Stoddard, Jason Wheeldon, and Bart Westergard take a break between events at the Jackson Hole Rodeo.
As if about to drown, the cowboy reached out and clamped around his rescuer’s waist. second pickup man veered slightly to avoid the kicks, spurred his horse alongside, and leaned over to unhook the flank strap, which dropped to the dirt. The bronc’s thirty-second workday was complete. It fell as complacent as a dude horse and trotted alongside Stoddard through a gate to the pen where the rest of the broncs stood with heads hung as if sleeping. So far, the night had gone smoothly,
Disease Control, vehicle fatalities are 10.9 per 100,000 and those from firearms are 10.3. Pickup men, who work all rodeos that conduct rough stock events, are one reason for the relative safety. But the safety statistics do not rid Stoddard of remembering the Jackson Hole Rodeo in 2010 when twenty-year-old Nicolas Gillett hung his left spur in his rigging and experienced every cowboy’s worst
says. “I had to sit there and watch that kid bleed to death. There was nothing anyone could do.” When not picking up three nights a week at the Jackson Hole Rodeo, these three men work regular jobs. Stoddard, who has picked up for thirty years, works as a brand inspector in Teton Valley, Idaho. Jason Wheeldon builds fences and houses. Bart Westergard caretakes a ranch and shoes horses. Some pickup men are former rough stock riders who pick up as a way to continue rodeoing. After riding a bit of rough stock in his younger years, Stoddard began picking up to help his kids when they started rodeoing. Some pickup men love the work so much they think about little else. But if you ask Stoddard about his motivation, he simply says, “It lines up nice with the things I do.” A cowboy would rather earn his living cowboying than wiring homes or designing websites. Although Stoddard SUMMER 2014 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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enjoys the work, he relies Horses are athletes, too. Jim Stoddard gives one of his a on the extra income to supstretch after the drive from his port his family. He worked home in Rexburg, Idaho, to every Jackson rodeo last Jackson. summer except for the one week he took off to pick up at the Idaho High School Rodeo Association Finals. prevent being pulled off What’s the key to being a and dragged. Stoddard pickup man? “If we don’t leaned hard to free him. In work together, we look like tandem, Stoddard’s mare idiots. If we’re doing our and the bronc continued job right, no one ever noaround the fence back totices us,” Stoddard says. ward the chutes with the Midway through There are more than twenty years of memories and hard riding on cowboy between like a Wednesday night’s rodeo, Stoddard’s work saddle. clothesline until the buck Stoddard, Wheeldon, and rein pulled loose and Westergard maneuvered into their tri- closed in, and the bronc jerked left along dragged along in the sand. angle position and waited for chute #6. the fence. Stoddard’s mare pinned her Stoddard reined back and released The cowboy nodded, and the gate flew ears back, dug in, and galloped up hard the cowboy, who landed feet first. As open. Stoddard clamped down on his behind the bronc. Eight ... . The buzzer usual, spectators focused on him. They toothpick and began counting. One ... sounded, the crowd applauded for the had no idea Stoddard just prevented a two ... three ... . Instead of kicking hard, cowboy, and Stoddard rode up along- catastrophe. Unnoticed, the three pickthis bronc bucked in long strides, half side. Westergard rode just off the bronc’s up men rode off with the bronc toward loping toward the far fence and the main hip, pushing it along the fence while the pens. The cowboy turned and salutgrandstand where an earlier horse had Wheeldon pressed from behind. The ed the crowd, which applauded and tossed a rider over the fence and nearly cowboy reached out, leaped like a flying whistled for the great American rodeo into a block wall. The cowboy’s eyes squirrel, and grabbed Stoddard around hero. JH widened as the fence neared. Four ... five the waist, teetering on the back of ... . The bronc wasn’t performing well Stoddard’s horse. Catch the Jackson Hole Rodeo pickup enough to generate a high score, but the Suddenly, the buck rein wrapped men at work every Wednesday and cowboy eked out all the points he could around the cowboy’s boot and spur. Saturday, and some Thursdays and by spurring hard and clean. Stretched between the bronc and Fridays, from May 24 through August 30. Six ... seven ... . The pickup men Stoddard’s horse, he held on tightly to www.jhrodeo.com 42
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JH Living
business
Jessica Marlo founded Healthy Being Juicery in a yoga studio in July 2011. Today, she has her own storefront and twenty “juice chefs” working for her.
Jacksilicon Hole?* Entrepreneurship of different types thrives in the valley. BY JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE STAFF WITH ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY WHITNEY ROYSTER PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRADLY J. BONER
AS A GIRL, Jessica Marlo played “entrepreneur.” She was a banker. She owned a store. She worked the cash register. Marlo is still at it today, although no longer playing. In July 2011, the thirty-nine-year-old holistic health coach and former managing partner (she worked her way up from a hostess) at the valley’s biggest restaurant group opened Healthy Being Juicery. Based in a backroom at Inversion Yoga, it sold sixteenounce bottles of cold-pressed juices and raw sprouted nut milk tonics for $12. It also sold juices at the Wednesday night People’s Market. 44
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To write that Marlo’s business, which she started because of her deep belief in healing foods and nutrition, has since exploded is an understatement. Five months after its founding, Healthy Being had ten employees—“juice chefs.” “It started out my mom and me in the kitchen until 3 a.m.,” Marlo says. “I was bleary-eyed. It became physically impossible to do it all. I had to take a leap of faith and hire somebody. I hired one person. Five months later, I had ten employees. That’s how fast it happened.” This past winter, after growing out of a series of kitchens around downtown, Marlo, with a client as an investor, moved Healthy Being into its own space—a renovated log cabin—on Broadway Avenue, a block from the Town Square. Making the move, she expanded even more. Healthy Being now serves raw, prepared food riffing on items such as lasagna (thinly sliced zucchini serves as noodles and “ricotta cheese” is made from cashews) and breakfast burritos (a veggie and flaxseed shell stuffed with fresh veggies, walnut “meat,” pico de gallo, and cashew cheddar cheese). Today, she employs twenty juice chefs and two raw food chefs and is thinking about perhaps
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SILICON COULOIR, A group founded to nurture entrepreneurship in the valley, held its first Chance Meetings networking event during spring break. Because that’s a time of year many locals are out of town, the four founders expected a couple dozen people. Eightyfive aspiring entrepreneurs showed up. Two and a half years since its founding, “we’ve got 230 people in our online meet-up database now,” says co-founder Liza Millet, who moved to the valley in 2008 after working twelve years in finance in Philadelphia, Boston, and New York and earning her MBA from Wharton. Chance Meetings continue; they’re held the first Monday of every month. Because she was “burned out” from sixty- to eighty-hour workweeks when she arrived in the valley, Millet did part-time consulting. Word soon got out that she knew her way around business plans. “I was getting two to three calls a week from people who had a business plan in their back pocket,” Millet says. She happily offered advice. Fast-forwarding a few years, Millet found herself facing a problem. It had nothing to do with the increasing number of people coming to her for business plan advice, though. “Half of the friends I had made when I moved here had left. These were people who were invested in the community and wanted to stay, but were forced to leave Participants in one of Silicon Couloir’s Chance Meetings mingle at The Rose in downtown Jackson. The because they were finding dead monthly events are an opportunity for entrepreneurs to meet and share ideas. ends in their careers,” she says. “There are some great, chalaround the Town Square, but it’s impor- Watson, who founded Mountains of lenging traditional jobs in this valley, tant to know that we can make it with a Groceries, a grocery and cuisine deliv- but I think there are more people who local clientele. We had to do a large edu- ery service, in 2011. “Not having to be want jobs like that than there are those cation process about what cold-pressed in a 9-to-5 job is giving me an opportu- types of jobs. If you weren’t lucky juices are and their benefits, but now nity to live a lot more life here. I get to enough to get one of those jobs, you had that the word is getting out, the locals ski eighty to ninety days a year. They’re a couple of choices: make the decision are excited and interested. We see faces not full days, but a run or two.” Torrey that you were fine with that because of over and over—people come in several Webster runs Exposure Signs, which the recreational lifestyle this area aftimes a week and buy several juices and makes sandblasted, metal, carved, and fords, leave, or create your own job.” maybe a raw food item at a time.” routed signs, mostly by himself. The Millet and Silicon Couloir’s other business is busy enough he could hire founders thought the best way to keep WYOMING HAS LONG been known as employees, but Webster is reluctant to this last kind of professional in the valley a great place for protecting your wealth. because managing them might hurt his was to foster an environment ripe for For years, Bloomberg Wealth Manager flexibility, whether he wanted to take a creating their own professional chalmagazine rated the state the nation’s day off to ski or get out of town in lenges. “We don’t help people build their most tax-friendly. Wyoming has no March. businesses, but create an ecosystem they duplicating the concept in “another beautiful mountain town.” “This concept is wildly successful here in Jackson, but it wouldn’t be everywhere,” Marlo says. “It needs a community with people who are willing to invest in their health and who are interested in preventative health.” Healthy Being also needs a community where enough residents can afford $12 juices. Marlo says this past winter, 90 percent of Healthy Being’s clients were locals. “I expect that to change in the summer when there’s more people walking
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JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014
individual income tax, no inheritance tax, no state tax on retirement income earned and received from another state, no state gift taxes, no state capital gains tax, and no personal property tax on property held for personal use. It turns out that within Wyoming, Jackson Hole is also a great place for building wealth through entrepreneurship. On the trails or ski lifts, it seems every other person you talk to has their own business. Entrepreneurs are as rampant as wildflowers. “I live here to play,” says Ashley
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can take advantage of,” Millet says. In addition to its monthly Chance Meetings, from which some Silicon Couloir members have found employees to hire or met potential investors, the group has partnered with Central Wyoming College to create the Start Up Institute, which is held every fall and spring. The Institute is a ten-week intensive entrepreneurship program directed by Sandy Hessler, who helped found a successful marketing services startup, Imagitas, and also served as assistant dean at Harvard University before moving to Jackson. Millet says, “Lots of my MBA was theoretical. Every part of the Start Up Institute is you working on your business plan.”
Ruth Ann Petroff founded Snake River Roasting Co. in 2007 and started selling to four accounts. Today, the company sells coffee and brewing equipment to more than sixty clients, large and small.
WHILE THE TYPES of entrepreneurs in the valley today are different than in the past, Jonathan Schechter—founder and executive director of the Charture Institute, a Jackson Hole-based think tank—says entrepreneurs here are nothing new. “Going back to when this valley was first settled, homesteaders who chose to come here were entrepreneurs,” Schechter says. “In a place where many other people had not seen opportunities, they did.” Subsequent generations were also entrepreneurial: dude ranchers and summer- and winter-related businesses that catered to tourists. “Paul McCollister took a big risk opening a ski area here. So, entrepreneurism is a part of our history,” Schechter says. Schechter says Marlo and Silicon Couloir types are the valley’s latest generation of entrepreneurs. Unlike prior entrepreneurs, this generation does not rely on tourism, but lifestyle, and includes two groups: 1) people whose jobs allow them to live where they want to live rather than where a company says they have to be; and 2) entrepreneurs like Marlo and Watson who cater to group 1. “People who want to ski or fish all day and code all night, or who want to raise their kids in a place they feel safe, are drawn to Jackson Hole,” Schechter says. It’s businesses like Marlo’s and Watson’s that help the transplant take. 48
JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014
“These tech-type people are often coming from places like San Francisco, Boston, or New York, where there are lots of amenities and conveniences,” Schechter says. “They want lattes and $12 veggie drinks.” They also want to feel like they belong. Albany County is the only other county in the state with as high a percentage of its population with a bachelor’s degree or higher as Teton County. THE CONSUMMATE LOCAL businessman is a woman who straddles the two most recent generations of entrepreneurs. Ruth Ann Petroff came to Jackson looking for “a great place to live,” arriving more than twenty years ago to take over the local Domino’s franchise, which tourists certainly flock to. She had been working for the company in Texas. Petroff initially feared locals would look at her suspiciously because she was part of a national chain, but “people really looked at me as a person,” she says. Petroff was inspired by that and pledged to give back to the community. Her first project was helping a group of students travel to New Zealand by donating proceeds from pizza sales. “As soon as we helped them, our sales skyrocketed,” she says. “Ever since then, I felt like I was on this push-pull thing
where every time I did something for the community, they supported us even more.” For years, Petroff had nights where she’d donate 100 percent of sales to Teton County Search and Rescue. Afterwards, sales would dramatically increase. “People noticed it and responded to it more than I think they would in other places,” she says. Petroff left Domino’s to open a coffee shop in 2003 and also a coffee roaster, Snake River Roasting Co.—both appreciated by transplanted city slickers and locals alike. Inspired by her successes with all of her businesses, she was asked to run for public office and was elected to the Wyoming Legislature, representing House District 16, in 2010. Silicon Couloir’s Chance Meetings and angel investor talk are fancy. The runaway success of a business selling juice for $12 wouldn’t happen anywhere else in the state. When it comes down to it, though, the heart of the valley’s entrepreneurial energy is simple, and the same as it has always been: “It’s a small town, and we know each other,” Petroff says. “How else can the pizza girl become the state legislator?” JH * We weren’t clever enough to come up with “Jacksilicon Hole.” Wyoming Business Report staff writer Mark Wilcox used it in a March 2013 article he wrote.
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The Clear Creek Group ․ 120 West Pearl Avenue ․ Jackson, Wyoming 83001 ․ (307) 732-3400 ․ www.tccgrealestate.com
design
AARON KRAFT / COURTESY PHOTO
JH Living
Building Smarter, Smaller Today’s Jackson Hole homes aren’t just large and log. BY MIKE KOSHMRL
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JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014
STEPHEN DYNIA’S DAY-to-day life is an example of efficient living and taking advantage of smart design. One of Jackson’s most prominent architects, Dynia lives in a home of his own design, a 2,000-square-foot space a two-minute walk from his office, a reclaimed and renovated former stonemason’s shop. “The work-live idea is a good idea,” Dynia says, “because number one, it is ultimately sustainable. I don’t have to drive. There are a hundred yards from my house to my office.” “Work-live,” as the architect calls it, is a style of building that combines commercial and residential space. The commute for Dynia’s wife is significantly less. A floor below the 1,000-square-foot space the couple calls home is her dance studio. Dynia’s neighbors at his Plateau development—clinging to the side of East Gros Ventre Butte above the northwest corner of the junction of Broadway Avenue and Highway 22—have similar
arrangements, living above bike shops, art studios, and offices. Stylistically, the Dynia residence-workplace development is modern: wide-open, with high ceilings, skylights, a simple design, and lots of proven, low-maintenance materials such as glass and metal. In the world of Jackson Hole architecture, the modern movement and efficiency of design was slow to take hold. In 1993, when Dynia moved to the valley from Manhattan, “there was really no modern work being done here,” he says, sitting in a second-story loft built into his office. “It was a great opportunity.” New residences were often made of log or timbers, and flirted (sometimes even exceeding, as the penalty for excess was merely a fine) with the 8,000-square-foot size cap imposed by the county. But then, in 2008, the housing bubble burst, and people began to think smaller and look toward the town of Jackson itself, says Jerry Douville, one of the valley’s most active builders, having constructed upwards of a dozen homes downtown in the last several years. “People came to town knowing the houses had to be smaller,” he says. Today, the average single-family home Douville builds comes in at around 2,000 square feet—a good deal smaller than the most recent U.S. average, around 2,600 square feet, according to the National Association of Home Builders. PARTS OF DOWNTOWN still look “tired,” but since the turn of the century, Jackson’s building stock has steadily modernized, says Nona Yehia, the founding principal at Jackson’s E/Ye Design. “For the last ten years, more smaller, sustainable houses are going up,” Yehia says. “The whole modernist movement is really about efficiency and flow. Somehow we got off track into this McMansion idea. But I think modernism is also experiencing a resurgence.” Dynia’s nine-unit Plateau project, which he built in 2010 and 2011, is just one example of efficiency and flow coming to the valley’s residences. Dynia is one of the most active architects in the valley; you’ve probably stepped into a building he has designed. His OPPOSITE: A family of five moved into this new 2,640-square-foot home on East Broadway. SUMMER 2014 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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AARON KRAFT / COURTESY PHOTO
fingerprints are on everything from the Center for the Arts’ performance pavilion to neighborhoods such as 810 West. He’s also the architect for the soon-to-be developed housing complex The Grove, located off Scott Lane. Today, Dynia is far from the only proponent of efficient design. Seven years ago, Dynia’s work-live concept intrigued Jackson developer Greg Prugh enough that he sought to duplicate it. Financing snagged his Pine Box project until 2012, but today, a lot behind Sears has nine stylish, 1,400-square-foot work-live units instead of “a beater little A-plex next to the mortuary,” says Prugh, whose father is also a real estate agent in the valley. As a kid, Prugh once bought a toy train from someone living in that beater little A-plex. “Even then I thought it was a horrible building and wanted to demo it,” he says. Today, Prugh’s mom owns one of the Pine Box units, using the bottom floor as an art studio. Prugh took me on a tour of the 700-square-foot lounge and living area on the studio’s second floor. Pine 52
JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014
Box wasn’t just popular with Prugh’s family. The nine units sold out in three months. “People are coming to town saying, ‘God, I’d love to live in one of these,’ ” Prugh says. “If we could build seven more, we could probably sell them immediately. I think there’s lots of opportunity because there are very few
places that are on the market today.” “You want efficient living?” he says. “You live and work in the same place. That’s the way things were. Efficiency can be more than just insulation and walls. Efficiency is size, efficiency is window placement. Efficiency is living downtown, above where you work.”
BRADLY J. BONER
The family uses the 1,000-square-foot first floor as a master suite; IKEA shelving divides the space.
Liz Brimmer, her husband, three dogs, and two cats lived in a 780-square-foot guesthouse while their 2,300-square-foot main home was under construction next door. “I’ve really learned how to live efficiently,” she says.
BRADLY J. BONER
The home of architect Stephen Dynia exemplifies the “work-live” style. He and his wife live upstairs where large windows showcase the Jackson Hole landscape. A working dance studio is on the first floor.
Jewelry | Furnishings | Accessories & Gifts 115 E. Broadway | 307-733-7868 | www.willowcreekhf.com
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JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014
FOR THOSE WHO don’t need commercial space at home, but are still looking for an economical house in town with modern, simple styling, Prugh has a suggestion: build small. “Why are we pushing people to build 4,000- and 5,000-square-foot homes when they could build 1,500- or 2,000-square-foot homes?” he asks. “I’m a little hypocritical because I’m building a larger home, but I think from a county zoning perspective, why aren’t we encouraging people to build 1,500-square-foot homes? Those are your starting homes.” Yehia has designed some of the smallest single-family homes in the valley. The most diminutive 400-somesquare-foot Yehia design, which she calls “hip-pocket,” aims to take advantage of every last square foot. She has designed two of them in the last two years. Several other slightly larger hip-pocket homes are also in Yehia’s portfolio. “In bigger
houses, details can get lost,” Yehia says. “You have to design very intricately in order to make a small design work, which I really enjoy doing.” But most people do need more than 400 square feet. Of the four buildings Yehia has designed in town, a non-hippocket Redmond Street residence slated for completion this summer gets the nod as her favorite. A project by developer and former town councilman Greg Miles, the compact, 2,450-square-foot home—box-like but at the same time wide-open—has a two-story streetside deck with great Snow King views. “What I really love about this house is the spatial dynamics,” Yehia says. “We tried to make everything as special as possible. We tried to make the small not seem so small. The huge windows and siding Miles selected are all economical and low-maintenance,” she says. Also, they look good. Driving down Redmond, the building’s intriguing design grabs you as much as its simple cedar exterior. JACKSON’S GROWING MARKET for space-efficient (and often cost-efficient as well) homes doesn’t mean boring design. True, squares and rectangles are among the most efficient shapes in terms of space and cost. Among Dynia’s first projects in town were 750-square-foot townhomes tucked into an alley near the base of Snow King; they were literal cubes, with their flat roofs doubling as roof decks. “I am very supportive of everything going on in town, but I think there’s potential to do more than this design,” Yehia says, gesturing toward a boxlike home recently built. “In order to build economically, it doesn’t have to just be a box.” A Prugh/Yehia collaboration on the corner of Kelly Avenue and King Street to be finished this summer is modern, efficient in space and cost, and goes beyond being a box. Longtime local Liz Brimmer so loved the look and idea of the project, which actually includes three different residences—two of which Brimmer and her husband will rent out—they bought it before the first foundation was even poured. The home’s design still has its roots in a box, but adds interest and variety with angles and a mix of exterior colors and materials. Last fall, while the 2,300-square-foot main house was still under construction, Brimmer, her husband, three dogs, and
C O N T E M P O R A RY | T R A D I T I O N A L In s p i re d D e s i g n s f o r M o u n t a i n L i v i n g 115 E. Broadway | 307-733-7868 | www.willowcreekhf.com
SUMMER 2014 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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two cats moved into the 780-square-foot guesthouse. An avid equestrian, Brimmer’s previous residence was a four-bedroom rental south of town. Not only was this rental house much larger in terms of square footage, but also had enough land for horses and butted up to the Bridger-Teton National Forest. Brimmer’s new home and guesthouse, along with a basement unit, a garden, and garages, all pack neatly into a fifth-of-an-acre lot. Still living in the guesthouse when we spoke last winter, Brimmer says, “I don’t feel like I’m giving up anything going into a smaller space. It’s a beautiful ethic to have a finite amount of space and have to learn to live within that space.” Had Brimmer and her husband chosen to build in the countryside, they surely would have had more elbow room, inside and outside. But being in town is absolutely worth it. “I’m over the moon about it,” Brimmer says. “Living in such a small space, I’ve really learned how to live efficiently. You just don’t need that much stuff.” DYNIA, BACK IN his office, mulls over the evolution of design in Jackson Hole. He says he thinks that being efficient with space in building and planning will only improve. “Good housing that’s dense enough and located in the right places is what we want,” he says. “That is a culturally significant part of the community. Our culture is about the natural environment. Using space efficiently augments the objective of this community, which is coexisting with some of the most beautiful and wild landscapes in the country. I think efficiency is elegance, in a certain way.” JH
Downtown Home Tour A TOUR OF Jackson’s most chic modern homes, Modern in the Mountains, is set for two Sundays this summer, July 13 and August 17. It will focus on homes in East Jackson. “Riding my bike around the neighborhood I wondered what some of the houses looked like inside,” says tour founder Dina Mishev. “I figured I couldn’t be the only person wondering.” Mishev, the editor of this magazine who has also been writing about architecture for over a decade, got in touch with valley architects and developers to see if they had East Jackson projects they wanted to share with the public. She also checked with homeowners directly. “I was a little worried I’d scare people off knocking on their front door with this random idea, but in all instances, homeowners were excited about the idea, even if they decided they didn’t want the public walking through their home,” Mishev says. Modern in the Mountains doesn’t target huge or over-the-top homes. Neither does it include just new ones. “I’m defining ‘modern’ as an efficient space,” Mishev says. “One of the best things about East Jackson is how diverse it is and how quirky that diversity is. This tour celebrates that.” A price-controlled affordable home in the Daisy Bush development is on the agenda, as is one of Stephen Dynia’s cubes. Also included is Mishev’s own home, a new 2,300-square-foot Carney Logan Burkedesigned residence. Other homes are a historic 400-square-foot log cabin that was recently completely redone, an open-market Daisy Bush home, and architect Peggy Gilday’s residence, sided in charred cedar and custom fiberglass panels. “Biking past Peggy’s house while it was still under construction, I was already wondering what its interior looked like,” Mishev says. “Now we won’t have to wonder anymore.” Tickets are $30/day or $50 for both Sundays. 307/690-5374; jacksonhometour.eventbrite.com
Classic Lodge Rustic Contemporary Visit our new showroom at 745 W. Broadway
(307) 733-0274 | ww.stocktonandshirk.com 56
JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014
Photographer : Matthew Millman
clbarchitects.com
jackson,wy
Inspired by Place
Special Interest Feature
BAR B BAR RANCH TRADITION
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.
HUNTSMAN SPRINGS
4,203
square feet
6
bedrooms
6
baths
The home offers a stone and wood porch that is inviting to guests. A predominant feature is the inlay of refined wood beams into the living room ceiling. A stone fireplace in the living room is situated between floor-to-ceiling custom built-in bookshelves. This exquisite home is overlooking the award-winning David McLay Kidd golf course. Solitude may be found in wildlife viewing from the nature preserve, with its two miles of private boardwalk. Furniture package included by Pat Harker Designs.
1,790,000 dollars
13-2792 MLS#
58
14,277 square feet
10
bedrooms
This 72 acre property has two enhanced creeks, Snake River frontage, ponds and Teton views. The improvements are substantial: an elegant main abode, a 6 bedroom guest home and a rec home with observatory, squash court, climbing wall and gym. Located in pristine and private Bar B Bar Ranch.
12
baths
UPON REQUEST dollars
12-1988 MLS#
Jackson Hole Sotheby’s International Realty Spackmans & Associates - (307) 739-8132 spackmans@jhsir.com - jhsir.com
CONTEMPORARY MOUNTAIN RETREAT
4,127
square feet
5
bedrooms
5.5 baths
Infused with light, this very private “cabin in the woods” is a welcoming mountain retreat, nestled amongst the pines of Snow King Estates. Boasting an airy, contemporary design, the home takes full advantage of the 0.21 acre site, offering high ceilings, an abundance of windows and spacious decks to enjoy the lovely setting. Thoughtfully designed, this 5 bedroom, 5.5 bath, 4,127 square foot house is a beautiful expression of quality and attention to detail.
2,375,000
Huntsman Springs Real Estate Julie F. Bryan - (307) 699-0205 jbryan@huntsmansprings.com - huntsmansprings.com
JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014
dollars
2160308 JHSIR#
Jackson Hole Sotheby’s International Realty Tom Evans - (307) 739-8149 TomEvansRE@jhsir.com - tomevansrealestate.com
UNDERSTATED ELEGANCE IN TETON PINES
5,997
square feet
5
bedrooms
8
baths
Completed in 2000, this Teton Pines home stuns with simple, sophisticated architecture—clean lines, intelligent updates of western vernacular, and a thoughtful, open layout. Its 6,000-square feet of living space includes a master wing, three guest suites, professional kitchen, wine cellar, office, library, and grand room with 30-foot vaulted ceilings. Situated on one of the most private lots in the neighborhood with mature landscaping adjacent to protected open space, this home offers unobstructed Teton views.
8,865,000 dollars
13-2652 MLS#
Jackson Hole Sotheby’s International Realty Dave Spackman - (307) 739-8132 spackmans@jhsir.com - spackmansinjh.com
WESTERN LIVING AT SPRING CREEK RANCH
3,300
square feet
4
bedrooms
5
baths
1,900,000 dollars
13-2191 MLS#
Spectacular panoramic views of the Teton Mountain Range can be seen from this 4 bedroom plus loft townhome. Combine Western-style architecture with luxury amenities and you have the best Jackson has to offer at Spring Creek Ranch. Located minutes from the Town of Jackson and Teton Village. There is lots of storage and a 1-car garage. Large windows and decks offer views of the Grand Teton. Perfect seasonal/year-round home or for short-term rental.
Black Diamond Real Estate “The Spouses Selling Houses” Fred & Linda Walker - (307) 690-6170 buy@bdjh.com
BARREN HOUSE
2,700
square feet
1
bedrooms
Prugh Real Estate recently finished a 2,700 square foot loft on East Broadway just four blocks from the Town Square in Jackson. Designed by kt814, this sunny twostory loft enjoys an open floor plan with 10 foot ceilings, industrial oak floors, custom cabinets, Bosch appliances, Kohler and Moen fixtures. From the house there are views of Snow King, Crystal Butte and Saddle Butte.
2
baths
UPON REQUEST dollars
— MLS#
Prugh Real Estate Greg Prugh - (307) 413-2468 g@prugh.com - prugh.com
CHARMING CABIN-STYLE RETREAT
2,878
square feet
6
bedrooms
4.5 baths
Surrounded by 4.5 acres of pristine lawns, colorful flower beds and towering trees sits a one-of-a-kind property. A large stone fireplace and knotty pine accents set the stage in the four bedroom main house. The master suite features his/hers baths, a wood burning fireplace and a large, private deck. The cozy eat-in kitchen is highlighted by an Aga range and a gorgeous antique, wood stove. A winding stone pathway leads to the artistically renovated guest cabin which stands as the ultimate sanctuary for family or friends.
2,995,000 dollars
13-2277 MLS#
Jackson Hole Sotheby’s International Realty Mercedes Huff - (307) 690-9000 mercedes.huff@jhsir.com - mercedeshuff.com SUMMER 2014 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
59
INSPIRED LIVING IN INDIAN SPRINGS
4,917
square feet
4
bedrooms
4
Designed to enhance the natural beauty of its setting, this brand new custom residence on 7.58 acres captures bright southern exposures and dramatic views to the mountains across acres of conservation meadows and wetlands. Custom interior finishes showcase the exquisite quality of its construction. Indian Springs Ranch is centrally located and offers a multitude of private amenities for its homeowners.
baths
5,695,000 dollars
— MLS#
acres
—
bedrooms
Jackson Hole Real Estate Associates, LLC Exclusive Affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate Carol Linton - (307) 699-1139 carollinton@jhrea.com - lintonbingle.com
Views from a place in Jackson rarely seen! At the top of Saddle Butte Heights is this 8.9 acre site with views of the Grand Teton, Elk Refuge, Sleeping Indian and Snow King. Your home can be situated on this lot to take in all of these views at once. Only a 10 minute drive from the Town Square.
dollars
13-902 MLS#
60
square feet
23
bedrooms
21
UPON REQUEST dollars
10-165 MLS#
7,815
square feet
5
bedrooms
baths
Jackson Hole Real Estate Associates, LLC Exclusive Affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate Budge Realty Group - (307) 413-1364 chadbudge@jhrea.com - budgerealestate.com
JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014
Historic dude ranch located north of Jackson, offers an authentic western experience for all four seasons. 83 deeded acres and 486 leased acres. With floating, fishing, hunting and snowmobile permits this ranch allows its guests to experience all that Jackson Hole has to offer, as well as bordering both Bridger-Teton National Forest and the Buffalo Fork River. With a consistent repeat client base, the ranch has proven to be a highly desired vacation destination.
Jackson Hole Real Estate Associates, LLC Exclusive Affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate John M. Scott - (307) 690-1009 johnscott@jhrea.com - johnscottrejh.com
UPPER GREEN RIVER ESTATE - CORA, WYOMING
6
—
baths
1,350,000
—
baths
UNBELIEVABLE VIEWS RARELY SEEN
8.9
HEART SIX GUEST RANCH
1,495,000 dollars
11-2152 MLS#
This exquisite residence offers breathtaking mountain views and is conveniently located 30 minutes north of Pinedale and 1.5 hours south of Jackson Hole. Situated on 20 acres with 7,815 square feet of living space, this luxurious home offers 5 bedrooms, 6 baths with high-end finishes throughout. Endless fishing opportunities abound with direct access to over 1.5 miles of the Green River. For the outdoorsman looking for a western lifestyle with firstclass fishing, stunning views and recreational enjoyment, look no further than the Upper Green River.
Live Water Properties Terry Fieseler & Carlos Ordonez - (307) 734-6100 terry@livewaterproperties.com - livewaterproperties.com
PREMIER BAR B BAR MEADOWS LOCATION
5,230
square feet
5
bedrooms
5
baths
Lovely, well-built home offers tremendous Grand Teton views, elegant interiors and generous living spaces. Over 5,000 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 5 baths plus a separate fitness center with sauna. Log accents, including timbered beams emphasize the stunning cathedral ceiling. Features include 2 wood burning fireplaces, custom chandeliers/fixtures, upgraded appliances, whimsical painting accents in the playroom and extensive decking. This very well-cared for home is tucked into the trees on 3.21 private treed acres.
4,475,000 dollars
14-369 MLS#
Jackson Hole Sotheby’s International Realty Pamela Renner - (307) 690-5530 pamela.renner@jhsir.com - jhsir.com
THE WALTON RANCH
1,848 acres
—
bedrooms
—
baths
Set along the legendary Snake River in the shadow of the magnificent Grand Teton, this legacy property is minutes from downtown Jackson, world-class skiing and air service. The 1,848-acre ranch is an operating cattle ranch with its own resident elk herd and fishing access along three miles of the Snake River. Surrounded by natural beauty and close to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, the Walton Ranch offers a rare opportunity to own a sizable ranch in one of the most sought after locations in the world.
68,700,000 dollars
— MLS#
SOLITUDE ON THE SNAKE RIVER
5,522
square feet
4
bedrooms
6
baths
UPON REQUEST dollars
14-390 MLS#
Jackson Hole Real Estate Associates, LLC Exclusive Affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate David NeVille - (307) 734-9949 tng@jhrea.com - thenevillegroup.com
SILVER SPRUCE LODGE
4,960
square feet
5
bedrooms
From the moment you drive up Woodchuck Lane in the River Meadows subdivision in Jackson Hole, Wyoming you are greeted by the sheer beauty of this log home masterpiece set amongst the aspens and large pines in the forest. The natural setting is just the first of many fine qualities the home has to offer. High quality finishes highlight this excellent vacation home opportunity.
5
baths
2,100,000
Ranch Marketing Associates Billy Long & Ron Morris - (855) 535-0881 info@rmabrokers.com - rmabrokers.com
Tremendous privacy on the Snake River with views of the Teton Mountain Range. Over 5,000 square feet of living space designed to bring the outdoors in. 4 bedrooms, 5 baths, family area, living, formal dining, large office, abundant outdoor living areas, and a 3-car garage. Solitude subdivision was designed to embrace existing wildlife and their habitat for sustainability.
dollars
13-2321 MLS#
Jackson Hole Real Estate Associates, LLC Exclusive Affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate Christy & Garth Gillespie - (307) 413-5243 gillespieteam@jhrea.com - jacksonholeexperts.com SUMMER 2014 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
61
GRAND TETON VIEWS
9.74 acres
—
bedrooms
Arguably the finest lot available in Indian Springs. This beautiful building site boasts views of the Grand, multiple ponds, and trees. With enviable privacy, it backs up to the slope of the butte, and the building site is flat and easy to access. Only fifteen minutes to JH Mountain Resort and five minutes to Jackson, this one-of-a-kind lot is the perfect location for any dream home.
—
MLS#
Brokers of Jackson Hole LLC Doug Herrick - (307) 413-8899 dherrick@jhrealestate.com - brokersofjacksonhole.com
300 FEET ABOVE THE SNAKE RIVER
8,178
square feet
4
bedrooms
5
This beautiful custom home of Old World style and modern convenience perches 300 feet above the braided channels of the Snake River on 35 acres. You’ll glory in sweeping views of the Snake River and nearby Tom Weiskopf designed eighteen hole golf course. Features include an artist’s studio, a game and movie room, 3 wood burning fireplaces, a 3-car garage, a three season porch, an outdoor spa, and craftsmanship in every detail.
baths
UPON REQUEST dollars
— MLS#
62
square feet
4
bedrooms
baths
4,950,000
12-2003
3,975
4.5
baths
dollars
3 NEWLY CONSTRUCTED CABINS FOR YOU
UPON REQUEST dollars
— MLS#
These just completed cabins, designed by award winning Poss Architecture + Planning of Aspen, Colorado, sit alongside Martin Creek, a short walk from the Snake River Sporting Club’s 18 hole Tom Weiskopf designed golf course, the Snake River, and surrounding national forest. Vaulted ceilings, alder cabinetry, hardwood floors, en suite bathrooms and walk-in closets in each bedroom, and top-of-the-line appliances are just a few details of these fine homes.
RE/MAX Obsidian Real Estate Chip Marvin & Fred Harness - (307) 690-0417 chipmarvin@gmail.com - srssportingclub.com/ranch
SOUTH PARK RANCHES
1,784
square feet
3
bedrooms
Extremely well-cared for log home, fenced and crossed fenced, small pond and water rights. Exceptionally good horse property. Remodeled in 2009 including appliances and hardwood floors with big views and lots of sun. Bully barn and out building included.
2
baths
990,000
RE/MAX Obsidian Real Estate Chip Marvin & Fred Harness - (307) 690-0417 chipmarvin@gmail.com - srssportingclub.com/ranch
JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014
dollars
14-46 MLS#
Brokers of Jackson Hole LLC Doug Herrick - (307) 413-8899 dherrick@jhrealestate.com - brokersofjacksonhole.com
FURNISHED CABIN IN SHOOTING STAR
4,071
square feet
4
bedrooms
4.5 baths
Enjoy on-call shuttle service to and from the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort from this 4 bedroom, 4.5 bathroom, 4,000 square foot Cabin. Designed by JLF & Associates, this Cabin is situated on Last Chance Creek and overlooks the Tom Fazio golf course with spectacular views of the iconic Sleeping Indian. The Shooting Star clubhouse is within walking distance and offers a world class spa and fitness facility. The golf course was recently rated 4th best residential course by Golfweek. During the winter, it becomes the valley’s premier Nordic facility.
4,950,000 dollars
12-506 MLS#
square feet
4
bedrooms
If an outdoor lifestyle is what you seek than this is the house for you. Within walking distance of great forest trails for hiking, biking or skiing, this house is perched atop a hill on 6.88 acres in Butler Creek with exceptional views of the valley, Tetons, Snake River and surrounding mountains.
3
dollars
13-2526 MLS#
acres
—
bedrooms
—
baths
dollars
10-2119 MLS#
Enjoy two spectacular riverfront parcels with dramatic Teton views and two creeks that meander through the property. Tall cottonwoods, aspens and pines intermix with lush meadows and riparian areas to create a private wonderland that is home to prolific wildlife including elk and moose all just minutes from town, recreation, restaurants and medical facilities. There are two main building sites on the property and extra entitlements that allow an owner to build additional square footage. This is the ultimate water and view property.
3,826
square feet
3+
bedrooms
baths
Brokerage of the Tetons Meredith Landino (307) 690-8028 Jamie Turner (307) 203-9055 mlandino@tetonre.com - jamie@brokerageofthetetons.com
Jackson Hole Sotheby’s International Realty Barbara Allen & Bill VanGelder - (307) 413-3510 allenvangelder@jhsir.com - jacksonholerealestateinfo.com
CASCADE CANYON AT FOUR SEASONS
4.5
baths
1,195,000
72
17,900,000
Jackson Hole Sotheby’s International Realty John Resor - (307) 739-8062 jresor@shootingstarjh.com - shootingstarjh.com
OUTDOOR ENTHUSIAST DREAM HOME
3,817
THE RIVERFRONT RANCH
4,950,000 dollars
13-2656 MLS#
Slopeside, casually elegant private residential living offering the most direct access to Jackson Hole Mountain Resort with complete world-class amenities of the famed Four Seasons Resort. ‘Cascade Canyon’ is one of the more coveted units primarily for its prime positioning, offering the best views and most complete resort access in this top-tier category. Two private underground parking places adds to the luxury and ease of the most ideal ski resort experience in the Jackson Hole market.
Jackson Hole Sotheby’s International Realty Realty Group of Jackson Hole Rob DesLauriers - (307) 739-8070 rgjh@jhsir.com - realtygroupjh.com SUMMER 2014 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
63
An interview — Marjorie May Ryan — Born 1934
JACKSON’S WHOLE
HISTORY
WOMEN RULE! Meet Jackson’s ‘Petticoat’ Council
BIRTH OF TOWN SQUARE - CELEBRATING 100 YEARS - HISTORICAL WALKING TOUR OF DOWNTOWN By Richard Anderson
Town of Jackson circa 1920
JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014
a variety of needs: a meeting space, dance hall, courtroom, smoking club, gymnasium, and, later, a schoolhouse. The Clubhouse still stands; it’s on the east side of the Town Square and houses several shops and, upstairs, offices. A hotel came in 1901, the year Bill Simpson (Sen. Alan Simpson’s grandfather) laid
1872
Ferdinand V. Hayden hits Jackson Hole on a second survey of the region. Fellow expeditioners include William Henry Jackson, credited with the first photograph of the Tetons.
President Ulysses Grant signs Yellowstone National Park into being. It is the first national park in the world.
1879
Trapper Richard “Beaver Dick” Leigh spends his first winter on the shore of what will become known as Jenny Lake.
visitors during the summer (see p. 28 for more). In 1897, Grace bought some land toward what was called Simpson’s Ridge and is today the Snow King Ski Area. She had the idea it would make an ideal town site. That same year, members of the Jackson Hole Gun Club built The Clubhouse, which served
1872
Jackson’s Hole (note the possessive) is born! William Sublette names the valley after his Rocky Mountain Fur Company partner, David Edward “Davey” Jackson.
1872
valley. At first, they lived in a log shack supposedly abandoned by an outlaw known as Teton Jackson, but within two years, they began to build a home on what is today the National Elk Refuge. That home—surprisingly comfortable and well-appointed for a frontier homestead— still stands and is open to
1863
1828
1807 64
After thousands of years of summer-only visits from Native Americans, the first European—former Lewis and Clark Expedition scout John Colter—sets eyes on the valley.
JACKSON HOLE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
T
HE TETON RANGE, geologists say, first sprouted about 9 million years ago. The Yellowstone Caldera, which sculpted so much of the landscape we know today, last exploded some 600,000 years ago. Archaeologists have found evidence of human habitation in the Jackson Hole area dating back perhaps 11,000 years. By comparison, the Town of Jackson’s 100-year history is a blink of the eye. But what a 100 years it has been. The first permanent settlers arrived in Jackson Hole—and let’s clarify that the entire valley is Jackson Hole; Jackson is the main town—in 1884, six years before Wyoming became a state. For many years, it could take a full day of hard riding for one valley resident to visit another. The following year, Robert Miller brought the first wagon over Teton Pass. By 1888, the population of the valley had hit twenty-three. In 1893, Miller brought his bride, Grace Miller, to the
A forest fire rages across the mountain that we today call Snow King, helping to prepare it for future generations of skiers.
WOMEN RULE!
JACKSON HOLE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
MEET JACKSON’S ‘PETTICOAT’ COUNCIL
Jackson’s all-woman Town Council, from left, Mae Deloney, Rose Crabtree, Grace Miller, Faustina Haight, and Genevieve Van Vleck. The five served from 1920 to 1923.
A
MONG THE FIRST orders of business for the newly incorporated town was the election of officials. This happened, in The Clubhouse of course, on November 28, 1914. The results, announced in a brief item in the December 3 Courier, were Mayor Harry Wagner and councilmen C.J. Wort, Chester Simpson, H.W. Deloney, and J.H. Jones. It didn’t take long—by 1916—for there to be grumbling that the town’s business could be conducted better. Taxes were not being collected, and fines were not being paid. There was only about $200 in the treasurer’s account. In the spring, the town’s dirt roads were veritable rivers of mud, with no ditches or culverts to carry water away. And
1890 Wyoming becomes a state.
1891
Elijah “Uncle Nick” Wilson persuades his Mormon family to pull up stakes and move from Utah to Jackson’s Hole.
1890
1888 1889
1884
POPULATION: 23
John Holland, John Carnes, and Carnes’ wife, Millie Sorelle, are the first to homestead in Jackson’s Hole.
while Jackson Hole’s reputation for lawlessness was probably overblown in the papers of the region, not all town ordinances were strictly enforced. Who was up to the task of cleaning up this dirty little frontier town? The answer came in 1920, the same year the 19th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was ratified, prohibiting any U.S. citizen from being denied the right to vote because of gender. (Of course, Wyoming, in 1869, decades before it was even a state, had earned its nickname “The Equality State” by granting women the vote; the following year, it appointed the country’s first female justice of the peace, Esther Hobart Morris.) In April 1920, Jackson citizens nominated an all-female Town Council ticket. (Oskaloosa, Kansas, and Kanab, Utah,
Effie Jane Wilson is the first white child born in Jackson’s Hole.
Charles “Pap” Deloney is the first supervisor of the newly created 828,000-acre Teton Forest Preserve, just south of Yellowstone National Park. Conservation-minded settlers have already been talking about expanding Yellowstone.
1897
By Richard Anderson
1897
out the first town plat for Jackson, which, like all of western Wyoming, was still part of Uinta County. Mormons built Jackson’s first church in 1905 on the west end of town, and Fred Lovejoy established the first telephone exchange. Frank and Roy Van Vleck were headed from Colorado to Oregon with a wagonful of produce in 1906 when sick horses stranded them in Jackson. They ended up selling their wares and opened the Jackson Mercantile, the town’s first general store where one could buy everything from building materials to sacks of flour. Pioneers, of course, settled elsewhere throughout Jackson Hole, forming communities such as Cheney, Elk, Zenith, Grovont, Wilson, and Kelly (which, in 1923, gave Jackson a run for its money to become the county seat after Teton broke away from Lincoln to become its own jurisdiction). But as Virginia Huidekoper observed in her book, Wyoming in the Eye of Man, Jackson “was a natural crossroad linking all ends of the valley,” and it proved itself as the social and cultural hub of the Hole. By 1914, the village’s population had swollen to about 200. The town newspaper, Jackson’s Hole Courier, which was founded five years earlier by Douglas Rodenback, ran advertisements for Simpson’s Jackson Drug, C.J. Wort’s livery and feed stables, the Elk Cigar Store, two hotels, a blacksmith, dentists, attorneys and, in the August 20, 1914, edition, this notice: “The new bank opened its doors Wednesday, and is now doing business.” This wasn’t just any bank, but The Jackson State Bank, which survived until Wells Fargo bought it in 2008. Incorporation was the next logical step, and the question was called September 21, 1914. The Courier printed the results of the vote a few days later: 48 to 21 in favor. The Town of Jackson was born. To this day, Jackson is the only incorporated municipality in the county.
Members of the Jackson Hole Gun Club build The Clubhouse, the town’s first community building that serves as everything from a meeting place and dance hall to a billiards parlour and schoolhouse.
SUMMER 2014 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
65
1914
1900
The National Elk Refuge is created.
JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014
1911
1910
POPULATION: 264
1905
1898 66
William Owen leads a group to the top of the Grand Teton— either the second or first ascent of the peak.
Jackson’s Hole is included within the borders of the new Lincoln County.
1914
Robert Miller, “Old 12 Percent,” incorporates The Jackson State Bank and opens on Broadway Avenue.
1914
1900 POPULATION: 59
The Town of Jackson is incorporated.
In what is today the Jackson Hole Playhouse, Walter Spicer opens Spicer Garage, even though there were very few cars in Jackson Hole.
1918
and predict for Jackson a very excellent and beneficial administration if the ticket is elected,” the Courier wrote. All the nominated women were members of the “Pure Food Club,” a social group whose meetings were closely covered by the newspaper. Sue Schrems, a historian and author of the blog WesternAmericana2, notes that Pure Food Club might have been “a misnomer for a card club where the ladies played poker and enjoyed an afternoon of culinary delights.”
had both already elected all-female Town Councils in 1888 and 1912, respectively; however, Jackson’s all-women government was unique for a reason we’ll get to later.) On the ticket were, for mayor, Grace Miller; for two-year councilmen—“or rather councilwomen,” the Courier demurred—Rose Crabtree and Mae Deloney; and for one-year terms on the city council, Genevieve Van Vleck and Faustina Haight. “We consider this a representative and very capable ticket
1916
JACKSON HOLE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Former soda squirt Pearl Williams was appointed Jackson marshal in 1920.
Citizens also nominated an all-male lineup, to give the ladies some competition: For mayor, Fred Lovejoy; for twoyear councilmen, Henry Crabtree and William Mercill; and for one-year councilmen, M.E. Williams and T.H. Baxter. The election of May 11 garnered national headlines, not the least because of the spousal contest between Rose and Henry Crabtree. The results weren’t even close. The women won by a wide margin, in some cases by nearly 2-1. “Husband defeated by wife,” a New York Times headline from May 1920 declared. “Their complete victory surprised even the women themselves,” the Courier reported on May 13. “For the next two years Jackson will, if the women fulfill one-half of the prophecies made by leading papers of the United States, enjoy and benefit from one of the best administrations she has ever known.” No lesser eminence than Calvin Coolidge, who at the time was governor of Massachusetts, even praised the Jackson electorate for their “good sense.” The women took office on June 7 and quickly got to work. Among their first acts was to make appointments. These, too, were women, which is what made Jackson Hole’s “Petticoat Government” especially noteworthy. Edna Huff was appointed health officer, Marta Winger was named clerk, Viola Lunbeck was treasurer, and twenty-twoyear-old former soda squirt Pearl Williams was named town marshal. Williams in particular caught the attention of the national press. The Courier reprinted part of a hilarious 1921 interview conducted by a correspondent of an “Eastern newspaper” that, supposedly due to the primitive phone exchange, had to be patched through from Chicago to Cheyenne, then to Salt Lake, then to Pocatello, then to St. Anthony, Idaho, where the operator relayed questions onto Jackson for
To help with business, Spicer begins selling Ford automobiles and later Chevrolets.
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MEET THE ‘PETTICOAT’ COUNCIL
Williams to respond to. “Folks, meet Pearl Williams,” the piece begins, “the world’s champion wild man tamer. Pearl, be it known, is the little lady who, as town marshal at Jackson, Wyo., for the past year has been subduing bad men with smiles. … For more than 30 years Owen Wister and numerous other press agents for the west, have made Jackson’s Hole, of which the town of 526 souls is the center, the incarnation of all that’s wild and wooly and thoroughly western. That is, they did until Pearl became marshal.” The interview appeared to be a tiny bit too late, however, as Williams had already resigned from the job. Correspondent: “Why did she resign?” Operator: “She says the town is now so quiet it don’t need no marshal any more [the grammatical error, it was concluded, was the operator’s not the marshal’s].” Correspondent: “Please ask her if it is not true that the town has no jail and that the county jail is nearly two hundred miles away. Ask her how many arrests she made during her year’s term, and what she did with the men she arrested.” Operator: “She says she didn’t make any arrests, and so didn’t have to go hunt up a jail. She says that a while ago she killed three men and buried them herself and that she hasn’t had no trouble with anybody since.” In May 1921, Miller, Van Vleck, and Haight ran for re-election. This time, their margin of victory over their male opponents was better than 3-1. “Considering the fact that Mr. [Walter] Spicer, who was ‘run’ for mayor, and Messrs. [Almer] Nelson and [George] Blain, who were boosted for Councilmen, are all three well known and very popular citizens,” the Courier announced, “we interpret the election returns to be a complete vindication of the women’s past record.”
68
JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014
Rose Crabtree worked for “Ma” Reed at her hotel near the southeast corner of the Town Square. When Reed left town in 1917, she asked Crabtree to tend to her affairs, but when she didn’t come back—she apparently had a reputation for running up bills she was unable to make good on, and her ROSE CRABTREE brusque manner may have burned some bridges in tiny Jackson—Rose and her husband, Henry, took over the operation. Their hotel played host to many an important visitor, including Eleanor “Cissy” Patterson, granddaughter of the founder of the Chicago Tribune. Patterson and Crabtree became good friends, and Patterson’s dispatches back East helped spread the word about the wonders of Jackson Hole.
While there is a paucity of information about Mae, much is known about the prominent family she married into. Her husband was William Deloney, son of Charles “Pap” Deloney. The prominent family was well known and well respected throughout western Wyoming: Pap was considered one of the founders of Evanston, Wyoming (which was where Mae’s family MAE DELONEY was from, too). He came to Jackson to serve as the first forest supervisor of the Teton Forest Preserve and built and owned the first grocery store in the valley. William fought in the Spanish-American War and World War I. As state representative, he argued in favor of the creation of Teton County.
Iowa native Faustina Haight moved to Jackson just after the turn of the century and taught students at several schools around the valley. She married rancher Dan Haight and with him raised four children. Collegeeducated, she was well liked and admired, and friends and FAUSTINA HAIGHT students often sought her out for her advice and opinion, according to Ronald Diener, a historian who served for a time as librarian at the Jackson Hole Historical Society.
1930
POPULATION: 533
The natural dam created by the Gros Ventre slide gives way, and a flood wipes away Kelly. Six people die.
Grand Teton National Park is founded.
1932
Jackson barely beats out Kelly to be the seat of Teton County: 424 to 402.
A huge landslide tumbles off the side of Sheep Mountain (a.k.a. Sleeping Indian), blocking the Gros Ventre River a few miles upstream from the town of Kelly.
1929
1925
Genevieve Lawton came to Jackson from Michigan to marry her childhood sweetheart, Roy Van Vleck, who with his brother, Frank, founded and operated the Jackson Hole Mercantile. Genevieve and Roy lived in the GENEVIEVE VAN VLECK log cabin Roy built in 1910 on East Broadway. Because it was the only home in town that had a well, documents testifying to the home’s historical significance state, it became something of a social center in early Jackson. While the interior had to be replaced after a fire, the exterior is one of the best-preserved historic buildings in downtown Jackson.
1927
Jacksonites elect the first all-female municipal government in the world.
1921
1920 1920
1920
POPULATION: 307
With her husband, Robert, Grace Miller was one of the first homesteaders in the valley, settling here in an abandoned outlaw’s cabin in 1893. A few years later, they built a home on what would become the National Elk Refuge, and in 1921, moved into a large home in town on East Broadway. The couple was quite active in the Jackson community: They GRACE MILLER helped plat the original town and donated land for the town’s first school. Robert was the founder and first president of The Jackson State Bank and helped John D. Rockefeller buy land that would eventually become part of Grand Teton National Park.
George Washington Memorial Park, more commonly known as the Town Square, is created. To this day, it’s the only Town Square in the state.
Jack Stout
307-413-7118 (c) 307-733-4339 (o) Jackstout1@gmail.com jhrealestate.com Associate Broker/Owner Licensed in Wyoming since 1992
Doug Herrick
307-413-8899 dherrick@jhrealestate.com Associate Broker / Owner 33 years of Jackson Hole real estate experience... Residential, Commercial, Ranch Development
Over $50,000,000 in combined sales in 2013
GROWING UP WITH JACKSON HOLE
By Richard Anderson BEING SNOWED IN from November to May. Traveling to Victor, Idaho, in the fall to meet the train and lay in a winter’s store of staples. Heading into Jackson once or twice a year. These are just a few things Marjorie May Ryan remembers from her childhood. Ryan was born in July 1934 in the town of Grovont, Wyoming, on what today is better known as Mormon Row, north of Kelly. She and twelve or fifteen other Grovont kids went to a one-room schoolhouse through eighth grade. She knew everyone in the tiny town of a dozen or so families, and everyone knew her. Working hard, making your own fun, and gathering together as a community for the occasional dance were the facts of
70
Snow King Ski Area opens on Kelly’s Hill.
JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014
1943
1941
1940
Brothers Jesse and John Wort open the Wort Hotel. Despite downtown Jackson’s streets still being dirt, the brothers go for luxury. They also quarried much of the rock used in construction themselves in mountains nearby.
1941
1938
1938
POPULATION: 1,046
Bruce Porter builds the Teton Theatre.
Believe It or Not is now. My cousin, Thora May, lived upstairs of the theater, and we’d roller skate in the park by the Episcopal church, which was the only park that was paved. I wouldn’t come to town more than a couple times a year.” Ryan’s husband was John Ryan. He died in 2007. “He started work at Jackson Drug when he was in high school, in the summers and after school. He worked and managed it until 1979, when we sold [our shares in the business]. His mother was Ben Goe’s daughter [Goe was the owner of the Cowboy Bar], and his father came down from Montana. Johnny was born in July 1932. His father died that August,” she says. “I came to town for high school in the winter of 1949-50, and we had to board then. I met John in school. We married in July 1951. I was seventeen, and he was nineteen. We got married at 8 a.m. on Tuesday—that was John’s day off—and we took off Wednesday, and he had to be at work at 1 p.m. Thursday. That was the size of our honeymoon.” Later that year, they moved into the house on Redmond. “When John and I married, he’d already bought this property from his aunt and uncle. We built the little house on the corner. A few years later, we had three kids so we built this house. … When we first moved out here we were in John Hall’s hayfield. There was nothing here—no electricity, no water. We moved here in July, and it was October before they got power out to us. That was in 1951. It was 1954 when we got water. “We had four kids,” Ryan says. “They all still live here: Terry Schupman works for the city, Patricia Randall worked in the treasurer’s office, John C. Ryan works for the city in the water department, and Kelly Ryan, our youngest, is in the ER in the hospital.”
1943
John D. Rockefeller Jr. donates more than 30,000 acres to the federal government for the creation of the Grand Teton National Memorial.
POPULATION: 1,244
1950
Marjorie May Ryan
life for the children and grandchildren of Jackson Hole’s homesteaders. Ryan’s parents were Clifton and Fay May. “My great-grandfather came in 1894 and homesteaded,” she says. “My grandfather, when he was fifteen, came from Rockland, Idaho. My father was born March 10, 1905, and I was born in the same house. … They were all ranchers.” “People ask me if we were poor,” she says, sitting to chat in her home on Redmond Avenue, surrounded by a lifetime of memories and memorabilia. “I don’t remember being poor. We had food and clothes. We weren’t rich … but everyone was the same way, it was not like you had class distinctions. We had a good time, we worked hard, and we played, too. “My folks did not have electricity or running water until 1954. They raised nine children without it.” Folks would do whatever they could to make an extra dollar back then. In addition to cattle, Ryan’s father raised sheep. He also was a talented musician, Ryan says. “My dad had a dance band. Every dance I went to when I was growing up my dad played. In the summer, he would go to dude ranches to play to make extra money. That was during the late ’30s and 40s. … When I was born, my dad was playing a dance. Dr. Huff was at the dance, and they had called so he left to come deliver me, but by the time he got there I was born, so he came back to the dance and as he danced by the band, he said, ‘It’s a girl.’ ” For the most part, Grovont kids had to make their own fun, but once in a while they would make it into town. “In summer, my mother would come in [to town] maybe once a week. Occasionally I’d get to come in for a movie at the Rainbow. The Rainbow is where Ripley’s
1950
PRICE CHAMBERS
MARJORIE MAY RYAN WAS BORN IN THE VALLEY IN 1934.
The national memorial and national park are merged to form the Grand Teton National Park of today.
HISTORY IS ALL AROUND US THAT’S ESPECIALLY TRUE ON AND AROUND JACKSON’S TOWN SQUARE. YOU JUST NEED TO KNOW WHERE TO LOOK. Mercill
King
Center
Cache
Milward
Glenwood
Gill
Deloney Town Square
King
Willow
COURTESY OF JACKSON HOLE HISTORICAL SOCIETY AND MUSEUM
Broadway
Pearl
Simpson
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THE CLUBHOUSE—the town’s first community building—was erected in 1897. It began to receive updates and alterations almost immediately, but somewhere under the current clapboard facade lurks parts of its original log walls. Despite being crowded by other development, the profile of its hip roof remains its distinguishing characteristic.
2
MERCILL’S GENERAL STORE was built in 1910. The building that stands today resembles the original store, but only small parts of it
3
“MA” REED’S HOTEL was probably the second hotel in the valley. When it opened, rooms rented for $1.50/night—despite the fact it had neither heat nor running water! It was torn down in the mid-1990s and replaced with a near-replica.
POPULATION: 1,437
The first Jackson Hole Shootout is held, with Clover the Killer strung up by vigilantes for the first of hundreds of times.
1962
Jackson Hole Rotarians erect the first elk antler arch on Town Square. Three others are built over the following decade.
were there from the start. In the late 1990s, it was mostly torn down and then rebuilt to look like the 1910 model, but using modern materials and techniques appropriate for the valley’s seismic activity.
1960
The Jackson Hole Guide, the valley’s third newspaper, is founded.
1
1956
The Jackson National Fish Hatchery is established.
1952
1950
1950
1953
JACKSON’S PAST HIDES in plain view, often covered by layers of changes that have taken place over the decades. Whereas historic structures in Grand Teton National Park are usually easily identifiable by their weathered patina and varying states of being reclaimed by the elements, many of Jackson’s historic buildings are still in use, altered over decades to suit new needs.
The Jackson Hole Fine Arts Guild hosts the first concerts of what will become the Grand Teton Music Festival.
4
THE MILLION DOLLAR COWBOY BAR started life as Joe Ruby’s Cafe and Beer Garden in 1934. Ben Goe took it over in 1939, adding the saloon’s famous burled wood interior.
5
DELONEY AVENUE was named after Charles “Pap” Deloney. In 1906, Deloney built and ran a general store on the street, although it wasn’t yet named Deloney Avenue. At present, Deloney’s former general store houses treasures from the Jackson Hole Historical Society and Museum’s W.C. “Slim” Lawrence collection.
FROM
Mountain TO Metro
6
What has been a theater/playhouse since the 1950s—today it’s the JACKSON HOLE PLAYHOUSE—was built as a garage in 1916. Walt Spicer was its first tenant and eventually opened the valley’s first car dealership there. Between being a car dealership and a playhouse, it was a gun shop, a bowling alley, and a bus depot.
7
ROY AND GENEVIEVE VAN VLECK’S HOME, built in 1910, now houses Cafe Genevieve.
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ROBERT AND GRACE MILLER’s spacious third home in the valley, constructed in 1921 and now painted a cheery lemon shade, sits on a large open lot.
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The former residence of ED AND EMILY COE has been Sweetwater Restaurant, serving dinner and one of the most popular lunches in the valley, since 1976.
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ED COE’S BLACKSMITH SHOP was, until several months ago, also an eatery: Shades Cafe. It’s now awaiting its next adventure.
1966
For more details on these places, as well as insight on more of the history hiding downtown, take a guided walking tour with the Jackson Hole Historical Society and Museum. They offer tours, which are free (but we recommend giving a donation), Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays at 10:30 a.m. Tours meet at the Town Square and last about one hour. Can’t make it? The society also publishes a free self-guiding pamphlet. 307/733-2414; www.jacksonholehistory.org
The Jackson Hole Aerial Tram starts carrying skiers to the 10,450-foot summit of Rendezvous Mountain. The first tram had a fifty-two-person capacity and took ten and a half minutes to reach the top.
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& Request Your FREE Catalog! 888-489-1680 | www.sandcreekpostandbeam.com SUMMER 2014 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
73
By Richard Anderson THE FRONT PAGE of the April 29, 1920, Jackson’s Hole Courier included this item: “The work of cleaning up the public square in Jackson was resumed again yesterday. Louis Curtis and Ray Golden are doing the work, using a Fordson tractor and a ‘Fresno.’ ” Jackson didn’t seem to care, or, if it did, didn’t acknowledge it was creating something Wyoming had never before seen: a public town square. The “public square” had for decades been little more than a hollow into which early Jacksonites threw their construction debris as they worked on The Clubhouse, The Jackson State Bank, JR’s Saloon, Jackson’s post office, and the other buildings that would form the heart of downtown. On cold winter nights (there were plenty of those, including a memorable string of 50-below days in the early 1920s), cattle might
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JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014
National Museum of Wildlife Art opens on the Town Square.
1997
The Jackson Hole News is founded.
1990
POPULATION: 4,472
1987
1972
1970
1970
POPULATION: 4,511
1980
POPULATION: 2,688
huddle there to share heat. Photographs from the first decades of the twentieth century show an open area dotted with scrubby sagebrush. It might not have been much to inspire civic pride, but in 1917, the town gained title to the land. They graded it and the streets that surrounded it, and citizens began to use the square for Flag Day observations, Christmas tree displays, and rodeos. In April 1920, Teton County veterans of World War I founded American Legion Post 43. One of the earliest posts in the country, it counted among its members such prominent citizens as Homer Richards, Olaus Murie, and a long list of Ferrins and Linns and Cheneys. They built a hall at the corner of Gill and North Cache and, as a service project, set to work improving the square. They raised $150 and removed some of the old waste (who knows what archaeological curiosities still lurk beneath the square?), planted trees, and
The Community Foundation of Jackson Hole holds its first Old Bill’s Fun Run for Charities.
POPULATION: 8,647
2000
The dedication of George Washington Memorial Park, better known as the Town Square, in 1932. The Clubhouse can be seen at right.
built a fence to keep the cows out. In the early 1930s, the town got serious and did more substantial landscaping. With help from Depression-era public works programs, they roughed in the paths that make an X through the square and raised a monument to the valley’s veterans in the center. In 1932, in honor of the bicentennial of the birth of the country’s first president, they named the square George Washington Memorial Park. The more construction that took place around the square—a dentist’s office, Jackson Drug, a butcher shop, Moore’s Cafe—the more it became a social hub. Historic photos show parades streaming down Cache and Broadway past the square and, in the winter, early versions of the Cutter Races sent twohorse chariots screaming by. One panoramic image captures as many as one hundred people, including high schoolers from Gillette, gathered during a Lions Club convention in 1936. In 1939, the dedication of the John Colter Memorial, on the west side of the square, was attended by Mayor Harry Clissold and Gov. Nels Smith. In 1953, Jackson Hole’s Rotary Club began its first elk antler arch on the southeast corner of the square. By 1969, all four corners boasted the decoration—each of which required up to 10,000 pounds of antlers—beneath which countless millions have had their photographs taken. In 2007, the club once again began to amass antlers to rebuild the aging arches. The last one was rebuilt in 2013. In 1959, a log home that belonged to Charles Wort (of Wort Hotel fame) was placed on the southwest corner and became known as the Stage Stop, a place to dispense information and, more recent-
2000
JACKSON HOLE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
THE BIRTH OF THE TOWN SQUARE
The first Jackson Hole Farmers Market is held on the Town Square.
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Lake Cruises Explore the waters of Jackson Lake on a narrated scenic lake cruise with optional island cookout.
Horseback Riding Explore the landscape in Grand Teton National Park on a guided horseback trip or wagon ride with breakfast and dinner cookouts.
Fly Fishing Your private fishing guide will lead you to some of the best spots on the lake and rivers.
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Part of something bigger An authorized concessioner of the National Park Service
M I L L E R C A N D A C E
A R C H I T E C T S ,
T I L L O T S O N - M I L L E R ,
P C
A I A
P 4 0 6 . 2 2 2 . 7 0 5 7 • F 4 0 6 . 2 2 2 . 7 3 7 2 W W W . C T M A R C H I T E C T S . C O M
The Performing Arts Center is added to the Center for the Arts.
2010
2007
2011
The Jackson Hole News and Jackson Hole Guide merge.
2007
2002
POPULATION: 9,577
Old Bill’s Fun Run celebrates its fifteenth anniversary and having raised $82.5 million for area nonprofits.
PRICE CHAMBERS
ly, the headquarters of a stagecoach ride concession that takes folks on a pokey little circumambulation around the northeastern quadrant of downtown. The original shack was replaced in 1995. These days, the Town Square is unmistakably the heart of downtown Jackson. Parades roll past grandstands on the Visitors to the Town Square photograph a memorial honoring Jackson Hole’s war veterans. Names cast in square for Memorial bronze date back to World War I. Day’s Old West Days and the Fourth of July. Thousands of years, the auction has turned into a twinkling lights bedeck its trees—all of weekend packed with a private antler which have been planted over the sale, food court, community band conyears—for Christmas, and the Lighting certs, Scouting expo, historic demonof the Square is the traditional start of strations, educational booths, and the holiday season in Jackson. Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation’s anSince June 1956, hundreds of sum- nual fundraising banquets. mer tourists have gathered near the And the square continues to find northeast corner for the Jackson Hole new uses. The Jackson Hole Farmers Shootout, the country’s longest-run- Market is in its eleventh year there. It’s ning Wild West massacre that takes a logical place for Fall Arts Festival place six nights a week. And since 1968, events such as the Art Association’s hundreds of small children have braved Takin’ it to the Street art fair and iffy spring weather for the annual QuickDraw art show and sale. It has Easter Egg hunt, which used to be put also served as the center for a Japanese on by The Jackson State Bank and now Fire Festival, imported to town by the is run by Wells Fargo. nonprofit Vista 360 and including That year also marked the first Japanese food, drumming, arts and Jackson Hole Boy Scouts Elk Antler crafts, and a torch-building and -lightAuction, an event that attracts furni- ing ritual that thanks firefighters and ture makers, jewelers, traditional medi- appeases the spirit that resides within cine crafters, folks with elk-antler-arch the fiery bowels of the greater envy, and the plain old curious from all Yellowstone area. For the past couple around the world to admire and, if the winters, a group of skating enthusiasts spirit moves them, bid on antlers. The has been allowed to create an ice rink auctioned elkhorn (actually made of on the west side of the square, and coubone and shed annually by the beasts) ples, families, and groups of friends enare gathered earlier by the Scouts from joy hot chocolate, the twinkling winter the National Elk Refuge as a service lights, and the outdoor, in-town ice. project. Most of the proceeds go back While the Town Square and its ento the refuge to benefit its 8,000-some- virons have changed over the years, one strong wild herd; 20 percent, however, thing hasn’t: It’s still the only town funds Scouting in the Tetons. In recent square in the state. JH
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SUMMER 2014 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
77
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MOUNTAIN ATHLETES GO FOR MORE THAN TETON SUMMITS.
JEFF DIENER
By Brian P. Harder
SUMMER 2014 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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shiver. Trying to duck the wind whipping 5,000 feet above the valley floor, I’m hunkered behind rocks. I’m cooling down quickly from my two-hour run to this point from the Lupine Meadows Trailhead, seven miles away. I’ve huddled in the protection of these rocks countless times before. As an Exum Guide for seven years, this spot—known as the Black Dike—a few hundred feet above the Lower Saddle at the back of Garnet Canyon was the first place I’d stop while guiding clients to the top of the Grand Teton on summit day. It is a natural resting place not only for the protection of the rocks, but also because it marks a transition point. The trail below the Black Dike is hiking. Mostly. Some of it is hiking through fields of car-size boulders. From the Black Dike to the Grand’s 13,775-foot summit, it’s either scrambling using hands and feet, or technical climbing. On most mornings, the wind rips through the Lower Saddle, rising from the flat farmlands of southern Idaho to the west. The Grand and the Middle Teton act like a pressure nozzle, funneling and accelerating the prevailing winds as they traverse the range. On a typical morning with clients, this little alcove, about twenty-five minutes above the Lower Saddle, provides a brief respite from the punishing gusts. It’s also where I’d typically do my first “gut check” of my charges, my headlamp illuminating their tense, shellshocked expressions due to our 4 a.m. start and the strenuous exercise in the rarified air at 12,000 feet. But today is different. The sun is up. I’m solo—for now. I’ve just run here from my car in under two hours; most guided groups take four to six hours to get to the Lower Saddle, where they then stop and spend the night. I’ve got a clear view below while I gather myself for the painful effort to come. My task today is to show Luke Nelson, one of America’s top trail runners, the complex route from here to the summit of the Grand and back. The idea is to do this faster than I’ve ever attempted before, because Luke is trying to run up and down the Grand faster than anyone has before. He’s going for the fastest known time (FKT) for the Grand. Luke left his car, wife, and two young children about ninety minutes after I left the parking lot. I expect to see him below at any moment. At the time I was meeting Luke, the current FKT, set in 1983 by Idahoan Bryce Thatcher, was 3:06. For Thatcher, then one of the country’s best endurance athletes, the record represented the culmination of weeks of preparation and route scouting. Thatcher was a mountaineer first and became a runner as a way to prepare for climbs and cover more ground. He says he was “shattered” by his record-setting effort. Given his pedigree and commitment to the task, it’s no surprise his record stood for so long; few got even remotely close.
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Luke Nelson jogs past roped climbers near 13,000 feet during his attempt to set the speed record of ascending and descending the Grand Teton in August 2011.
CHRISTIAN BECKWITH
I’M STARTING TO
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GRAND TETON SUMMIT : 13,775’
THE ROUTE
TOP 3 FASTEST KNOWN TIMES OWEN-SPALDING ROUTE
1
Andy Anderson 08.22.12
2 Kilian Jornet UPPER SADDLE : 13,000’
08.12.12
2:53:02 2:54:01
3 Bryce Thatcher 08.26.83 3:06
LOWER SADDLE — (7 miles to trailhead)
WITHOUT THE INTERNET to easily document and track efforts at breaking Thatcher’s FKT of the Grand, it’s impossible to know details of many of the attempts. Also, many of the uber-athletes that push themselves in the mountains do so for the challenge of it rather than any notoriety. Evan Honeyfield, who has the FKT for one of the Tetons’ most popular alpine loops, told Outerlocal.com, “I think a lot of the more obscure FKTs are set by great athletes just out having fun pushing themselves in the mountains, not caring who else knows.” Still, as early as 1939, people were timing and making known their climbs of the mountain. That year, John Holyoke and Joseph Hawkes climbed and descended the Owen-Spalding (OS) route in 5:22. This record stood for thirty-four years, until 1974, when GTNP climbing ranger Jock Glidden did the route in 4:11. In the ’70s and 80s, Exum Mountain Guides’ Ron Matous made several speedy ascents—including a 2:12—but declined to run down because he feared it would wreak havoc on his bad ankles. In the early ’80s, Creighton King, a runner 84
JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014
BRADLY J. BONER
BLACK DIKE
from Alta, Utah, who had won the Pikes Peak Marathon, traded records with Thatcher until Thatcher established the benchmark that stood for nearly twenty-nine years. While the Grand Teton is the most obvious objective for mountain runners vying for a FKT in the Jackson Hole area, there are FKTs for nearly every peak and every running loop in the range. Most runners/climbers might agree that the most impressive is Exum Guide Rolando Garibotti’s FKT on the Grand Traverse, which includes 13,000 feet of vertical ascent, the summits of nine peaks, and numerous sections of very exposed technical climbing. In August 2000, Garibotti did the whole thing in 6:49. Not all FKTs require runners to have mountaineering skills. The Teton Circumnavigation is a popular nontechnical loop. It starts on the Valley Trail at Jenny Lake. It then heads south to Death Canyon, up that canyon, up over Static Peak Divide to Alaska Basin, up Hurricane Pass, and finally down the South Fork of Cascade Canyon and back to Jenny Lake. Hikers usually
spend three days and two nights covering this loop’s thirty-three-some miles. In 2009, Honeyfield, the current holder of the FKT for the loop, ran it in 5:34. WHILE MOST CLIMBERS set on summiting the Tetons’ highest peak do so over a two- or three-day effort, carrying heavy packs and technical climbing gear for the task, Luke and I simply wear shorts, T-shirts, running shoes, and a light windbreaker. All we carry is water and a few energy gels. Given the terrain we’re covering, many consider our tactics irresponsible. If one of us were to get injured along the way and had to stop, we would be in a serious predicament. Even in the middle of summer, in the shadows of the Grand’s upper reaches, temperatures are often below freezing. Moving, we’re fine. Forced to stop or slow, hypothermia would undoubtedly be an issue. But such calculated risks are necessary if the FKT is going to be reset today. Luke comes into view just below me, using a combination of running and fast hiking through the boulders. He’s covered the distance in 1:32. Thatcher’s time at this point was 1:13. I stand, draw one more long pull from my water bottle, tie my windbreaker around my waist and, with little ceremony, turn uphill and start off as Luke reaches my perch. He’s breathing hard but moving quickly. My legs soon feel like they’re going to burst into flames at Luke’s punishing pace; we’re at nearly 13,000 feet. I’m determined not to slow him down, though. His gaze is riveted on my heels as we move quickly upward, scrambling over ever-steepening terrain through the complex of slabs, chimneys, and boulder-strewn gullies. We reach the Upper Saddle in about twenty minutes. This is the beginning of the OS. A technical climb rated at 5.4 in difficulty, it is the easiest route to the summit. Still, it starts with a hugely exposed traverse. A vertical wall just below our heels drops nearly straight down several thousands of feet into Cascade Canyon. We run into some traffic problems—groups of climbers moving at a more reasonable pace—as we carefully negotiate the traverse and the series of chimneys above it. Most parties use ropes and belays here for protection. We afford ourselves no such security in yet another of the calculated risks those going for a
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REBECCA ANDERSON / COURTESY PHOTO
FKT on a technical summit must take. Having Andy Anderson finishes a record run climbed or descended this route one hundred-plus up (and down) the times, I use my intimate knowledge of it to keep us Grand Teton from out of trouble. This, however, is Luke’s first time on the Lupine Meadows the OS. He’s a runner, not a technical climber. trailhead in August 2012. Two weeks When going for a FKT, or even just attempting prior, Anderson set to climb as fast as you can, local knowledge of the another “fastest route is paramount to success, especially on peaks known time”—that like the Grand, where routes are both technical one on Longs Peak in Colorado. and circuitous. On something like the OS, if an athlete hasn’t spent significant time climbing up and down prior to their FKT attempt, there’s little chance of success. Because Luke Passing other groups— didn’t have the time to do this restill on their way up— con, I’m providing that knowledge by leading the way. they freeze in place with
mouths agape as we
PEOPLE WONDER ABOUT the nearly free fall by them. point of going fast. Some are openly critical. I’ve heard comments There’s a part of me that like, “What’s the hurry?” or “Slow loves these reactions. down and enjoy it” from hikers on the trail. Not everyone understands the motivation behind these efforts. To the detractors of speed in the mountains, European ultra-marathoner Kilian Jornet says, “Being fast doesn’t mean don’t look. Maybe in races but not in training. And being fast means I go farther and see more.” Nelson says, “I think that the biggest reason is that the level of adventure is higher in the mountains in more technical terrain, it demands more focus, and requires more than just running legs.” Jornet agrees, adding that although he loves runs on any terrain and any length, he “loves more the technical and mountaineering runs, short or long.” Nelson, who has raced extensively both in the States and abroad, 86
JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014
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Andy Anderson’s watch shows his new FKT on the Grand Teton.
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JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014
finds himself enjoying going for FKTs more than formal racing these days. “I’ve been thinking a lot about FKTs, and I love the idea of being able to do things on my terms. Run when the weather cooperates, or when fitness comes into focus. They can create some of the same excitement of a race without the pomp and circumstance. More and more, I’m being drawn away from racing and toward adventures. I don’t run every day to toe a starting line. I do it because of the freedom it brings to my life, and adventure running [for a FKT or not] is an extension of the freedom and exploration.” For any competitor, the beauty of the FKT is that it can be pursued on one’s own terms, at any time, on any course desired. The time can be standard-setting or simply one’s best effort for a given day, fitness level, and conditions. As the popularity of FKTs has grown in recent years, records for nearly every peak and mountain running loop exist. But this is nothing new. For as long as adventurers have been going into the mountains, there have been individuals trying to do things faster. Summit registers and hut log books around the world are full of notations involving times to summits or round-trip efforts. It has historically been an honor system, but recent advances in GPS technology add a level of proof previously unavailable. ON AUGUST 12, 2012, Jornet traveled to the Tetons from Catalonia, in Spain, to try for a FKT on the Grand. Twentyfour years old at the time, Jornet has won numerous “sky running” titles in Europe and also the world ski mountaineering championships in 2010, 2011, and 2013.
HEAR IT ALL
PHOTO: J.D. SCOTT
He’s widely held to be the best mountain athlete of his generation. Jornet cleaved nearly twelve minutes off Thatcher’s record, accomplishing the feat in two hours and fifty-four minutes. Outside magazine and other climbing- and mountain-related websites covered it. Unbelievably, Jornet’s record lasted only days. On August 22, Andy Anderson, a climbing ranger from Rocky Mountain National Park, went up and down the Grand, not taking any shortcuts, fiftynine seconds faster than Jornet had. Back when I guided clients to the summit of the Grand, we’d spend at least thirty minutes on top taking pictures, snacking, and enjoying the view. With Luke, a check of the watch and a quick photo to document our summit is all we afford ourselves before starting back down. Luke is clearly off Bryce’s pace at this point by several minutes, but is still charging to set his own best. You’d think climbing up this terrain would be the dangerous part. You’d be wrong. Descending, gravity and momentum can quickly take over; any misstep can be disastrous. We bypass the usual 120-foot rappel off the route to the Upper Saddle in favor of faster, gear-free down climbing. The last section for me, from the Upper Saddle to the Black Dike, is a blur. The rated climbing is over, but it’s still technical; we bound and jump down boulders and slabs, using hands and feet in concert, sometimes scooting off things on our butts. We’re just on the verge of being out of control. I feel Luke’s urgency pressing me on. Passing other groups—still on their way up—they freeze in place with mouths agape as we nearly free fall by them. There’s a part of me that loves these reactions. Luke and I are doing something most people simply can’t (and most don’t want to). A lot of hard work and dedication goes into being able to do this sort of thing, and there’s a significant amount of satisfaction in this. Most onlookers appreciate our effort and shout encouragement as we blow by. Less than twenty minutes after leaving the summit and sixty minutes after Luke first met me to show him the way up, we’re back at the Black Dike. Luke continues racing down the seven miles through the moraine and the well-worn trail to his car, wife, and kids. I catch my breath and watch him drop out of sight. JH
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JH Living
photo gallery
Shooting High Alpine photography requires more than skills with a camera. PHOTOGRAPHY BY GREG VON DOERSTEN
Brady Johnston traverses from Gunsight Notch to the Grandstand on the North Ridge of the Grand Teton.
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After a successful climb of the Exum Route on the Grand Teton, Samantha Worthington heats up water outside her tent.
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“I END UP free soloing—climbing without a rope or protection—lots of stuff to get the shots I want,” says Jackson-based Greg Von Doersten about shooting images of climbers and skiers in high alpine environments, including the Tetons. “Taking photos in the mountains requires skills beyond what makes someone a good photographer down on the valley floor.” Von Doersten doesn’t just have to be comfortable being unsecured on the side of a mountain, but also “physically fit enough to be able to carry an ABOVE: Most climbers extra twenty to fifty pounds of camera consider the Belly Roll gear, and have the climbing skills to do the most difficult part of the Owen-Spalding Route the routes the athletes you’re shooting on the Grand Teton. are doing.” Here, Mark Newcomb “It really requires you to be a jack of makes it look easy. all trades,” he says. RIGHT: Stephen Koch Growing up climbing in the Wind and Jess McMillan climb River Range, taking NOLS courses as a the East Snowfield on teenager, and studying recreation manMt. Owen in Grand Teton agement (spending plenty of time recreNational Park. ating as well) in college was good early preparation for Von Doersten, whose clients include The North Face, Dewar’s, Smith Sport Optics, and The New York Times, among others. “I never say I’m a world-class climber, but I can mostly hang,” he says. While the climbing in the Tetons is “not supercrazy” in terms of technical difficulty, Von Doersten says it’s still a difficult range to photograph. “It’s a very well-documented range,” he says. “It’s harder to find new images—you end up relying more on serendipitous moments that transform something familiar.” SUMMER 2014 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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ABOVE: Brian Warren and Catherine Coe climb the Middle Teton Glacier in Grand Teton National Park. LEFT: Stephen Koch and Jess McMillan rope up high on Mt. Owen, the least climbed of the major Teton peaks.
Serendipitous moments can include clouds lifting, a brief snow squall, or rays of sunlight. “If you know a range intimately, you can really make the most of these,” Von Doersten says. “I have favorite routes and pitches— the North Ridge of the Grand, the Traverse Pitch on Mount Moran’s South Buttress Right route—that I know can have some spectacular moments on them and where I previsualize shots.” During a late-summer shoot on the Grand for SureFire headlamps, it snowed. Two feet. “It wasn’t what we were expecting, but it gave us some incredible 94
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elements that made for outstanding photos, and also great adventure. As climbers, we had to deal with extreme winds, snow, and verglas ice. Then I was working with a camera on top of that,” Von Doersten says. Von Doersten often seeks to juxtapose climbers with a big, broad environment. “The Tetons are this large alpine environment with rock, glaciers, and ice. You can get a climber on a route and then throw in extra peaks,” he says. “Photographing high in the Tetons, there are many different elements you must combine to capture the range’s essence.” – DINA MISHEV
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GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK
TETON
JEDEDIAH SMITH JACKSON
GROS VENTRE
FITZPATRICK
BRIDGER POPO AGIE
This map shows six wilderness areas in Wyoming’s Greater Yellowstone region. Across the state, there are a total of fifteen designated wilderness areas.
“A wilderness ... is hereby recognized 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.” —Wilderness Act of 1964
MIKE CAVAROC
By Molly Loomis
OPPOSITE: In the Jedediah Smith Wilderness west of Grand Teton National Park, Buck Mountain is reflected in a pond in Alaska Basin.
IT’S A GRAY and overcast Wednesday when I make my way to the Jackson Town Square. Standing beneath the archway of antlers, I poll passersby. “What does the difference in these two words mean to you?” I ask, holding a sheet of paper with the handwritten words, Wilderness and wilderness. “They look exactly the same, except one is capitalized.” “The ‘W’ is the Tetons, the mountains upside down! It’s a capital W because Jackson Hole is all about Wilderness!” “One’s a title, right?” This isn’t intended to be a trick question, but it’s starting to feel that way. Planeloads and buses of people flock to Jackson Hole to soak in the valley’s natural beauty and enjoy its open spaces, but evidently that doesn’t mean they know the difference between an elk and a deer ... or Wilderness and wilderness. Thinking it might be fairer to quiz locals, I head for Pearl Street Bagels. No luck. Even people I know who have lived here for decades or work in our local wildlands are confused by my question. SUMMER 2014 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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WHEN PRESIDENT JOHNSON signed the Wilderness Act on September 3, 1964, fifty-four sites totaling 9.1 million acres in 98
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the son of the Wilderness Act’s author. Muriecenter.org
BRADLY J. BONER
2014 MARKS THE fiftieth anniversary of the Wilderness Act, a piece of legislation whose roots run deep in the Tetons. The word wilderness describes wild places. But capital “W”ilderness is an official designation given to parcels of public land. Out of the many types of protected federal lands we have—national forests, national parks, national reserves, and national monuments— “wilderness” is the strictest type of land designation. In the words of the Wilderness Act’s main author, Howard Zahniser, areas marked as such are to be left as “untrammeled” by man as possible, and forever protected from developIn the Bridger ment, logging, mining, and roads. Within these Wilderness, Temple JACKSON HOLE wild oases there’s no mechanized equipment Peak dominates the skyline as a and transport (that means no chain saws or 50TH ANNIVERSARY fisherman casts mountain bikes), and no landing of aircrafts, CELEBRATION in North Lake in no commercial enterprises, no structures, and the Wind River — no installations. Yes, it’s a lot of rules, but ironiMountain Range with the hope of cally, these rules enable a kind of freedom— IN MID-OCTOBER, prior to a national event catching dinner. celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the the kind that can only be experienced in the Wilderness Act in Albuquerque, New Mexico, wildest of places. Capitalization means the difactivists, educators, and enthusiasts will ference between a place like the west slope of gather in Jackson Hole for the Wilderness the Tetons, now protected as the Jedediah Rendezvous. This event is a combination of Smith Wilderness Area, being stripped of its lodgepole and outdoor activities, exhibits, and an imprescrisscrossed by roads, and being a place where it’s just you and sive panel of speakers. Included in the list of Mother Nature. speakers is conservationist Edward Zahniser,
Jackson Hole residents and noted conservationists Olaus and Mardy Murie were instrumental in the drafting of the Wilderness Act. Here, they’re hiking along Alaska’s Sheenjek River in 1956.
THE MURIE CENTER / COURTESY PHOTO
thirteen different states, including 2 million acres in Wyoming, became official wilderness areas. Two of these— the Bridger Wilderness and the Teton Wilderness—were in or around Jackson Hole. Both were in the Bridger-Teton National Forest. Over the last fifty years, the National Wilderness Preservation System has continued to expand. Now nearly 110 million acres—a mass slightly larger than California—are designated wilderness areas. Massing the wilderness areas in the Lower 48, you get something about the size of Minnesota. They’re still growing, too. In 2011, the Elkhorn Ridge Wilderness was designated in California. This past February, Michigan’s Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was added. Twenty-six additional areas have been proposed to Congress. Forty-four states
have at least one wilderness area. Wyoming has a comparatively high proportion of wilderness areas: 3,111,233 acres. One and a half million of these acres are near Jackson Hole. OUR VALLEY ISN’T remarkable only for its preponderance of wilderness areas. Jackson Hole residents played a key role in getting the 1964 act passed and continue as influencers both on a local and national level.
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MIKE CAVAROC
Biologist Olaus Murie and wife Mardy, fondly referred to by many as the “Grandmother of Conservation,” were tireless advocates for the Wilderness Act. It was during a 1947 Wilderness Society Governing Council meeting at the Muries’ ranch in Moose that the council voted to pursue permanent protection for wilderness on federal land. Eight years, sixty-six drafts and nineteen public hearings later, the Wilderness Act was presented to Congress. Olaus Murie died in 1963 and Just twelve miles from Howard Zahniser in 1964. Mardy took up the reins, lobbying for the act’s downtown Jackson, passage. As President Johnson signed the act, Mardy stood alongside Alice Turquoise Lake, in the Gros Ventre Zahniser, Howard’s widow, in the White House Rose Garden. Wilderness, is a While the Muries’ and other Wyomingites’ advocacy resulted in 1.3 milpopular camping spot lion acres within Wyoming being designated as wilderness in 1964, it didn’t for backpackers hiking end there. In the late ’70s and early 80s, a motley crew of residents on both from Cache Creek to Granite Creek. sides of Teton Pass banded together to stop oil and gas, roads, mining, and logging proposals on national forest land. Bart Koehler founded the Wyoming Wilderness Association (WWA) in 1979 and many locals—Loring Woodman, Phil Hocker, Howie Wolke, Louisa Wilcox, Hank Phibbs, and Leslie Petersen— signed on. While these days it’s often liberal environmentalists associated with the Wilderness Movement, local outfitters—Harold Turner, Lynn Madsen, Woodman, and BJ Hill—were, and are, influential in wilderness
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designations, too. In 1984, President Reagan signed the Wyoming Wilderness Act, which the group had lobbied for, designating 1.1 million additional acres of wilderness in the state. This act created the Gros Ventre Wilderness, Jedediah Smith Wilderness, Popo Agie Wilderness, and Winegar Hole Wilderness. Since then, no new wilderness acreage has been added in the state. Fortyfour areas totaling 735,840 acres have been proposed. Although the WWA and other conservation groups are hard at work lobbying for these additional areas, Liz Howell, WWA executive director, says, “Now congressional designation of public lands is a negotiating process.� SUMMER 2014 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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area, the Teton Wilderness, straddles the Continental Divide and sits between Yellowstone National Park, the Washakie Wilderness, and Grand Teton National Park. This view is from Austin Peak, in the wilderness’ Absaroka Mountains.
TETON WILDERNESS
Often bypassed for the in-yourface drama of the Tetons proper, the 585,238-acre Teton Wilderness, capping the northeastern end of the Teton Range and butting against Yellowstone’s southern boundary, is a paradise for horse packing trips and hunters. Extended outings with lots of solitude are still possible, and horses can be left to graze freely in meadows. The Teton Wilderness boasts the Lower 48’s furthest point from any road. This point is near Hawk’s Rest Ranger Station and the headwaters of two Wild and Scenic-designated rivers, the Snake River and the Yellowstone River.
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THE BRIDGER, FITZPATRICK, AND POPO AGIE WILDERNESSES All three of these wilderness areas include various parts of the Wind River Range, south and east of Jackson Hole. The Bridger Wilderness, outside Pinedale, covers this range’s western flank. The northern and southern areas of the range are the Popo Agie (pronounced “puh-PO-shuh”) and Fitzpatrick wildernesses. In addition to incredible fishing and climbing, these wilderness areas include Wyoming’s tallest mountain, Gannett Peak (13,809 feet), some of the contiguous U.S.’ largest glaciers, and the headwaters of the Green River. Despite all this, Bridger Wilderness natural resource specialist Andrea Davidson says that few Pinedale residents— Pinedale is the town closest to them—recognize the remarkableness of their backyard. “Unlike in Jackson, where there’s a tradition of wilderness, in Pinedale it’s hard to get support for wilderness,” says Davidson, speculating the lack of advocacy groups supporting the Bridger may be due to Pinedale’s smaller size, relative isolation, and smaller tourism market. Davidson recalls a recent visit to the local high school. She asked if students were familiar with the Bridger Wilderness. “I then asked about the Wind Rivers,” she says. “Out of a class of thirty, only two had been into the mountains.” While Pinedale residents may not be taking advantage of their local surroundings, outsiders certainly are: Roughly 80 percent of visitation to the Bridger Wilderness is by people from outside of Wyoming.
BOB SIHLER
“PEOPLE ASSUME NATIONAL parks are the gold standard for protecting wildlands,” says Dan Burgette, former district supervisor at Grand Teton and recipient of the Park Service’s Wilderness Champion Award. “But having wilderness designation is another layer over and above being a national park.” Neither Grand Teton nor Yellowstone national park has any designated wilderness within it, although both parks have areas recommended for the designation currently pending. So where do you find official The state’s secondwilderness areas around the valley? largest wilderness
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The Jedediah Smith Wilderness Area expands the protection provided by Grand Teton National Park to another 123,451 acres of alpine meadows and forests. Although some say it ought to be included in the park, the Jed Smith didn’t receive wilderness designation until 1984 as a part of the Wyoming Wilderness Act. The Jed Smith Wilderness includes Alaska Basin, which many hikers hit as they do the Teton Crest Trail in Grand Teton The Teton Mountains National Park. surround the Alaska Linda Merigliano, who worked for several Basin in the Jedediah summers as a wilderness ranger in the Jed and toSmith Wilderness west of Wyoming’s day is the Bridger-Teton National Forest recreTeton Range. ation manager, recalls hearing Ed Zahniser speak about his family’s experiences in Alaska Basin. “He started talking about his family coming to Alaska Basin with the Muries, and he said that for his mom [Alice], it is her favorite place in the whole world,” Merigliano says. Other popular Jed Smith spots include the Ice and Wind Caves in Darby Canyon. Experienced cavers can disappear into one cave and come out the other. For those without ropes or the know-how, just standing at the top of the frozen waterfall at the entrance to the Ice Cave is thrilling. 104
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MIKE CAVAROC
JEDEDIAH SMITH WILDERNESS
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GROS VENTRE WILDERNESS Added as a wilderness area in 1984, the 317,874 acres of the Gros Ventre Wilderness, along Jackson Hole’s eastern border, were almost lost to energy development. In the late ’70s and early 80s, Getty Oil wanted to begin oil exploration here, including up Willow and Cache creeks. Thirty years later, the Gros Ventre— the closest wilderness area to the town of Jackson—remains one of the most wellloved and -used wilderness areas. But despite its proximity to the valley’s most densely populated area, wilderness ranger Kasey Stewart says there are a tremendous number of places visitors can escape to for solitude. The recently improved Highline Trail runs twenty-four miles from Cache Creek to Granite Creek. Alkali Ridge is a lesser-known trail with excellent examples of fire ecology. The Gros Ventre Wilderness is busiest in the fall, when hunting season is open.
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— PAST: DON MURIE Around the Tetons, the name Murie is synonymous with conservation for the extraordinary efforts of Olaus, Mardy, Adolph, and Louise in the advocacy, science, and creation of protected wild areas. The Murie Ranch, now located inside Grand Teton National Park, was an epicenter for developing wilderness philosophy and campaigns. Don Murie, Olaus and Mardy’s youngest son who grew up in the Tetons, recalls the words of his parents and life in those times.
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people are set in their ways. My roommate in college came out with me one summer to the ranch and got a job at the park doing trail work. He said later, “I was going to be the driver of the bulldozer, but you took me out there and you changed my life.” That’s how it’s done—get people exposed to wilderness, and it changes their lives.
I didn’t realize until quite recently that my parents were famous. When I was growing up, we just had all these people coming to visit all the time, and we kids sometimes resented it. We learned early that the work was number one ... sometimes we’d get kicked out of the house, and my mother would lock the door to keep us out because they had important things to do. When they were fighting a dam on the Green River, my father said, “You must always stick to your principles. Don’t try to do things that aren’t consistent with what you’re really wanting.” He said if you try to argue the dam on an economic basis, your opponents will come up with another plan that will scotch that. You have to stay with what you really want and that is to preserve the country. They understood and accepted that this was going to be hard all the way; that they were fighting what my father called “the almighty dollar.” There were times when you lose the fight, but there’s another fight, and we have to get to it. There’s no time spent weeping over losses. My mother always said we must talk to the young people because they are the ones who are going to deal with things. The old
PRESENT: MAURA LONGDEN Over the course of Maura Longden’s thirty-three-year career with the National Park Service (NPS) she’s worked as a climbing ranger, wilderness ranger, wilderness manager, and supervisor in more than a dozen Western parks like City of Rocks, Yosemite, Sequoia, and Yellowstone. Today, Longden serves as the Board Chair for the Society for Wilderness Stewardship and as the NPS’ climbing management specialist. She splits her time between Victor, Idaho, and Moose, Wyoming. I started my NPS career as a wilderness ranger when I was eighteen. I was on extended patrols in the Sierra and that opened my eyes to a lot of the challenges in the Sierra that I hadn’t seen growing up in New England. From there on I expected all wilderness areas to be quite different, and they have been. In recent years, we’re seeing more of a demand for convenience and mechanization. I think back to conversations I had at one point with other wilderness rangers about whether wearing a wristwatch was appropriate in wilderness. Now we’re carrying GPS and SPOT devices. I think that we are all aware of the pressure to tap oil and gas in protected areas. There is also more demand to accommodate scientific studies in wilderness. In some cases, conducting research in wilderness comes with the heavy cost of installing instrumentation and utilizing aircraft and motorized vehicles to most efficiently access study sites, gather data, maintain equipment, and minimize field time. As time goes on, there is likely to be even more pressure for administrative “exceptions” to become the norm. I think we’re continuing to interpret what’s appropriate in wilderness, and there’s going to continue to be a push for
access and for more use from certain groups. What does wilderness mean in terms of wildlife management? Wildland fire management? We’re going to keep being challenged to interpret what’s appropriate in wilderness because again, it’s an evolution of thought. — FUTURE: WHITNEY BALL Whitney Ball, a Jackson native and sixth-grader at Journeys School, is one of nine participants in Young Ambassadors for Wilderness, a yearlong program organized by the Wyoming Wilderness Association and dedicated to cultivating young wilderness stewards. When she’s not in school, Whitney can be found riding her horse, Mokimac Snickelfritz—Sam for short. I think kids here appreciate the beauty of wilderness but don’t necessarily know much about capital “W”ilderness. Most people care, but I think a lot of people, not just kids, take it for granted. My best friend and I were riding up at Windy Gap in the Gros Ventre Wilderness. It was just beautiful up there, but we had to turn around because there was a big gale of wind. We were just laughing even though it was cold and storming. Just looking out with the wind in our faces, I think the word would be “freedom.” I think of how little wilderness there is; it is very sad. Wilderness embodies freedom, peace, and beauty. I think there are some wildlands that aren’t protected when they should be, like areas in national parks that have been recommended to be capital “W” but it’s never been acted on. Capital “W” wilderness can never be built on, developed, or destroyed. There’s not necessarily a difference in the way it looks, but the main thing is that somebody in the future might really appreciate those places as they are. Getting more kids outside is our job as Young Ambassadors for Wilderness. A lot of kids do like the wilderness, but instead of just driving through the park it would be better if they got into it—hiking or camping, riding horses, canoeing, kayaking, or packrafting. Once you go to those places and you see how stunning and necessary they are, you start to love them. JH
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looking back
JACKSON HOLE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
JH Living
Gamblers, Guns, and Ghosts Million Dollar Cowboy Bar is a living relic from Jackson’s frontier heyday. BY JIM STANFORD
ON THE NIGHT of June 26, 1953, one of Jackson’s most famous landmarks nearly was blown to bits. It was a Friday evening, about 6:45, when Pres Parkinson, owner of the Cowboy Bar, went down into the basement with a gas company agent to investigate a leak. Moments later, an explosion tore through the floor, crumpling support beams and shattering the plate glass windows. The building heaved and 108
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sagged as patrons were thrown onto the ground and out into the street. The blast ripped the heels from one woman’s shoes. Another customer, knocked into the street, reached back inside the empty window and picked up his hat from the floor. The Jackson Hole Guide reported, “A freak of the blast was that as it passed the shelves of liquor behind the bar it neatly uncapped three unopened bottles of whiskey without
The Cowboy Bar, circa 1950s, photographed showing the old streetfront and “Floor Shows” signage that no longer exists. The “Welcome” bucking bronc remains today.
spilling a drop.” Miraculously, no one died. Parkinson escaped with burns and shock. From his hospital bed, he vowed to rebuild, and he spent so much on the
restoration that he changed the name to Million Dollar Cowboy Bar. “Had the blast occurred on Saturday night, with the place crowded with people, it would have ranked as a disaster unequalled in the Rocky Mountain area, as the ‘Cowboy’ was one of the show places of town, and no visitor’s tour was complete without it,” the Guide reported. More than sixty years later, the Cowboy Bar remains one of the showpieces of town: a dance hall for country and Western music, a locals’ hangout, and a must stop for tourists, who pose for pictures on the barstool saddles. Jackson’s oldest bar, the Cowboy has as much character as the burls of “knobbled pine” that adorn the interior, painstakingly restored by Parkinson. The explosion is part of the mystique that surrounds the place, a history steeped in gambling, entertainment— and even ghosts.
“A freak of the blast was that as it passed the shelves of liquor behind the bar it neatly uncapped three unopened bottles of whiskey without spilling a drop.” The site on the west side of the Town Square held the first Jackson State Bank, organized in 1914 by Robert E. Miller. The bank was a small, one-story brick building formerly used as a home or doctor’s office. In 1934, Joe Ruby, who had operated a soda fountain and confectionery in Rock Springs, built Joe Ruby’s Cafe and Beer Garden in its place. According to a record on file at the Wyoming Liquor Division in Cheyenne, the Town of Jackson issued its first liquor license to Ruby in April 1935, following the repeal of Prohibition. Shortly after, Ruby reputedly got into an argument during a card game, shot a man, and was asked to leave the state. In 1937, he sold the bar to Ben F. Goe, a rancher and moonshiner who had operated stills in the vicinity of Curtis Canyon. Goe’s obituary in the Jackson’s Hole Courier in 1957 called him “a leading citizen of Jackson Hole for many years.” At that time, being a SUMMER 2014 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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moonshiner and leading citizen were not mutually exclusive. Goe expanded the saloon and renamed it the Cowboy Bar. He hired Jack Kranenberg, a local architect, to do the remodel, and together they built a long, ornate bar inlaid with silver dollars and trimmed with the knobbled pine. Twisted and gnarled into deformed shapes caused by a growth spurt in tree cells, the wood came from forests around Pinedale and initially was hauled out by horse-drawn sled. In the mid-1940s, Parkinson, from Casper, bought the bar and set about making it into a landmark. He and Kranenberg expanded the use of the knotty pine throughout the interior, 110
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fashioning it into railings and furniture. Parkinson had murals painted and added other artwork depicting cowboy scenes. “Floor Shows,” blared the marquee out front, advertising all sorts of nightly entertainment. Donald Hough, in his treatise on the valley’s social life, The Cocktail Hour in Jackson Hole, published in 1951, wrote: “The Cowboy Bar, large and garish and aimed at the lush summer trade, features a revolving cowboy on its roof and another cowboy lassoing a steer on its facade, all of this in colored neon lights, in full motion. Elegant indeed: an artistic display up to and—some think—far beyond the hilt, frightening the wild geese almost out of their senses.” Gambling was prevalent in Jackson
Hole then—despite being illegal in Wyoming since the early 1900s—and like its contemporaries the Silver Dollar, RJ Bar, and Log Cabin Club, the Cowboy had slot machines, card tables, and craps. The games would go downstairs when authorities showed up from Cheyenne. Jackson had a reputation rivaling Las Vegas. “It’s as wild and wooly a town as the West ever produced, and a wide assortment of eastern dudes, tourists, writers, and artists help keep this capital of the majestic Teton country roaring from evening to dawn,” George Beebe, a Miami Herald travel writer, wrote in 1947. He called the Cowboy “one of the largest and most elaborate drink and gambling emporiums in the nation.”
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The iconic saddle barstools were added to the Cowboy Bar in the early 1970s.
Johnny Walker and the Rhythm Wranglers were the house band. The bar hosted musicals, plays, and circus-like shows for kids, too. Charlotte Robertson got started singing at the bar for Jack Ruby when she was sixteen years old. Her voice caught the ear of Boyd Simons, clarinetist in Walker’s band, and the two married. She later worked the gaming tables and as a cocktail waitress and bartender. Her daughter, Rita Simons, recalls a story Robertson told of a loud customer demanding some sort of exotic drink no one had heard of. She
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ABOVE: The Cowboy Bar circa early 1940s
went down the line, pouring a little from each bottle into his glass; he thought it was wonderful, she said, and the drink became “Charlotte’s Special.” Following the gas explosion, Parkinson erected the neon bucking bronc sign still atop the bar today. He sold the Cowboy in 1960, and the establishment changed hands several times before current owners Art and Carol Andersen and Hagan Dudley purchased it in 1988. The barstool saddles were added in the early 1970s. Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Tanya Tucker, and Hank Williams Jr. are among the country artists who performed at the bar in the 1970s and ’80s. More recently, pop stars John Mayer and Justin Timberlake made guest appearances on stage while traveling through town. The bar also served as a 112
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JACKSON HOLE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
RIGHT: Gambling at the Cowboy Bar circa 1950. Gambling was illegal in Wyoming at the time, but Jackson Hole’s isolation prevented authorities in Cheyenne from doing much about it, so the activity flourished.
backdrop for the 1980 Clint Eastwood film Any Which Way You Can. There are nine Cowboy Bars or similar variations across Wyoming, including in Pinedale, Afton, Laramie, and Upton, but there is only one Million Dollar Cowboy Bar. The owners trademarked the name in 1986. Thousands of tourists stream in each week to saddle up for a drink or gawk at the stuffed
grizzly bear and mountain lions. Around the time of the annual Sturgis motorcycle rally in South Dakota, a line of shiny chrome forms outside the bar, where bikers park their Harleys. Separating myth from the Cowboy’s history can be difficult. The story accompanying the prominently displayed grizzly, about C. Dale Petersen killing it with his hands and teeth, is a ruse. But
Petersen does in fact work at the bar, having served as maintenance man for twenty-one years. His grandfather, Charlie Sr., tended bar there during the 1940s and later was a part-owner. His great-grandfather, Frank Petersen, was part of Billy Owen’s climbing party credited with making the first ascent of the Grand Teton in 1898. Dale Petersen points to a cylindrical shape in one of the burls behind the bar, beneath a lighted painting of cattlemen fighting with sheepherders. It’s a bullet hole; his grandfather told him where to find it. The shot wasn’t fired by an outlaw or rogue gambler; rather, a night watchman, frightened by the shadowy reflection of his poodle in the mirror, discharged his revolver, Petersen explains. Late at night, especially during the off-seasons, many shadows have been observed passing through the bar. Ask any longtime employee, and they’ll tell you they’ve seen a ghost. “There’s times when you can hear people walking around when you’re downstairs alone,” says Dusty Stolp, who has tended bar for seventeen years. “They’re not scary. They’re nice ghosts.”
There are several, at least known, human remains in the bar. In the upstairs penthouse where Pres Parkinson’s wife rode out the gas explosion unharmed, an urn holds the ashes of a former handyman. A Jack Daniel’s bottle on the fireplace mantel contains the ashes of Bob Whitaker, a Kansas outdoorsman who used to patronize the bar on fishing trips. Every so often, his friends or relatives will come in and ask to have a drink with him; the bartender will go upstairs, fetch the bottle, and place it on the bar while he pours a round for everyone. One of the most persistent stories about the Cowboy is the existence of tunnels running beneath the bar to the Wort or other places, alleged hideouts for gamblers when the authorities raided. When the steakhouse underneath the Cowboy underwent extensive renovation in 1995, Petersen found no tunnels. There is a large hole beneath a beer cooler where a boiler once stood, and behind wall framing he did find a small space under the Cache Street sidewalk. About ten years ago, the town engineer investigated a hole in the grass in the Town Square park, into which kids had
been dropping soda bottles. Upon pulling up a piece of lawn, he found an enclosed concrete structure large enough for his secretary to fit inside. In the basement of the Wort Hotel, adjoining the alley, a dusty space behind a beer cooler leads to a four-foot-wide cutout in the foundation. Whether these were haphazard excavations or part of a network of furtive passageways may never be known. “We neither confirm it nor deny it,” says Jim Waldrop, general manager of the Wort. In the basement of the Cowboy, a narrow hallway leads to offices, storage space, and restrooms. Old photographs of bar patrons from bygone days adorn the walls. Many of these nooks once could have held clandestine card games; now there’s a mess of wires, ventilation ducts, and compressors for the drink fountain. But Petersen points overhead to one of the building’s original footers. Imbedded in the concrete fill are a swather blade, rocks, a chunk of coal, a piece of pipe, and a bone—whatever the early pioneers could find to fill space. The Million Dollar Cowboy Bar is built on the history of Jackson itself. JH
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JH Living
outdoors
Drift Boating in Jackson Hole A (not-so) brief history BY PAUL BRUUN
experiments included the square-ended “Rapid Robert” that was backed down the river with its pointed bow positioned upstream. During the 1940s and ’50s, “double enders” had pointed bows and sterns that handled splashy waves and proved maneuverable. Such narrow craft suffered from reduced buoyancy. A solution appeared that widened the stern and topped it with a small horizontal transom suitable for adding lightweight outboard motors and anchor systems. The traditionally upswept, pointed bow and taller forward sides (gunwales) faced downstream to intercept and repel waves. The pleasing lines of a handmade drift boat are a visual delight, trumping rafts, which resemble tubes of gray- or black-colored bologna. Dry gear and tackle storage, adjustable seat configurations, and comfortable interiors make drift boat river work easier for fishermen and guides alike. Drift boats are stable, and fishermen may cast while standing. They are like sports cars on water, exhibiting superlative handling and maneuverability around boulders. Also, they hold motionless in fast water, are instantly responsive, and even have the magical ability to row back upstream. Montana and Idaho fishermen were rowing drift boats by the late 1950s and early 1960s, at least a dozen years before Lewis and Clark Whitewater Trips founder Rod Lewis hauled his personal Wooldridge drift boat from its Washington factory to Wyoming. Lewis’ aluminum craft was the first of any McKenzie in Jackson Hole. COURTESY PHOTO
CLASSICALLY HEWN DRIFT boats—designs pioneered by Pacific Northwest craftsmen—were slow to arrive on Jackson Hole-area rivers. In the 1970s, early commercial Snake River boatmen built their floating businesses around war surplus assault rafts. (Forty years later, all whitewater and most scenic trips continue nearly unabated in rafts, albeit more modern ones.) Inflatable fishing rafts also ruled western Wyoming
Wooden drift boats with the traditional McKenzie design at anchor on the Snake River south of Wilson, Wyoming
waves well into the 1970s before “hard boats” began arriving. These stately wooden rivercraft, easily identified by a smartly upswept, narrow bow in which a standing fisherman safely braces against a thigh-high yoke, were collectively named “McKenzies” after Oregon’s McKenzie River, where they were first crafted and used. ADVENTURESOME OREGON RIVER pioneers such as Prince Helfrich and Woodie Hindman developed some of the earliest wooden riverboats in the 1920s and ’30s. Design 114
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TWO BOATERS—BOTH with the last names of Becker, although unrelated—accelerated the popularity of drift boats in the valley. In 1971, mechanic Art Becker moved to Jackson. Becker distinctly recalls confessing to a visiting Washington friend how much he wanted a drift boat. Coincidentally, the friend’s neighbor had one for sale. A quickie 1976 Seattle road trip and six hundred dollars later, Becker owned a sixteen-foot wooden Eastside drift boat built by Andre Laviguere. Having never rowed a drift boat, for his maiden Snake
voyage, Art enlisted the assistance of experienced pal Todd Harley. “We shoved the woodcraft through spring snowdrifts and launched at Moose. Rowing really wasn’t that hard,” Art remembers. By late summer 1976, he was a habitual river runner.
- Keith Steele THE INTRODUCTION OF marine-grade plywood in the 1940s played a major role in expanding riverboat production. By the 1950s, Leaburg, Oregon, fish hatchery worker and cabinetmaker Keith Steele started building drift boats. Steele seemed to become the universal supplier of 16-foot-by-48-inch beam traditional dories to every notable Ennis and West Yellowstone fishing guide working Montana’s Madison River. Steele’s boats also permeated both branches of Idaho’s Snake River. Early Keith Steele plywood boats were lightweight and rugged. Thoughtful interior crafting allowed easy takedown of seats and braces. Three boats stacked inside each other could be towed aboard a single trailer. By 1986, Steele had built and sold more than 2,500 of his plywood drift boats. Located in Hotel Terra, Jackson’s premier eco-luxury hotel Teton Village • 307-739-4000•hotelterrajacksonhole.com
Denny Becker, a Jackson log builder, had begun paddling the lower Snake, including the whitewater canyon section, in the early 1960s. He was doing it in an early kayak, but his keen boating interest kept him looking at other boats. Learning that a Boeing Company mechanic was seeking a Rocky Mountain distributor for his durable and “virtually indestructible” fiberglass (instead of wood) drift boats, Denny made the contact. Ron Laviguere (brother of Andre) brought his new boat, called a Lavro, to Jackson. He and Denny tested the Lavro on the Hoback River in high water. Denny remembers: “I instantly rowed into the first big, sharp rock I found. Laviguere came absolutely unglued, but I told him, ‘When you say your boat is indestructible, I want to find out now rather than later!’ ” Lavro boats were indeed tough. The first fourteen-footer I purchased from Denny in 1977 is still performing—thirty-seven years later—with only its second owner at the oars. BY 1978, ART Becker was so enthused with rowing whitewater that he ordered a heftier seventeen-foot Alumaweld Guide’s Boat. He named the craft Cora, his daughter, Quincy’s, middle name.
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was one of his own best customers after buying two sixteen-footers.) Denny and cohorts—Jackson Hole News photographer Richard Murphy, architectural designer Cliff Poindexter, and stonemason Buck Beckett—plunged their modified (they water-tightened them) fiberglass dories into every available Western river wave, big drop, and cataract they could locate. Their research was extensive. Lavro soon introduced watertight, compartmentalized, self-bailing, and waveshedding designs dedicated to fishing and whitewater.
South Fork Skiff co-owner/developer Paul Bruun rowing friends on the Snake River. Low-profile, skiff-style drift boats added a new dimension to riverboat building when they were introduced in the early 1980s.
Becker immediately tested Cora in Grants Pass on Oregon’s Rogue River. Art and Cora went on to introduce hundreds of valley visitors to McKenzie boats during their eleven seasons guiding with
Jack Dennis Outdoor Shop. He was one of the first guides to operate in the Snake River Canyon after the Bridger-Teton National Forest approved limited commercial fishing in the popular whitewater venue. Meanwhile, Denny Becker was busily distributing Lavro boats when he recognized modifications were needed to make them worthy for serious whitewater. (He
POUNDING THROUGH RAUCOUSLY rolling wave trains aboard a tall McKenzie boat is fun. Dedicated boaters and fishermen rowing less-dramatic waters don’t require craft with significant gunwales, though. These can act like unwanted sails on windy days. Prior to the 1980s drift boat growth spurt, jon boats were fixtures on Montana’s Yellowstone and smaller waters such as the Beaverhead and Bitterroot. Jon boats were twelve- to fifteen-foot riveted aluminum reproductions of slender, wooden twenty-foot riverboats used for
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fishing and camping along Ozark rivers in Arkansas and Missouri. Montana angling legends Dan Bailey, Joe Brooks, and George Anderson all fished from these rectangular craft on the alwaysblustery Yellowstone River in Livingston. During the mid 1970s, successful Jackson Hole fishing outfitters John Simms and Tom Montgomery plied the Snake, Upper Green, and New Fork rivers from their fourteen-foot Sea Nymph and Lowe Line jon boats. Trim and feather-light hulls provided maneuverability in tight waterways, gave operators better forward visibility, and trivialized wind. Twenty-inch gunwales took away the challenge of passing under low ranch bridges and barbed-wire fences. In the early 1980s, the jon boat’s assets—along with a sturdy anchor system—convinced Ralph Headrick and me to produce a rocker-bottomed, lowprofile fiberglass riverboat. We called it the South Fork Skiff. In a little over five years, our company produced and sold one hundred skiffs. The skiff added a new phrase to the river vocabulary and defined lighter, easier drift boat handling while also developing a blueprint for improving riverboat design. By the mid-1990s, every timber, aluminum, and fiberglass/graphite composite drift boat crafter had added lowprofile craft to their inventories. Some were simply shortened-down gunwale versions of already popular McKenzie boat models. More thoughtful builders increased hull areas to improve stability and shallow operation. TODAY, DENNY BECKER operates A Teton Tree House B&B and still maintains his fishing and whitewater drift boat fleet. “As the years pile on and the muscle mass diminishes, it’s not as easy to challenge the rivers like I used to. But it’s still great fun,” he reports. Art Becker’s first wooden Eastside disintegrated in 1980 when former Jackson resident Steve Osman rowed into a planned stunt/wreck while filming the movie The Pursuit of D. B. Cooper. Cora was sold to a local fisherman, and Art’s twenty-foot Grand Canyon Alumaweld rests in Idaho storage, awaiting daughter Quincy’s next big outing. “Drift boating just got better and better,” Art said, beaming, as we visited in December. “Those drift boats were the best toys I ever had!” JH
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as the hole deepens
Adventures of the Checklist Tourists BY TIM SANDLIN ILLUSTRATIONS BY BIRGITTA SIF
LAST AUGUST, AS I relaxed on my favorite rock along the shores of Jenny Lake, basking in the sunlight, admiring the shape of a cloud wisping off Teewinot, absorbing the song of birds, a couple in their middle ages approached. They wore clunky hiking boots and what, in my youth, were called Bermuda shorts. Maybe they still are called Bermuda shorts for all I know. The shorts were matching plaids, and they both had on basketball warm-up jackets with an Oklahoma City Thunder logo across the chest. The woman carried a leather-bound notebook. She looked down at the notebook and said, “What is this?” The man, who had a small wiry dog in a shoulder sling, approached me. “What is this?” I said, “Jenny Lake.” He turned back to the woman. “Jenny Lake.” The woman plucked one of those pencil stubs they give out at golf courses from behind her ear and checked off a column in the book. She said, “Next, Chapel of Transfiguration,” and they both turned and walked away. Neither one so much as 118
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glanced at the lake, the mountains, the cloud, or the birds. Jenny Lake—check—and away they went. I’ve lived in Jackson Hole long enough to be familiar with checklist tourists, and, while they continue to amaze me to no end, I confess to a certain jadedness. If travelers would rather check off an experience than experience the experience, that’s their lookout. No skin off my rear. They’re not so much worse than those who photograph yet never see. Or Facebook—I’m at Jenny Lake—without feeling the sun on their skin. A couple days later, I ran into our plaid Bermuda shorts couple again, this time at Old Faithful. I go to Old Faithful to watch people. Out of their natural habitat, strangers in a strange land, the crowd encircling Old Faithful has been stripped of their veneer. They are delaminated to the core. I’m planning to self-publish a book of ridiculous quotes I have heard on the Old Faithful plastic particleboard boardwalk. “The Bellagio is bigger.” “An earthquake dried up the original, but the park had too much invested in development, so they pipe it in.”
“Run up and stick your thumb in the hole. I’ll take your picture.” “They turn it off in the winter.” “I’d rather shop.” Anyway, the man in the Bermuda shorts walked to a sign that read “Old Faithful.” He turned to his wife and said, “Old Faithful.” Check! I followed them out to the parking lot where they went to a Chevy Silverado pulling a fifth wheel trailer. The woman opened the trailer door, and the dog flew into her arms. She kissed the dog a wet one right on its lips. “Fluff Puff, my little girl! Did you miss us?” I said, “Excuse me.” They both turned to me as if being accosted by random strangers is normal, which proves they were from Oklahoma. “I couldn’t help but notice you checked Old Faithful off your list, but you didn’t look at it. You did the same at Jenny Lake two days ago.” The old man said, “Jenny Lake?” The woman pressed an index finger to her dimpled chin, thinking. “Jenny Lake. Three minutes.” “You spent all of three minutes on the most beautiful lake in the world?” “Milton’s boots came undone. We’re generally quicker with lakes.” Milton’s face crumpled like wadding up a sheet of yellow legal pad paper. “Fluff Puff took too long on her business. Wasn’t my fault we got behind schedule.” I studied Fluff Puff. She was a Pomeranian mix without teeth. She bared her black gums at me and emitted one of those squeaks you hear from dogs that have had their voice boxes surgically removed. Someone here was big on control. “I would think being on schedule and being on vacation are mutually exclusive.” “Fat lot you know.” The woman fished in her huge vinyl purse, and for one frightening moment, I thought she might pull out photos of loved ones. I would be expected to comment. I hate that. Only thing worse is when your brother-inlaw insists on showing you his apps. Instead, she brought out the leather-bound notebook. Milton said, “Marlene, you don’t have to show that to every stranger that comes along.” Marlene said, “The boy is interested.” I said, “I’m fascinated.” “This here is our bucket list. We each made one on the thirty-fifth anniversary of our wedding, when the alternative was divorce by boredom.” Milton scratched an ear that glowed pink from eczema. “Our Christian therapist said if we didn’t do something away from the TV we would wind up shooting each other with our constitutionally protected handguns.” “So you made bucket lists.” Personally, I’ve never approved
of the bucket list phenomenon. It’s a listing of experiences you want before you kick the bucket. Kick the bucket used to mean suicide—you stand on a bucket, put a noose around your neck, secure the far end of the rope, then kick the bucket—but now it means die by any means. Bucket lists focus your life on death. I’d rather do stuff for fun. “Marlene’s list had 126 stops. Mine had 127.” “Milton wanted the Egyptian pyramids. I’d rather get my hair done.” I looked over the list. Eiffel Tower. Graceland. World’s largest barbed-wire ball in Shelby, South Dakota. More than half the items had pencil checks on their left. “I’m betting you went all the way to the Eiffel Tower and didn’t look at it.” “Wasn’t time. We had to bag the Mona Lisa and van Gogh’s ear before five o’clock, French Time Zone.” “I didn’t know van Gogh’s ear is a destination.” “We saw the sign for it. We were in the presence and that’s good enough for the bucket list. I didn’t see any point in looking at a detached ear.” “They wouldn’t let Fluff Puff in France so we did the whole country in one day,” Marlene said. Milton sniffed. “France is overrated. We shouldn’t have put the nation on our list in the first place.” I handed the notebook back to Marlene. “What did you think of Wyoming?” “It’s dry,” Milton said. Marlene nodded. “Too dry. Makes my sinuses swell, and I blow green into my hankie.” Milton said, “Marlene, we do not discuss the color of residue in our hankie.” “He asked. Anyway, this is the tail end of our Rocky Mountain list. We’re going on home tomorrow. Fluff Puff misses her built-in water dish.” I considered a life of running here and there seeing how much you could say you’ve done without actually doing anything. It seemed uniquely modern. Like the guy with no friends trying to collect as many friends as possible on social media. What my dad used to call bassackwards. “Have you ever considered looking at the sights on your bucket list?” “Oh, no,” Milton said. “No time for …” “Lollygagging.” Marlene finished his sentence. I got the idea she did that often. “You start savoring experiences, you get yourself sidetracked, and you never finish your list.” “You die without fulfilling your potential.” “Milton tried once at the Grand Canyon, but he got so dizzy he had to drink three Pepsis to calm down.” “We lost most of the afternoon.” “Two hours closer to death and nothing to show for it but cola burps.” Green residue in the hankie and cola burps—I was two steps closer to filling in my own bucket list. JH SUMMER 2014 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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getting out
A Feast for the Eyes, and Tummy Breakfast and dinner cruises dock at Elk Island. BY DINA MISHEV
A tour boat drifts into the dock at Elk Island in Grand Teton National Park.
MOTORING OUT INTO Jackson Lake from Colter Bay Marina in a low-slung, utilitarian sightseeing boat, my tummy grumbles with hunger. Grand Teton National Park, especially the northern section dominated by blocky Mount Moran, is a feast for the eyes. Because this is my third time this summer on a boat headed for Elk Island, my stomach knows a feast of another sort is also coming. Docking and disembarking at the island, an alfresco dinner awaits. Tables, covered in red-checkered tablecloths, sit in a grassy meadow feet from the water’s edge. Sitting down on a bench at one of them, you must crane your neck to see the 12,605-foot summit of Mount Moran. The peak’s base seems so close a skilled stone-skipper might be able to hit it. I can’t tear my eyes from the view, but I can smell all sorts of goodness sizzling away on an oversize grill. I hear someone slicing into a watermelon. I lived in Jackson for fourteen years before taking this cruise. It’s now my #1 thing to do with visiting family and friends. A couple of times, I’ve done it without visiting family and friends in tow. On each of the half-dozen cruises I’ve taken out to Elk Island—four dinner and two SUMMER 2014 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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Aside from these cruises—there’s breakfast—I was the only local also a 1.5-hour scenic cruise that outside of my party. I don’t think doesn’t involve food—the only way to locals stay away because the cruises get to Elk Island is to paddle a kayak are touristy; I think most have no or, if you can handle Jackson Lake’s clue they exist. Also, I think valley often burly winds, a canoe. It’s a threeresidents are unaware the breakfast mile trip one-way. Fair warning: My or dinner served is truly yummy. three trips kayaking to the island have So locals, take note: If you don’t each included at least one capsize. Full have a boat or a friend with a boat, disclosure: I’m not the world’s most you can still log water time. And get skilled paddler. I’m now of the mind a yummy breakfast or dinner. (Have that it’s best to let a Yamaha motor on I mentioned the food is yummy?) the back of a thirty-foot boat do the Visitors, know this is one of the Dinner includes garlic toast, steak, trout, salad, corn work of getting me to Elk Island. This most unique activities in Grand on the cob, and potatoes. not only keeps me dry, but also allows Teton National Park. Jackson Lake Lodge’s Mural Room has amazing views of the same northern me to save my energy for exploring the island by foot—and peaks, but these cruises get you even closer and allow you to ex- also for the berry cobbler dessert. plore Elk Island. You’ll want to bring your camera in addition to your appetite. If you have binoculars, take those, too; better to AFTER SUFFICIENTLY ADMIRING Mount Moran and see the crevasses and moats on Moran’s Skillet Glacier. wondering how Skillet Glacier, which looks spaghetti-thin and near-vertical, is routinely tackled by local ski mountaineers, THE COWBOY STATE is landlocked but home to thirty-two the grill hidden among pine trees at the base of a small hill just named islands. Elk Island, four square miles of land rising east of the dock captures my attention. At dinner, it’s stuffed from the chilly waters of Jackson Lake, is the largest of them. with trout and steak fillets. My first cruise, I struggled over Elk Island offers the best views of Mount Moran anywhere in which one to pick. Then I learned you don’t have to choose! Now I always get some of each, along with potatoes, salad, the park you can get to with help from a motor. 124
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Visitors to Elk Island make their way back to the boat for the return trip to Colter Bay.
Texas-size grilled garlic bread, watermelon, and, for dessert, berry cobbler. Breakfast is equally hearty: corn-dusted trout fillets, cowboy potatoes, fresh fruit, sausage, pancakes, and pastries. Dining on Elk Island isn’t just one of the best meals-with-a-view in GTNP, but in any national park. I’ve dropped more than my share of food on the ground not paying proper attention to where my fork was headed. I’ve not yet lost any berry cobbler, though. There’s something about eating cobbler in the open air that makes it the most precious food ever. DINNER DONE, IT’S time to explore the island. Sitting on logs around the roaring campfire is also an option. I figure I can sit by a campfire most anywhere, but I can’t often explore Wyoming’s largest island by foot. With the exception of a small
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DINA MISHEV
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OPPOSITE: An aluminum canoe serves as a makeshift salad bar. Everything else is cooked on an oversize grill.
amount of infrastructure related to the food cruises—a fire ring, surrounding benches, picnic tables, and a porta-potty—Elk Island is totally undeveloped. There are no permanent structures, at least that I’ve ever stumbled across, and I’ve done a fair amount of bushwhacking around the island. Game trails wend up the small hill above the dock. At the top—less than one hundred feet above the dinner tables—I wander south to an open point with 270-degree views. Driving or biking up Signal Mountain from the Inner Park Loop Road, it feels substantial. Looking east at it from Elk Island, it’s a mere blip. South, the snowfields and glaciers of the Cathedral Group glisten in the setting sun. North is the Rockefeller Memorial Parkway and Yellowstone. Moran dominates the west, but Bivouac Peak, Eagles Rest Peak, and Ranger Peak are also there, along with Snowshoe and Waterfalls canyons. This area between Moran and the northern end of Jackson Lake is among the most remote in Grand Teton National Park, rarely visited by anyone but the most intrepid of backpackers. Looking northwest from Elk Island, I always wonder if any backpackers are out there and feel the briefest bit guilty I get to enjoy such views—and a feast—without any exertion on my part. By the time I return to the dock and a second helping of berry cobbler, however, all my guilt is long gone. JH
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A storied Wyoming homestead, Lazy Moose Ranch boasts approximately 114 acres just north of the idyllic town of Wilson, Wyoming. From this private retreat at the base of the Teton Mountain Range you have pastoral valley views overlooking Fish Creek and the pastures of the valley floor, five mountain ranges, and one of the area’s most wellknown mountains, the “Sleeping Indian” is a sight to behold.
the ranch
Amid a sought-after area of large properties and elite homes, the lush pastures of Lazy Moose Ranch create an ideal setting for horses, while the National Forest forms a majestic hilltop boundary. Properties of this magnitude rarely become available and Lazy Moose Ranch offers numerous opportunities such as the potential for a family compound, an addition to the existing entertainment home, the possibility of 3 separate parcels, or a conservation easement. Price Upon Request / 13-863
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CRUISES DEPART FROM the Colter Bay Marina. The ninety-minute scenic cruise, which doesn’t include any food, departs daily at 10:15 a.m., 1:15 p.m., 3:15 p.m., and 6:15 p.m. Adults are $30 and kids 3-11 are $13. The breakfast and dinner cruises are each about three hours. Breakfast cruises depart at 7:15 a.m. daily except for Fridays. Adults are $40 and kids 3-11 are $22. Dinner cruises depart Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 5:15 p.m. Adults are $62 and ages 3-11 are $37. Cruises are dependent on the lake’s water level. Last year, this meant they were done in early August, but that was an anomaly: Usually, cruises go until mid-September. Reservations are recommended. 307/543-2811; gtlc.com SUMMER 2014 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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JH Living
getting out
Photography tours are generally in the mornings and evenings, when light is best and wildlife most active.
A New View A photo safari showcases Grand Teton National Park and its wildlife ... through your camera lens. BY KELSEY DAYTON PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRADLY J. BONER
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MY HEART RACES. For a moment, I inadvertently hold my breath. We aren’t hiding. The moose is well aware of our presence and, when we arrive, tilts her head in our direction. But there is something unexpectedly thrilling about watching her and her calf through the trees, my eye on them through the viewfinder of my camera, my finger hovering above the shutter button, silently begging them to move just a little so I’ll have the perfect shot. I never thought I’d be so excited to stare at a moose. Lucky enough to live in wild places where I often see moose, along with elk, deer, and bison, I’m jaded when it comes to wildlife. I take for granted seeing incredible creatures along the side of the road. I might pull over for a bear—maybe.
WILDLIFE EXPEDITIONS OF TETON SCIENCE SCHOOLS
I am not one for an animal safari. However, when I learn about one that doubles as a lesson in wildlife photography, I get excited. I’ve recently purchased a digital single-lens reflex camera and am struggling with learning how to use it on my own. PHOTOGRAPHER JASON WILLIAMS started Jackson Hole Wildlife Safaris in 2007. Shortly thereafter, hotel staff who knew he was a photographer began asking Williams about guiding photo-specific trips. It became such a frequent request that when Williams needed to hire additional guides, he reached out to area photographers Mike Cavorac, Seth Heeter, and Cathy Aronsom, in addition to naturalists. “A wildlife photographer is one of the best naturalists you’ll meet,” Williams says. Avid wildlife photographers track animal movements, have studied behavior, and know where they are most likely to spot a moose, elk, or bear. JH Wildlife Safaris quickly became known for its photography instruction tours (although it has always offered nonphoto-specific tours as well). Williams’ photography clients range from novices like me to seasoned amateurs and even professional photographers. This works because tours don’t follow predetermined curricula, but are individualized. I want to move from the automatic settings on my camera to manual ones, but am not sure how. Williams assures me that by the end of our wildlife photographic safari I’ll understand basic manual functions. Amateurs already familiar with their cameras often ask Williams and his guides for help with a particular skill, like time-lapse or night photography. Professionals often simply want a guide to show them the places to get the best shots. One client only wanted to shoot reflections in water. She was happy to get tips in the process, but was most interested in someone with a photographer’s eye taking her to different bodies of water with unique reflections. Another client wanted moose pictures. Some photographers, mostly those looking for
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Jackson Hole Wildlife Safaris’ photo tours teach photographers to anticipate wildlife’s movements, such as this red fox making a leap in hopes of catching dinner. Also taught are in-camera techniques that blur a photograph’s background to isolate the subject.
grizzly bears or wolves, sign up for multiday trips. Knowing I am less impressed with general wildlife than some clients, Williams and I stop to test and practice different camera settings on wildflowers. For how long can staring at flowers be interesting? It turns out that when you have a camera in your hand, a pretty long time. If simple flowers are this
captivating from behind a camera, I can only imagine how interesting wildlife must be. I feel some of my jadedness falling away. Still, I’m hoping to see more bears than elk or deer with Williams. PHOTOGRAPHING WILDLIFE IS a mixture of luck, patience, and skill. Sometimes, shortly after setting out, you’ll see an animal off the side of the
road (that’s the luck). It can take hours of watching to get the shot you want with a good angle and light, though (patience). When you aren’t lucky enough to see an animal roadside, you have to find one (skill). Williams begins calling other photographers to find out where and what they have seen recently. Then we head into Grand Teton National Park, entering at Moose and driving north. We’re not looking just for bears, or animals, even. Williams also keeps an eye out for cars he knows belong to other regular
IF YOU DON’T have the time or inclination to go with a pro, we’ve asked three valley photographers for tips to help get wildlife and landscape shots you’ll want to frame. They all—Tom Mangelsen, Henry Holdsworth, and Loren Nelson—agree you’ll want to get out early in the morning, respect the animals, and stock up on patience. The Teton Photography Group also offers tips and resources on its website, www.tetonphotography.org.
PHOTOGRAPHER // Tom Mangelsen
PHOTOGRAPHER // Henry Holdsworth
PHOTOGRAPHER // Loren Nelson
WHERE’S HIS WORK? Images of Nature Gallery, Mangelsen.com
WHERE’S HIS WORK? Wild By Nature Gallery, Wildbynaturegallery.com
WHERE’S HIS WORK? Teton Photography Group, NaturalPhotographyJackson.com
YEARS SHOOTING IN THE TETONS 32
YEARS SHOOTING IN THE TETONS 2
TECH TIP Know your lenses. A good starter lens is 75 to 300 mm or 100 to 400 mm. Bring a tripod.
TECH TIP Consider renting a big lens to get close-up animal shots. Bring a wide-angle lens for landscapes.
YEARS SHOOTING IN THE TETONS 39 TECH TIP Understand how to control depth of field on your camera, especially when shooting herds of animals. The animal(s) in the foreground should be sharp. Also, separate animals. You don’t want one to look like it has an extra leg or is missing its head. GO LIKE A PRO Research the subject and area before going out. Plan your trip based on what you want— bright colors, baby animals, birds in full plumage, or ungulates with large racks. Don’t forget about the background. Don’t let “bad weather” keep you away. Storms create unusual lighting and scenes. 130
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GO LIKE A PRO Check out the southern end of the park. Ask in shops and galleries where animals have recently been seen. Anticipate what is going to happen and where animals might go. Keep your finger on the shutter. Make sure to capture the eyes.
GO LIKE A PRO When in a bear jam, don’t hog space. Don’t step out in front of other people. To create unusual photographs, get on the trails. Look all around you (including behind) for shots.
wildlife watchers and photographers. If one of these is speeding off, they’re sometimes worth following. Seeing neither bears nor cars belonging to wildlife watchers, we stop to photograph pelicans. Amazingly, despite all the time I’ve spent in this national park, I have never before noticed these birds. We photograph them until we feel we’ve exhausted most every possible shot. We then move on to shooting landscapes, hitting scenic overlooks I’ve passed for years but had never before stopped at. I had thought I knew Grand Teton National Park so well; I’m now seeing it anew. The camera slows me down. It forces me to take in whole scenes—big and small—and consider what I love about them. Some of this fresh consideration translates into my photos. But, for each decent photo I snap, I have at least two that are terrible—out of focus, too light, too dark. I’m learning there are dozens of things that can go wrong. Williams looks at each and helps me adjust the camera. It is trial and error. By the end of the day, however, it’s obvious I’m getting better. Fewer photos are unsalvageable. Heading back to town from the park, we hope for one last look at wildlife. We’ve yet to see a bear, but, with a memory card full of other animals and landscapes I can’t wait to check out, the photo safari is far from a disappointment. Williams has us hike down a trail near the Snake River. It is while walking along the river that we spot the moose and calf. We watch and wait. It is the longest I’ve ever watched a moose and also the most excited I’ve ever been watching a moose. The moose rises. But, instead of moving toward us, which is what we need for the best photos, it heads deeper into the trees. It and its calf become faint shadows. We don’t get the photos we’d like, but I have no doubt I’ll be back. I’ve become a wildlife watcher ... as long as I’ve got my camera along. JH
NUTS & BOLTS HALF-DAY CUSTOMIZED photo workshops for up to five people are $650. It’s $75 for additional passengers. JH Wildlife Safaris has vehicles that accommodate ten people. Full-day customized photo workshops are $950 for up to five. Additional passengers are $100. 307/690-6402; jacksonholewildlifesafaris.com
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getting out
BRADLY J. BONER
JH Living
Scratching the Belly of the Indian The best views of the Tetons aren’t in the Tetons. BY DINA MISHEV
The moon rises over Sleeping Indian, also known as Sheep Mountain, as the sun sets on an early fall evening.
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“THESE ARE WHAT mountains are supposed to look like,” President Teddy Roosevelt famously remarked when he first saw the Tetons. The range explodes, toothy, rugged, and raw—it is among the youngest in the Rockies—7,000 feet out of our high desert with nary a foothill to temper its ascent. There’s no doubt the Tetons are among Mother Nature’s finest work. To best appreciate the awesome beauty of these mountains, though, you must leave them. But you needn’t go far: Sleeping Indian, itself also awesomely beautiful, is in the Gros Ventre Mountains on the valley’s eastern side.
DINA MISHEV
Jill Dammen and Cora enjoy a September hike up the final mile and a half and 1,300 feet of the Indian’s belly and chest.
Unlike most Teton peaks, the trip to the Sleeping Indian’s top is not technical nor exposed. It is mildly arduous: six miles up 4,200 vertical feet. You’ll first walk through the Sleeping Indian’s steep, forested rib cage. Four miles and 2,500 feet later, you’ll emerge onto his grassy, rounded belly. Finally, clambering up to the 11,239-foot summit created by the Indian’s hands gently crossed over his heart, you’ll be rewarded with the best views of the Tetons in the valley. This hike isn’t merely a means to an end, however. There are stop-you-in-yourtracks vistas and some of the valley’s best wildflower meadows along the way. And also, perhaps, moose. Or bears. THE MOST RECOGNIZABLE nonTeton peak in the valley, Sleeping Indian is, on maps, Sheep Mountain. But ask most locals to point to Sheep Mountain, and you’ll get blank stares. Everyone knows it as Sleeping Indian. This is because Sleeping Indian is
the rare anthropomorphized rock formation that utterly and completely looks like what it is supposed to. I am staggeringly terrible at seeing human forms in inanimate objects. For example: The forty-foot-tall Old Man of the Mountain, a rock outcrop in New Hampshire so recognizable as a profile that the state quarter and also road signs feature it, was merely a series of ledges to my eyes. (Since the granite feature collapsed in 2003, it’s now mere ledges to everyone.) Stereograms also confound me: Once, sitting in a doctor’s office waiting room, trying to discern the larger image hidden in repeated triangles, I grew so discombobulated I toppled out of my chair—without ever discovering the concealed image. In contrast, from the first moment I laid eyes on the Sleeping Indian, dramatically dyed pink and orange by the setting sun, I recognized it as a sleeping Indian. He is lying on his back. Depending on your imagination, he is either magnificently barrel-chested, or is
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of slighter build and lying with his hands crossed atop his chest. (His chest is his high point.) His chest descends to his neck before reaching his chin, which is sharp. In profile, he has the same steep, pointed nose as Geronimo. From his proud forehead, a resplendent feather headdress fans out and down. WHILE IT IS his face and headdress that look the most interesting, and from some vantages his nose that looks to be highest, it is the Indian’s chest that is the mountain’s summit. Fortuitous then that this is the easier of the two forms to hike to. True, the trail is not signed, at its start or along the route, but: 1) neither is the trail to the head; and 2) although sometimes obscured by shrubs making the most of our short growing season, this trail is generally very well beaten in. The chest hike is also, by far, the more scenic.
DEREK STAL
All the pleasures of home and garden
can’t get any thicker and you’re cursing the sustained steepness of the trail, the trees suddenly give way to meadow and sun. The trail (briefly) flattens out. You’re well over halfway to the summit in terms of distance and almost exactly halfway in terms of ascent. The Indian’s belly rises gently in front of you. Flowers are Clambering up to the 11,239-foot everywhere. summit of Sleeping Indian, you’ll be I’m a horrible dancer, and an even worse rewarded with the best views of the singer, and still have Tetons in the valley. been known to take a twirl or two here with These are not pockets of flowers, but vocal accompaniment. You should, too. fields that Maria and the von Trapp fam- If you don’t, you might miss out on ily couldn’t help but sing and dance what makes these meadows spectacuthrough. The first is about twenty min- lar: Behind you, the Tetons erupt from utes above the Gros Ventre Wilderness the valley floor like the blade of a serboundary. There’s another, blanketing rated knife. open slopes on the southern side of a It is not our—or at least my—habit ridge another twenty minutes on. My fa- to look behind while hiking up. If you vorite is a ridgetop meadow with can’t bring yourself to twirl, you’ll have 360-degree views about one mile below to remind yourself to look back. the belly. Just when you think the pines And keep looking back. One thousand feet (or so) and two miles (or so; it’s always a guesstimate since the trail isn’t signed) above and from the trailhead parking lot, the wildflowers begin. Arrowleaf balsamroot. Wild roses. Lupine. Many others I don’t know the names of.
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Hikers are rewarded with one of the best views of Jackson Hole and the Tetons on a trek to the 11,239-foot summit of Sleeping Indian.
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But don’t look back so much you neglect to continue on, because, unbelievably, the views get better. When you pop out on the Indian’s scrubby belly at nearly 10,000 feet, you’re above tree line. Below the belly, the Tetons only appear periodically, when the hiking trail escapes the trees. On the belly, there’s nothing impeding your Teton views. LOOKING AHEAD FROM the belly, the summit seems so close. But it’s not. This Indian has been sleeping since his creation 50-some million years ago, and his belly is more pot-ish than six-pack. You’ve got about 1,300 vertical feet and a mile and a half to go. From here, the route is not so steep as the lower trail is, though. The belly is as flowerful as the mountain’s lower slopes. White alpine phlox. Lavender moss campions. Cerulean alpine forget-me-nots. And low-lying yellow buds I’ve never been
able to identify, even when kneeling next to one flipping through an illustrated pocket guide to Rocky Mountain wildflowers. But, while flowers lower down grow to be waist-high with platesize blooms, these are quaint and quiet: none ever grow to be more than a couple inches off the ground. Because the belly is wide-open and it’s supremely obvious where the summit is, do not worry if you don’t see the cairns. They are there, but are often hard to spot against the rocky terrain. Having hiked the belly dozens of times, I have learned it is easiest if you first head east across the belly and then south toward the summit. Ascending the final four hundred feet, there is a tiny bit of scrambling on loose rocks. This doesn’t last long, and, at the bottom of this section, a faint trail appears. If you lose it, just stay to the left, but not so far left you walk over the edge. The drop off the Indian’s eastern side is steep and substantial. Yet not so substantial as the summit views: 360 degrees. The Tetons are there, of course. So are the Wind River
DEREK STAL
Mountains, the Snake River Range, the rest of the Gros Ventres, the Wyoming Range, and, on particularly clear days, the Absarokas. These all are what mountains should look like. JH
NUTS & BOLTS THE PARKING AREA for the hike to the chest is 1.2 miles past the East Parking Lot on Flat Creek Road. To get to the East Parking Lot, take Broadway Avenue to its eastern end, turn left onto Elk Refuge Road, take that past the 90-degree left turn in the road several miles in, and, instead of turning right to go to Curtis Canyon, stay straight. The road is in great shape—any kind of car can do it—until just after the East Lot. From there, high clearance is necessary. Four-wheel drive is not. If you don’t have a high-clearance vehicle, it’s a 1.2-mile walk from this spot to the start of the trail. Whether walking or driving, look for a doubletrack splitting off to the northeast 1.2 miles after the East Parking Lot. The trail starts at the end of this doubletrack. A note to dog owners: There’s little to no water along the trail.
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Best of
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body & soul
It’s not just human residents that thrive in this valley’s active and social lifestyle. AS MY DOG and I near the Cache Creek trailhead after a two-mile-loop hike on a sunny morning, we come up over a small rise and stop short one hundred feet from two moose. Terrified the dog will aggravate the moose and get us both stomped to death, I back away and call him. To my relief, he just stares at the ungulates for a second, sniffs, then comes right to my side. Out of an abundance of caution I leash Milo, and we detour to another trail. Pride wells up in me for this little mutt rescued from the streets of Pocatello, Idaho. He’s well on his way to being a mountain-town dog, one who behaves at backyard parties or on a restaurant patio, can go shopping at dogfriendly businesses, and wander offleash while exploring the wilds. Jackson Hole is a wondrous place for dogs. If doggie heaven exists, I’m sure it’s a lot like this valley: full of exciting smells, endless winding trails, and friendly strangers offering belly rubs.
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Dogs greet you at art galleries, meet you in the backcountry, and wait for their owners outside Pearl Street Bagels. The sheer volume of caninity is one reason why dogs are so welcomed here. There are about 10,000 dogs owned by—or who own, depending on your point of view—20,000 people in the valley, according to a veterinarian survey done each year by animal advocacy group PAWS of Jackson Hole. That’s an average of at least one dog per household. Nationwide, only 47 percent of households have a dog, according to the American Pet Products Association. With the 3.4-million-acre BridgerTeton National Forest wrapping around the town of Jackson, leash-free romping begins almost literally at our back doors. For the outdoorsy types who live
Jackson dogs like Milo enjoy an abundance of activities, but must learn how to deal with wildlife, tolerate strangers rubbing their bellies, and behave in public (since dogs are allowed most everywhere here).
here, canine companionship enhances our adventures. Also, dog owners have no need for the popular Fitbit or Jawbone devices that measure calories burned. Dogs are the original activity monitors. When I put on hiking or skiing clothes, Milo looks at me with hopeful eyes. When I grab the backpack, he goes nuts, bouncing with joy. Those joy bounces last until I grab the leash, when he freezes in “sit” next to the door. His sweet face makes me get out, sun or clouds, and keeps me healthy. He even helped me lose twenty pounds last year.
IN NO PARTICULAR order, Jackson Hole’s most popular breeds of dogs (as if you couldn’t tell from walking around town):
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* LABRADOR RETRIEVER *
JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014
* BORDER COLLIE *
* MOUNTAIN MUTT *
* AUSTRALIAN CATTLE DOG * (a.k.a. heeler)
* GOLDEN RETRIEVER *
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ALTHOUGH AMY MCCARTHY wasn’t looking for a dog when a lanky mutt pup she named Wister wandered into her apartment, his arrival began a thirteenyear adventure that included pounding hundreds of miles of trails in the Gros Ventre Mountains, Snake River Range, and the Wind River Mountains here in Wyoming and in Montana’s Madison Range. A dog’s company on the trail, its senses picking up animals the hiker wouldn’t have known were there, and its eager-to-explore attitude all enhance an outing. “Dogs have the ability to open your eyes to some of the little things that we begin to take for granted in this very grand place,” McCarthy says. There are limitations on a canine jaunt; although they have built-in crampons for snow travel, generally, dogs can only handle scrambling. Actual rock climbing is out. But scrambling around here can be pretty adventurous. Wister was an incredible route-finder and scrambler, with more than one hundred separate summits in the Greater Yellowstone alone. He bagged Wyoming’s highest mountain, 13,804-foot Gannett Peak, five times. “You come up over the last rise and there he is, sitting there right on the top, tall and kind of proud,” McCarthy says. “It’s a joyful moment to see this little dog, right up there on the summit, checking it all out, taking it all in, in a very similar way we do. There’s a shared appreciation.” With Wister by her side, McCarthy, even though an experienced outdoorswoman, felt more confident about roaming farther afield and topping more peaks without her friends or her climbing guide husband, Forrest. “I’d be much more hesitant to do the sort of traveling I’ve done without a dog,” McCarthy says. “With the country here, with bears and mountain lions, I feel there’s a little extra security or a warning that would happen.” And in a tent many miles from the nearest town, “I sleep better in the mountains when I’m curled up next to my dog.” After Wister died in 2011, McCarthy found a new adventure partner, fifty-five-pound “mountain mutt” Fryxell. At age two, he’s already spent dozens of nights in a tent. BUT BEING A dog in Jackson Hole isn’t all bacon bits. “Just like people, dogs can get tired and injured,” says veterinarian Dr. Ernie Patterson, who has been
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FORREST MCCARTHY
Amy McCarthy and Fryxell on the summit of Noon Rocks, ele. 10,370, in the Wind River Mountains. At a plucky six months of age, this was Fryxell’s first summit.
practicing in the valley for thirty-some years. “Mountain biking and skiing are fun, but dogs can’t go out and do a tenmile ride without being in shape for it,” Patterson says. “And maybe your dog is done after one ski run—breaking through powder is physically very exerting—but you might want to do more. You have to learn to use your judgment and sometimes quit for the day before you might really want to.” Also, perhaps because dogs are so ubiquitous in the valley, new canine parents sometimes underestimate the responsibility they entail. “Surrender is the most frequent way dogs come to us,” says Janelle Holden, Community Service Officer at the Jackson-Teton County Animal Shelter. In 2013, fifty dogs were surrendered to the shelter. “The biggest single cause of surrender is housing. It can be hard to find rentals that allow dogs,” Holden says. Out of the fifty dogs surrendered in 2013, sixteen were because of housing. “Training is another reason,” Holden says. “People underestimate how much time that is. Everyone wants a cute puppy or kitten, but they don’t always think about what that puppy will grow into.” Amy Romaine, the executive director of PAWS of Jackson Hole—a group 140
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founded in 1999 to aid the animal shelter with spay and neuter costs but has since transformed into a group that mitigates conflicts between dog lovers and other user groups—says the 2013 surrender numbers are “way low.” “It was a good year. In the past, there’s been 300 to 350 pets—dogs and cats—surrendered,” she says. PAWS once did an ad campaign titled “It’s Dumping Out There.” “It was trying to raise awareness of people dumping dogs at the end of the ski season,” Romaine says. “With the transient nature of this community and how open it is to dogs, people who are new to town come in looking for a dog. I see some groups of young friends, and they want to share a dog. We try to discourage that. Lots of the time it doesn’t work out, and the pet comes back at the end of the season.” Owners surrendering pets is the extreme, though. More often, PAWS fields complaints about dog owners failing to scoop the poop. “I hear about poop more than anything,” Romaine says. Annually, PAWS, the Town of Jackson, and various homeowners associations fill sixty MuttMitt stations around the valley with 150,000 plastic poop bags. But one hike up Snow King or along the Snake River dike shows that not all owners avail themselves of the baggies. “There’s a
huge population that does scoop the poop, but it’s not everyone,” Romaine says. “It’s almost a constant campaign for us. But we try to educate people about as much as we can.” Other PAWS education campaigns have been about how to ski with your dog, having dogs under voice command, and leaving dogs in cars in hot and cold weather. “Dog ownership is a serious responsibility,” Romaine says. “But it’s also a fun and rewarding one.” IN AUGUST 2012, after the second of two dogs I adopted in Jackson died, my husband enacted a dog moratorium. Brokenhearted, I agreed, but secretly found our house too empty. I began surfing Petfinder.com at night on my iPhone under the covers. Milo was a small, dark brindle, floppy-eared mutt. When I found him, he was in jail, a pooch participant in the Pocatello (Idaho) Cell Dog Program. Getting picked for the training likely saved the life of this street-skittish pit bull mix. Inmates at the Pocatello Women’s Correctional Center trained him in basic obedience and taught him how to trust humans. After coming home with me around his first birthday, Milo proved himself a fantastic snuggler and a great wrestling partner for our preschool daughter—he was a wonderfully trained dog. However, I had to tackle the more Jackson-specific
bits of his education: teaching him to be an enthusiastic companion on hikes, cross-country ski outings, and paddling trips. He took to these quickly. But a few months later, he began to play a bit too roughly with more passive dogs on the trails. I consulted Thomas Mikkelsen, owner and trainer at DogJax, who said it seemed like teenage bravado. We began using a water gun at every hint of a growl or bark, firmly tugging on his leash and telling him “no.” Soon his behavior mellowed. Because Jackson is “such an off-leash town,” Mikkelsen says, “a lot of dogs are off the leash before they’re ready.” The only places dogs are required to be on a leash in the valley is on pathways. Romaine says, “I don’t know if many dog owners appreciate how amazingly fortunate we are with this.” Milo still stays on his leash until we hit the forest boundary, and even then, the leash is always in hand. Our socializing process continues with outings to meet strangers. After hikes up Snow King Mountain together, I ride the ski lift down and Milo is below, following the sound of my voice, running down to greet me at the bottom. We enjoy lunch on the patio at Pica’s Mexican Taqueria. An extra order of chicken breast just for Milo keeps his attention, and he enjoys belly rubs and ear scratches from friends and strangers. JH
Furry Formal ALTHOUGH DOGS ARE welcome in many banks and other businesses in town, it’s not too often they’re invited to fancy parties. The Tuxes & Tails Gala, set for June 21 this year at the Center for the Arts, welcomes well-behaved pooches whose owners want to buy them a $100 ticket. In 2013, thirty-five people brought their canine companions to the fundraiser for PAWS of Jackson Hole, held in a poshly decorated tent on the art center lawn. The party, formerly the Fur Ball from 2006 to 2012, was moved from winter to summer and rebranded in 2013, a change that tripled its donations, PAWS executive director Amy Romaine says. Last summer’s sold-out event catered to 275 humans, raising more than $125,000 for the nonprofit group’s programs. This year’s gala starts at 6 p.m. with a red-carpet entrance. It features live and silent auctions, music, food, and fun.
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Party with the Stars BY MOLLY ABSOLON PHOTOGRAPHY BY MIKE CAVAROC
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I SNUGGLE DEEPER into my sleeping bag and gaze up. We are camped at a backcountry site near Jackson Lake, and the sky glitters with stars—more than I can ever begin to count. Like diamonds they sparkle, tens of thousands of blinking lights strewn across the black darkness. I feel small and insignificant, yet also part of something immensely big. Cozy in my warm bag, lying underneath the heavens that have fascinated, frightened, puzzled, guided, and inspired humankind since we first stood upright, I am awed by the beauty of Jackson’s night sky. Straight overhead, Cygnus the Swan flies south down the silvery path of the Milky Way. The bright star in her tail— Deneb—forms part of the summer triangle. Together with Vega in the constellation Lyra, and Altair, which is part of Aquila the Eagle, Deneb and its partners dominate the summer sky above Jackson. I use them to orient myself so I can scan around and look for other constellations. The stars blink and twinkle, and as my eyes adjust, I can make out differences in their colors: some glow red, others an icy blue or yellow. Then a meteor shoots across the sky, trailing a streak of white in its path. My friends and I yelp with glee. It is August and the peak of the Perseid meteor showers. We’ve come out hoping to see a show. “Make a wish!” someone cries. Another, more cynical friend jokes, “Space trash.” We poke him, ignore the comment, and pan the sky for more. And they come, one after another, streaking their way across the brilliant night sky. Jackson Hole is known for its dark skies. Our altitude, lack of light pollution, and cold temperatures combine to create exceptional stargazing opportunities. “When I was in college, I claimed Jackson Hole had the best skies for stargazing,” Jackson Hole Astronomy Club president Mel Tucker says. “My professor shot me down. He said, ‘You have very good skies, but you are next to a mountain range, so your skies aren’t quite as good as those in a desert away from mountains.’ ”
OPPOSITE: The Milky Way Galaxy extends above the Grand Teton and Jackson Lake in Grand Teton National Park. The lights on the shoreline are from Signal Mountain Lodge.
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The Milky Way Galaxy arches above Jackson Hole and the Teton Range.
Jackson’s summer skies:
BESIDES THE SUMMER triangle, which is technically an asterism rather than a constellation, some of the dominant constellations visible in the summer over Jackson include:
Mountain ranges affect airflow, creating turbulence and some “unsteadiness” in the images we see with our naked eyes and through a telescope, but most of us won’t notice that subtle effect. What we’ll see are stars—so many that on dark nights you may actually see shadows cast by their brilliance. “In Jackson, we can see 100 to 5,000 stars with our naked eye,” says Samuel Singer, the founder and president of the newly formed group, Wyoming Stargazing. “Then if you include the Milky Way, which is made up of individual stars as well, we are probably seeing hundreds of thousands of stars. In New York City, you can see the moon and maybe a planet, but light pollution obscures the stars.” My husband once told me a story about a client he had on a trip in the Wind River Mountains, east of Jackson Hole, who asked on the first night out, “What are all those pinholes in the sky?” I didn’t believe him, but as I talk to people for this article I realize I’ve taken my dark skies for granted. According to a December 2013 article in Men’s Journal by Mark Binelli, two-thirds of Americans cannot see the Milky Way because of light pollution. Jackson is not immune to the problem of light pollution. Tenley Thompson, the wildlife excursion manager at the Four Seasons Resort Jackson Hole in Teton Village and 144
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URSA MAJOR: Ursa Major, or the Big Bear, includes the more well-known asterism the Big Dipper, as well as an array of other fainter stars that form the bear’s body. The Greeks said the bear was once a lovely maiden named Callisto, whom the philandering Zeus fell in love with. The pair had a son named Arcas. Zeus’ wife, Hera, grew angry at the affair and sought to avenge her honor. To protect Callisto from Hera’s wrath, Zeus turned her into a bear. Years later, the grown Arcas was hunting when he came upon his mother in the form of the bear. He was about to kill her when Zeus intervened and turned Arcas into a bear as well, throwing both of them into the sky as constellations. Arcas is now Ursa Minor, or the Little Bear, which is also known as the Little Dipper. The two stars at the end of the bowl of the Big Dipper are named Dubhe and Merak, or the pointer stars because they point to Polaris, the North Star. The second star in the Big Dipper’s handle is a double star, known as the horse and rider. These stars, named Alcor and Mizar, are visible with the naked eye and were once used to test vision acuity. SCORPIO: Lying just above the horizon, Scorpio is formed by a T of bright stars that looks like a scorpion with a curving tail. According to Greek myths, Apollo unleashed Scorpio on the great hunter Orion to punish him for bragging about his ability to kill all the animals on Earth. A bloody battle ensued, in which Orion was eventually killed. To honor their bravery, the gods sent both Scorpio and Orion up into the sky, but in order to make sure they never fought again, they are opposite each other, so when one is visible, the other is hidden below the horizon. CASSIOPEIA: Formed by five stars that create an M, E, or W shape (depending on the time of year and the constellation’s orientation), Cassiopeia is a bright, circumpolar constellation visible year-round in Jackson. The Queen of Ethiopia, Cassiopeia was married to Cepheus and mother to Andromeda. According to legend, Cassiopeia was very vain and boasted of her daughter’s great beauty, comparing it to the beauty of goddesses. Poseidon, the god of the sea, was angered by her bragging, believing it slighted the beautiful sea nymphs, so he sent a sea monster to ravage the coast of Ethiopia. To end the destruction, Cassiopeia and Cepheus were told by the wise men they must sacrifice their daughter to appease Poseidon’s wrath, and so they chained her on the rocky shoreline and left her for the monster. The hero Perseus came by on his winged horse, Pegasus, and rescued Andromeda—slewing the monster and saving both Ethiopia and the lovely princess. All these characters are visible in the night sky, though Cepheus, Andromeda, Perseus, and Pegasus do not rise above the horizon until early fall. CYGNUS: The Greek myth about Cygnus is that it represents the swan that Zeus transformed into to visit Leda, the wife of the King of Sparta. Leda laid eggs daily after Zeus’ visit, from which hatched the twins Castor and Pollux, as well as Helen of Troy. The brightest star in Cygnus is Deneb, which is found at the top of the cross. Deneb is 60,000 times brighter than our sun. It is a blue-white supergiant that is 1,600 light years away.
What makes a perfect night of stargazing?
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3. USE A RED LIGHT. Cover your flashlight with red cellophane or buy one with a red-light function so you can examine a star map or illuminate the area without ruining your night vision. 4. BRING A PLANISPHERE or get a star map app for your smartphone (see p. 146 for recommended apps). 5. PLAN YOUR STARGAZING party during the new moon and hope for a calm, clear, cold night to maximize your viewing pleasure.
Joshua Tobey
JACKSON SYMPHONY
an avid stargazer who studied astronomy in college, says in the five years she’s been at the resort, she’s noticed a change for the worse. “I would say we see twice as much light pollution around Jackson and in Grand Teton than five years ago,” Thompson says. “This ‘pollution’ can be seen in horizon glow, increased vehicle travel at night, and a gradual lightening of the sky.” “The pollution is absolutely affecting all sorts of sky watching,” she says. “As a kid in the valley, falling stars or meteor showers were very easy to see, so we used to sit out in the horse pastures and compete to see how many we could see at a time, and dozens would appear an hour. Now I can see very few from any of the populated areas, and that’s really sad because it was those dark nights staring at the stars that inspired me to study astronomy and made me create the astronomy program at the Four Seasons. I want the next generation of kids growing up here to be in awe of our amazing night sky, too, and I want them
Nancy Dunlop p Cawdrey
2. BRING WARM CLOTHES, a lawn chair, or sleeping pad and sleeping bag, and make yourself comfortable. Remember, summer nights in Jackson Hole are chilly. My favorite stargazing technique is an “astrobivy,” which means lying out in my sleeping bag, crawling inside, and looking at the stars until I fall asleep.
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SEPTEMBER 3-14, 2014 1. LEAVE TOWN. Your best bet is to drive north. Samuel Singer recommends Antelope Flats Road, while Mel Tucker’s favorite spot is the top of Signal Mountain.
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SMARTPHONE STAR APPS
to see it from their backyard, and I am afraid that will not be the case.” The town of Jackson has an ordinance regulating exterior lighting. Designed to allow reasonable illumination for safety and security while reducing glare and excessive light, Jackson’s guidelines regulate the maximum brightness and height for light fixtures and require all exterior lights be shielded and directed downward so the light is contained. But as in many communities with lighting ordinances, Jackson’s enforcement is hit or miss. “All you have to do is look around to see that [the ordinance] is not enforced at all,” Thompson says. Thompson, Singer, and others are working on trying to get Jackson designated as a dark-sky city, which would help put teeth into the existing ordinances. In the meantime, with one national park in Jackson Hole (Grand Teton), another just north of the valley (Yellowstone), and miles and miles of national forest in between, you don’t have to venture far to find real darkness. While Northern Lights are more common closer to the North Pole, aurora occasionally make an appearance as far south as Jackson Hole.
Ryan Hennessy never thought he’d be in Jackson Hole working for the Four Seasons Resort when he finished his masters of science in astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Chicago, but then he saw an advertisement for a staff astronomer at the Teton Village hotel. He applied, and now he takes hotel guests out stargazing every night the weather permits as part of the resort’s Wildlife, Astronomy, and Outdoor Program. Tenley Thompson, the resort’s wildlife excursions manager, says that in addition to having a staff astronomer, the Four Seasons has “the biggest, baddest, coolest telescope outside an observatory” at the resort for guests to use. The telescope allows participants to see the rings around Saturn, the four Galilean moons of Jupiter, the Andromeda galaxy, and much more. The JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014
SkyView is the simplest and quickest, according to McKay. It is great for pointing at the sky and instantly getting information on what you are seeing, including moving objects like satellites or the space station. SkyQ has more detailed information. Developed by the makers of Celestron telescopes, SkyQ isn’t quite as fast or easy to use as SkyView, but it has links to what McKay says is a “humongous database.” “It’s like holding a huge encyclopedia to astronomy in your hand,” McKay says.
resort offers stargazing on its deck most nights (these events are also open to Hotel Terra and the Inn at Jackson Hole guests). Their signature event, however, is a stargazing trip into Grand Teton National Park that includes a picnic meal catered by the Four Seasons’ executive chef. Spring Creek Ranch offers stargazing every Monday and Thursday throughout the year. The resort’s location on East Gros Ventre Butte is a prime stargazing spot, getting viewers up above the valley floor. A trained naturalist is on hand to operate the telescope and point out deep-sky objects, constellations, and planets. Often the evening ends with a campfire and s’mores. Check with the front desk or the hotel concierge to find out more information.
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LIZ MCKAY, a local astro buff (and Mel Tucker’s wife), says she has about ten star apps on her phone, but after years of playing around with the different options available, she has two favorites:
Deep-Space Objects WHAT REALLY EXCITES the astro buffs around Jackson Hole is the chance to check out deep-space objects: nebulae, distant galaxies, and planets. Jackson’s dark skies make these objects easy to see if you have a telescope. There are a number of different opportunities in the valley to join stargazing gatherings with telescopes. Wyoming Stargazing is embarking on an ambitious quest to bring an observatory and planetarium to Jackson Hole. In the meantime, it offers free stargazing in the fields next to the Stilson Parking Lot near Wilson every clear Wednesday night throughout the summer. Programs start at 8:30 p.m., although as the days get longer, this gets pushed back. Check the community calendar in the Jackson Hole News&Guide for specifics. wyomingstargazing.com The Jackson Hole Astronomy Club throws star parties where they set up one or two telescopes for participants to check out the skies. You can arrange for a private party or check the organization’s website to see if something is going on for the public. In August, the club holds an astronomy day in conjunction with Grand Teton National Park that includes daytime activities and lectures, followed by evening stargazing. jhastronomy.com
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Tucker, who has been the president of the astronomy club since 1995, can barely contain his enthusiasm for Jackson’s night skies. “The stuff in the skies here is incredible,” he says. “I get especially excited about deep-space objects: distant galaxies, star clusters, nebulae, and stuff like that—stuff that is millions of light years away.” The Jackson Hole Astronomy Club holds stargazing parties for clubs, Scout troops, and school groups, and also in conjunction with Grand Teton National Park. Tucker also gives a slideshow to the public called The Night Sky. One of the slides is a photograph of a galaxy in Ursa Major, or the Big Bear. The galaxy—NGC 3949—is approximately fifty light years away from Earth. The slide changes to a photograph of a fish fossil, and Tucker pulls the same fossil from his pocket to pass around the audience. “He is Knightia,” Tucker explains. “A small herring. He lived in the Green River Formation, which is now found in parts of Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah, during the Eocene, approximately 50 million years ago. The Tetons didn’t even exist when this fish was swimming in the sea and the light we see now left that galaxy.” JH
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Haute Vegetables DINING AROUND JACKSON Hole, you can certainly feed your inner cowboy on bison, beef, and elk until the proverbial cows come home. However, with the first sweet heirloom tomato that appears in June, local chefs are often at their most inventive: serving veggie-centric dishes with serious sophistication and creativity. Wes Hamilton, executive chef for the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, devoted himself to seasonal, local cuisine long before the sensibility became a national food trend. In the summer of 1999, he arrived in the valley as a sous chef at Colter Bay Village in Grand Teton National Park. Every Saturday morning, he’d head for the nascent Jackson Hole Farmers Market. “I’d drive there at the crack of dawn and have to fight this woman for the squash blossoms, but it was worth it!” he says. 148
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BY JOOHEE MUROMCEW PHOTOGRAPHY BY PRICE CHAMBERS
Chef Wes Hamilton uses fresh and local produce when possible, like this colorful beet salad with a goat cheese sauce at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort’s flagship restaurant, Couloir.
It’s an ethos he still practices at Couloir menus are printed. “I’m totally ingrediand the seven other food and beverage ent-driven,” he says. “We can build dishoutlets he now oversees at Jackson Hole es with anything. That’s the easy part, Mountain Resort. Hamilton’s kitchens but I’ve got to keep my eye on the procollectively subscribe to three local duce. My manager hates me for it beCSAs (community-supported agricul- cause we’re always switching out the ture)—Snowdrift Farms, Full Circle menus all summer long.” Farms, and Cosmic Apple, where he’s had a share since 2001. His menus reflect a diligent loyalty to all that is locally produced. “I don’t have a signature dish per se, but I do have my favorite ingredients,” Hamilton says. Among these are Olathe sweet corn from Colorado, donut peaches from Rigby, Idaho, and the Cosmic Greens mix from Cosmic Apple. Last summer, Hamilton’s Couloir menu read like a primer on locavore cuisine. He had a salad composed entirely of produce from Stu Doti’s farm in Big Piney: It included Wyomatoes, cucumbers, and basil. Will it return for summer 2014? Hamilton steadfastly refuses to commit to a summer menu until he sees the produce, which can be days or even hours before Couloir executive chef Wes Hamilton SUMMER 2014 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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At Rendezvous Bistro, one of chef Joel Tate’s kale salads—they FOR EVERY LOYAL diner at Rendezvous Bistro are changed seasonally—combines crunchy, lightly fried kale with who craves the signature elk tartare or fried kiwi, grapefruit, and olives. chicken, there’s one who swears by Chef Joel Tate’s kale salad, which evolves with the seasons. Tate debuted a kale salad, crispy in a light dusting of chickpea flour, in September 2013. Winter called for a heartier red lentil batter with persimmons and pomegranate to brighten the palate. This summer, Tate expects to take full advantage of warmweather vegetables, like supersweet corn and freshly shelled English peas, to round out the crunchy, nutty kale leaves. He finds the peak of summer produce season to be June through early July, and is especially fond of the spinach, chard, zucchini, and cayenne peppers from Leaping Lizard Farms in Tetonia. However, like many of the seasoned chefs in the valley, he has a closely guarded coterie of suppliers, a summer veggie mafia of sorts who deliver some of the most prized produce Rendezvous Bistro chef Joel Tate for restaurant kitchens. There’s the mythical hothouse tomato guy THE HEART AND soul of this valley’s veggiesomewhere around Hoback who supplies Tate centric cuisine is Lotus Cafe, which opened a couwith the intensely flavored tomatoes for baby ple of blocks off the Town Square in September heirloom tomato salad. 2007. Chef-owner Amy Young introduced locals There’s also the fungi forager who appears to gluten-free and vegan dishes years before either like Robin Hood with burlap bags of morels and was a national food trend. But, since Lotus’ foundporcinis. ing, Young’s menu has also included items for 150
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Lotus Cafe is the most veggie-centric of the valley’s restaurants, using flavorful sauces to complement fresh produce like in this Swiss chard wrap with lemon-herb sunflower seed pâté and a side of turnip noodle raw pad thai.
meat lovers—you can add organic bison, fish, beef, and chicken to most any dish. Young considers the menu constantly, and even in the bleak, dark days of January, cheerfully ponders ideas for summer. This summer, look for a typically creative Lotus take on wrap sandwiches—a vegan nut-based pâté, julienne veggies like carrots, beets, zucchini, fresh tomato, and leafy greens, and a boldly flavored sauce, all wrapped up in tender steamed collard green leaves. “The sauces are so important. They bring a ton of flavor,” she says. Young takes inspiration from her Korean mother’s home cooking, topping bison burgers with house-made kimchee and spiking noodle soups with a Korean hot sauce, but constantly reinvents the menu. This summer, Young is expanding her raw and live dishes. Think raw turnips spun into noodles or raw lasagna layered with fresh tomato sauce and thinly sliced summer squash. THE ENTHUSIASM FOR seasonal, local eating has also supported a healthy community of
farms in the area, with CSAs and farmers markets broadening access to a greater abundance of locally grown produce. The challenge is the short growing season in this valley (slightly longer in Idaho), ruthless in its “now or never” brevity. The Saturday morning farmers
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For the home chef, vegetables bought at the farmers market often ask for nothing more than a rinse and a chopping knife to make a memorable meal. Chef Eric Wilson, who trained in Europe and has been catering in the valley for nearly a decade, urges a light hand. “Don’t rely on fat, like bacon or pancetta,” he says. “Everything is constantly changing, the flavors, the ripeness. Use your head.” If that armload of vegetables you found irresistible at the farmers market perplexes you in the kitchen, Wilson suggests using a mandoline to julienne every beautiful color and texture, and dressing the motley lot of it very lightly with your best olive oil and sea salt. For the end-ofseason glut of summer squash or the overzealous trip to the farmers market, Chef Hamilton saves every summery bite. “Pickle it, freeze it, preserve it. Puree those tomatoes and freeze it for spaghetti sauce in the winter,” he says. “We have to use it all, because summer is over before you know it.” JH
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market on the Town Square draws farmers from as far as Utah. More local farmers come, too: Haderlie Farms in Thayne, and Cosmic Apple Gardens and Snowdrift Farms from Victor, Idaho. Haderlie Farms sells freshly laid eggs, lamb, pork, and chicken year-round in their retail storefront and, like Cosmic Apple and Snowdrift, offers summer CSA shares, which have become increasingly popular. Haderlie’s vegetables, like Cosmic Apple’s, arrive in glorious variety and flavor beginning in earnest in June and through the warm early autumn (see box).
Best of
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dining out
RESTAURANT
LOCATION
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Blue Collar Group Bubba’s
Jackson
307-733-2288 $ $ $
Ignight Grill
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Liberty Burger
Jackson
307-200-6071
$
$
Merry Piglets
Jackson
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Pizza Artisan
Jackson
307-734-1970 $ $
Sidewinders Tavern
Jackson
307-734-5766 $$ $$
The Bunnery Bakery & Restaurant
Jackson
307-733-5474
$
Cafe Genevieve
Jackson
307-732-1910
$ $ $$
Bin22
Jackson
307-739-9463
The Kitchen
Jackson
307-734-1633 $$$
Il Villaggio Osteria
Teton Village
307-739-4100
$$
$/$$$
Q Roadhouse and Brewing Co.
Teton Village Road
307-739-0700
$$
$/$$
Rendezvous Bistro
Jackson
307-739-1100
$/$$$
Ascent Lounge
Teton Village
307-732-5673
$$
The Handle Bar
Teton Village
307-732-5156
$$
Westbank Grill
Teton Village
307-732-5156
$
$
Fine Dining Restaurant Group
$$
$/$$
$/$$
Four Seasons Resort
Grand Teton Lodge Company
$$
$
$$$
Grand Teton National Park
Blue Heron Bar
Jackson Lake Lodge
307-543-2811
$
$
Jenny Lake Dining Room
Jenny Lake Lodge
307-733-4647
$
$
$$$
John Colter Cafe Court
Colter Bay
307-543-2811
$
$
$
Mural Room Dining
Jackson Lake Lodge
307-543-2811
$
$/$$
$$$
Pioneer Grill
Jackson Lake Lodge
307-543-2811
$
$
$/$$
Ranch House
Colter Bay
307-543-2811 $ $ $$/$$$
Jackson Hole Mountain Resort
Teton Village
Corbet’s Cabin
Aerial Tram Summit
307-739-2688
Couloir
Bridger Gondola Summit
307-739-2675
Nick Wilson’s
Next to the Aerial Tram
307-739-2738
$
$
The Tin Can Cantina
Base of Bridger Gondola
$
$
$
$ $$$
Leek’s Pizzeria
Grand Teton National Park
307-543-2494 $ $$
Lotus Cafe Organic Bakery, Bistro & Lounge
Jackson
307-734-0882 $ $$ $$
Million Dollar Cowboy Steakhouse
Jackson
307-733-4790 $$/$$$
Nikai
Jackson
307-734-6490 $$$
North Grille
JH Golf & Tennis Club
307-733-7788
The Rose
Jackson
307-733-1500 $$
Peaks Dining Room
Grand Teton National Park
307-543-2831 x220
$$/$$$
Trapper Grill
Grand Teton National Park
307-543-2831 x220
$
$/$$ $/$$
The Silver Dollar Bar and Grill
Jackson
307-732-3939
$
$
$$$
Snake River Brewing Company
Jackson
307-739-2337
$/$$
$/$$
Snake River Grill
Jackson
307-733-0557 $$$
Spur Restaurant & Bar
Teton Village
307-732-6932
$
$$
Terra Café
Teton Village
307-739-4025
$
$
Teton Pines Restaurant
Teton Village Road
307-733-1005 $ $$$
The White Buffalo Club
Jackson
888-256-8182 $$$
$/$$
$$/$$$
Signal Mountain Lodge
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$$/$$$
LIQUOR
KIDS’ MENU
TAKEOUT
DESCRIPTION
s s s s s s s s
J J J J J J J J
R R R R R R R
Barbecue, a locals’ favorite for years
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Serving inspired home-cooked classics
s s s s s
J J J J
R R R R R
Wine, tapas bar, specialty grocer, and bottle shop
s s s
Sushi and East meets West cuisine J J An American pub with a modern twist Mountain steakhouse with signature side dishes J
Asian fusion Serving 11 different types of burgers Fresh, house-made Tex-Mex food for 45 years Neapolitan pizza and classic pasta dishes American grill The bakery that’s a restaurant
Modern American cuisine in the heart of Jackson Wood-oven-fired pizzas, house-made pasta Eclectic roadhouse fare, craft beer, and brewery Locals’ favorite, French American bistro fare
s Panoramic Teton views Casual dining s Mexican restaurant R Panoramic Teton views s J 1950s-style service J R s J Western atmosphere for the family s s s s s s s s s s
J Top-of-the-world waffles J Contemporary fine dining at 9,095 feet Great for post-adventure lunch, early dinner or drinks J R Authentic tacos, burritos, chips and guacamole J R Pizza made from scratch in the heart of GTNP J Organic, fresh, global cuisine, meats, vegan, gluten-free J R Elegant dining with a Western flair J R Jackson’s favorite sushi bar J R Stunning views, casual bistro fare R Classically inspired cocktail lounge and restaurant
s J s J s J s J s J s J s J s J s
R R R R R R R
A sustainable Western bistro-style menu A casual family style restaurant, outdoor seating Regional cuisine, live music, happy hour Award-winning brews and incredible food Locals’ choice for rustic elegance Serving elevated mountain cuisine Organic ingredients and healthy alternatives Spectacular setting, creative cuisine Modern American steakhouse cuisine Average entree; $= under $15, $$= $16-20, $$$= $21+ SUMMER 2014 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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Handcrafted, award-winning fine wine made locally in Jackson, Wyoming.
307-201-1057 • www.jacksonholewinery.com facebook.com/jacksonholewinery
nikai asian grill & sushi bar
225 north cache • 2 blocks north of town square 307.734.6490 • www.nikaisushi.com reservations suggested jackson’s favorite sushi bar
Your Pub, Our Passion 2x Small Brewery of the Year Winner
Global cuisine with fresh, organic meats, vegan & gluten-free options. Bakery | Breakfast | Lunch | Dinner Fresh extracted juices | Smoothies | Full bar www.tetonlotuscafe.com 145 N. Glenwood St. Jackson, WY | 734-0882 156
JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014
8$ Lunch Menu Daily Specials Happy Hour 4pm 265 S. Millward | (307) 739-BEER (2337)
www.snakeriverbrewing.com
Double R Ranch and Dry Aged Steaks, Rocky Mountain Game, Fresh Alaskan and Hawaiian Seafood. Local Brews and Top Shelf Libations. Enjoy our mouth watering bar and children’s menus!
25 North Cache • 307-733-4790 Dinner Only • Open at 5:00 nightly Reservations can be made online at www.cowboysteakhouse.net.
WHERE THE
LOCALS GO
Petit Secret Chocolate Fine Hand-Crafted Belgian Chocolate Made in Jackson Hole, Wyoming
Corporate * Retail * Weddings BREAKFAST, LUNCH & DINNER LIVE MUSIC & HAPPY HOUR IN THE BAR STEPS FROM THE TOWN SQUARE
www.getmorechocolate.com 307.690.7483 INSIDE THE HISTORIC WORT HOTEL BROADWAY@GLENWOOD • 307-732-3939 • WORTHOTEL.COM SUMMER 2014 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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Best of
art scene
BRADLY J. BONER
JH
Small Town, Big Art Our tiny Wyoming valley is a presence in the art world. BY JOOHEE MUROMCEW
THREE YEARS AFTER dropping out of Yale’s School of Art in 1879, illustrator Frederic Remington first traveled to the American West, visiting what was then called the Montana Territory. Enthralled by the rough beauty of ranch and mountain life, he returned to the West twenty-one times over his lifetime—inspiration for an esteemed body of work that included magazine illustrations, fiction writing, oil paintings, and bronze sculptures. An original casting of his iconic Broncho Buster sculpture sits in the 158
JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014
Since its inception in 2006, the Jackson Hole Art Auction has surpassed its previous year’s sales almost annually. Art buyers and collectors from around the world come to the auction (or bid over the phone or via proxy) for a variety of pieces by bigname artists.
Oval Office, a gift to President Lyndon Johnson. At the 2011 Jackson Hole Art Auction, Remington had a hero’s return to the West when his classic oil painting, He Lay Where He Had Been Jerked, Still As a Log, sold for $1.583 million in front of an audience of four hundred people, the breathtaking highlight of a recordsetting auction year. SANTA FE, NEW Mexico, and Scottsdale, Arizona, have long enjoyed reputations as major visual arts destinations in the American West. Downtown Santa Fe has more than two hundred galleries within a two-square-mile radius. Scottsdale counts over one hundred within its town limits. Increasingly, Jackson Hole is gaining a reputation as an art buyers’ destination. Our twenty-six downtown art galleries may not hold a candle to the number in Santa Fe or Scottsdale, but when you consider Jackson Hole’s population—about 21,000—we have more galleries per capita than either. “The art scene is not necessarily new here,” says Joan Griffith, executive director of Trailside Galleries, the valley’s first gallery and now with locations in Jackson and Scottsdale. “Artists have been coming to the area since the turn of the century, and soon after, the art buyers, too.” It was fifty-some years ago that Trailside Galleries opened. It was an opening locals thought crazy. Dick Flood Sr. tried to hide what he was doing for as long as possible. He instructed the man painting “Trailside Galleries” on the front of the space, which was on the Town Square, to do it in a way people today would associate with The Wheel of Fortune game show. “The painter skipped a letter or two here and there to hide what was going in,” said Daro Flood, one of Dick Flood’s sons and himself an artist, in an interview several years ago. Eventually, the lettering was completed, there was no doubt what was going on, and it was time for Jackson’s first Western art gallery to open. It was 1963. “People really thought dad was crazy for opening a shop that was devoted entirely to Western art,” Flood said.
Turnerfineart.com
triofineart.com | 545 N. Cache Avenue Jackson Hole, WY 83001 | 307-734.4444
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PRICE CHAMBERS
MANY GIVE CREDIT to the Fall Arts Festival, the National Museum of Wildlife Art (NMWA), and, more recently, the Jackson Hole Art Auction for helping the valley’s art scene grow and gain in credibility. Tayloe Piggott, owner of Tayloe Piggott Gallery, expresses deep gratitude to the NMWA, which celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2012, as the cornerstone institution that steadies the vagaries of the commercial art market. She
The National Museum of Wildlife Art holds the world’s largest public collection of work by Carl Rungius, a renowned wildlife painter.
and energy of art galleries, the NMWA, the lodging and restaurant industries, and nonprofit groups. The 8th annual Jackson Hole Art Auction (September 13 this year) is a partnership of Trailside Galleries and Santa Fe’s Gerald Peters Gallery. Its significance as a “The [Jackson Hole Art] auction has benefited everybody. It’s destination art auction has grown a friendly gallery culture here, with lots of different styles.” with every year’s record-breaking sales figures. “We’ve brought droves – Joan Griffith, executive director Trailside Galleries of art collectors to the area,” Griffith says. “The auction has benefited evsends visiting artists and clients to the museum to edu- erybody. It’s a friendly gallery culture here, with lots of cate them about the region’s artistic heritage. “Many different styles.” artists who are a part of art history are in their collections, and the museum’s focus on their genre is impor- ALONG WITH THESE events and the NMWA, the valley’s gallery scene has expanded. The events certaintant. It is really good art.” This year is the 30th Fall Arts Festival (September ly draw art collectors to the area, but buyers also in3-13). Like so many successful events in Jackson Hole, clude an increasing number of vacation homeowners. it is a community collaboration. Launched by the In 2013, Barron’s magazine ranked Jackson Hole as its Chamber of Commerce, today it draws on the efforts top location to buy a second home, citing what all 160
JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014
Serving Jackson since 2000 Worldwide Recognition
Fine Rugs
165 N. Center Street • (307) 733-3388 azadirugsjh@gmail.com
Fine Living
COURTESY PHOTO
Interior designer Rush Jenkins of WRJ Design used this installation of butterflies by New York artist Paul Villinski as part of the design scheme in a Jackson Hole home.
year-round residents hope does not become too obvious—spectacular outdoor living, great schools, infrastructure, and arts in a tax-friendly state. While Trailside Galleries, along with most every other gallery that opened and operated up until the mid-1990s, focused on Western and wildlife art, helping our art market expand and remain relevant to the larger art world is its responsiveness to clients. Over the past fifteen or so years, as more people have relocated to the valley from centers of global commerce 162
JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014
and culture, valley design—and naturally, the art that goes with it—has experienced an aesthetic shift. Modern design has made inroads in Jackson Hole. Piggott counts architects Peggy Gilday, John Carney, and Stephen Dynia as strong proponents of this sensibility, along with their clients who want “Western” art, but are redefining it for themselves. Interior designer Rush Jenkins, principal at Jackson-based WRJ Design, was formerly curator of design for Sotheby’s New York. Artwork is a critical piece of his design process, and he works on many different levels with clients in regard to art acquisition and installation. He points to Tayloe Piggott, Heather James Gallery, and Altamira Fine Art as
bringing more contemporary names to Jackson, whether they are considered Western or not. “I want the art to speak to this region,” Jenkins says, “but there are multiple ways that is manifested.” Recent works he has selected for valley homes include an installation by New York artist Paul Villinski—a flight of painted aluminum butterflies ascending a bedroom wall—and a signed silkscreen print (Tour de Force), by artist Charles Pachter, of a contemplative moose standing boldly at the edge of a diving platform. “These are not necessarily regional artists, but their work feels like a reflection of the place. That’s what makes art global.” Shari Brownfield, director of both Heather James Galleries—one here in Jackson and the original in Palm Desert, California—agrees that the advent of contemporary mountain home design, a departure from the classic log cabin look, heralded a new chapter for the valley’s art scene. In her twelve years here, Brownfield has worked as both a gallery director and a private art consultant. She says the past four or five years have brought a particularly rapid and pointed evolution of the art market as well as the average art buyer. Heather James Gallery offers an amazingly broad scope of art, in terms of both genre and media. The gallery hangs work from Impressionist paintings to contemporary steel sculptures. But, like Jenkins seeks to do, the gallery showcases art that speaks to this region. The work of California-based painter Penelope Gottlieb—on exhibit all summer long and at a solo show during the Fall Arts Festival—at first glance echoes classic Audubon prints. Look a little deeper at Gottlieb’s color-rich botanical paintings, though, and a subversive study of invasive species is revealed. Yoshio Ikezaki’s works—sumi ink rendered on handcrafted paper—has feathery, abstracted peaks and valleys that speak to landscapes, whether here or in the artist’s native Japan. “We have a beautifully educated community that really stands behind all the arts—theater, dance, visual arts, everything,” Piggott says. “Artists I represent want that intimate connection with their collectors. Many people come here with certain dreams of the Western experience, but they’re very experienced collectors, having collected in many genres of art. It’s very refreshing.” JH
Experience the wonder of nature through the lens of legendary photographer Thomas D. Mangelsen. 170 North Cache | Jackson, WY | 307-733-9752 1/2 block north of the town square | 888-238-0177 LI M IT ED EDITION & A RTIST PROOF PR IN TS BOOK S | C A LENDA R S | A RT C A R DS |
www.mangelsen.com
F E AT U R I N G
SUSAN FLEMING JEWELRY and a unique collection of hand made objects.
180. E. DELONEY, JACKSON 307.733.5520 | WORKSHOPJH.COM
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ALTAMIRA FINE ART
Best of
JH
HINES GOLDSMITHS
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, where you can pick up a copy of our summer/fall arts magazine, Images West. In it you will learn more about the valley’s artists, galleries, and arts-related classes and events.
MANGELSEN - IMAGES OF NATURE GALLERY
Legendary nature photographer Thomas D. Mangelsen is celebrating 40 years of traveling throughout the natural world observing and photographing the Earth’s last great wild places. Mangelsen has captured wild moments and vast panoramas from all seven continents. We invite you to visit the Mangelsen—Images of Nature Gallery located one block north of the historic town square. The gallery features over 200 limited edition and artist proof prints in a variety of display options.
170 N Cache Street (307) 733-9752 mangelsen.com 164
JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014
Altamira Fine Art focuses on exceptional, Western Contemporary artwork, photography, Indian Art, and sculpture in wood, bronze, and stainless steel. Altamira is one of the “must see” galleries in the exhilarating Jackson Hole art district.
172 Center Street (307) 739-4700 altamiraart.com
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF WILDLIFE ART
Overlooking the National Elk Refuge. Featuring a world-class collection of more than 5,000 items, stunning architecture, 14 galleries, Sculpture Trail, Museum Shop, Rising Sage Café, and Children’s Discovery Gallery, the National Museum of Wildlife Art provides an exciting calendar of events and exhibitions from its permanent collection and changing exhibitions from around the globe. Open 9-5 daily; Sundays 11-5 during off season.
2820 Rungius Road (307) 733-5771 wildlifeart.org
Exclusive designers of the Teton Jewelry Collection ranging from exquisite diamond pave pendants, rings and earrings to affordable sterling silver pieces. Wyoming’s largest selection of handmade gold and silver charms, hand etched crystal and glassware of the Tetons, the Bucking Bronco and local wildlife. Also showing handmade antler furniture, local photography, hand blown glass, sculpture and metal artwork.
80 Center Street (307) 733-5599 hinesgold.com
RARE GALLERY OF JACKSON HOLE
RARE Gallery….. a Collectors Destination! This 6000 sq’ Rick Armstrong signature gallery continues to debut “Art for the New West” in Jackson Hole! Our collections include blue chip works, masters’ collections, museum quality designer jewelry and art from the most acclaimed emerging artists of today. Featuring paintings, sculptures, photographs, glass, 3 dimensional art, and designer jewelry. Specializing in art consultation and collection management.
60 East Broadway (307) 733-8726 raregalleryjacksonhole.com
THE LEGACY GALLERY
TRAILSIDE GALLERIES
The Legacy Gallery features a large selection of representational art with an emphasis on western, landscape, figurative and wildlife paintings and bronze sculptures. This 7,000 square foot gallery is located on the northwest corner of the square and caters to the beginning collector and to the art connoisseur. Legacy Gallery is proud to be celebrating its 26th Anniversary and has two other locations in Scottsdale, Arizona and Bozeman, Montana.
A preeminent force in launching the careers of renowned artists throughout the United States, Trailside Galleries is the discerning collector’s first choice for the finest in representational works of art. Since 1963, the gallery has showcased an unparalleled collection of western, impressionist, landscape, figurative, still life and wildlife art as well as works by many deceased masters. Trailside Galleries is home to the Jackson Hole Art Auction, an internationally recognized auction and one of the signature events of the Fall Arts Festival.
75 North Cache (307) 733-2353 legacygallery.com
130 East Broadway (307) 733-3186 trailsidegalleries.com
TRIO FINE ART
WEST LIVES ON TRADITIONAL & CONTEMPORARY GALLERIES
Owned and operated by nationally acclaimed Jackson Hole artists, Kathryn Mapes Turner, Jennifer L. Hoffman, and W.A. Sawczuk, Trio Fine Art is a quiet and friendly respite from the bustle of Town. Our focus: Presenting excellent, nature inspired works in a bright inviting space where visitors can interact with the artists and their work. Visit to experience first-hand why Trio Fine Art is one of the valley’s most loved galleries. Find us across from the Visitor Center picnic grounds, four blocks from the Town Square.
Discover an extraordinary collection of traditional and contemporary Western art. Both galleries display works depicting the rich heritage of the American West featuring Western, wildlife and landscape art in original oils, acrylics, watercolors and bronze. Come see these impressive pieces from over 100 regional and national artists. Visit both galleries on Glenwood St. across from the Wort Hotel.
545 North Cache (307) 734-4444 triofineart.com
55 & 75 North Glenwood (307) 734-2888 westliveson.com SUMMER 2014 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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Best of
JH
mercantile
Lodging
Activities
HOTELS
2014 Fall Arts Festival (307) 733-3316 info@jacksonholechamber.com jacksonholechamber.com
Rustic Inn at Jackson Hole 475 North Cache (307) 733-2357 rusticinn@wyom.net rusticinnatjh.com Signal Mountain Lodge Located in Grand Teton National Park (307) 543-2831 info@signalmtnlodge.com signalmountainlodge.com The Lodge at Jackson Hole 80 Scott Lane (800) 458-3866 lodge@lodgeatjh.com lodgeatjh.com Tordrillo Mountain Lodge A 40-minute flight from Anchorage (907) 569-5588 tordrillomountainlodge.com info@tordrillo.com The White Buffalo Club 160 West Gill Avenue (888) 256-8182 info@whitebuffaloclub.com whitebuffaloclub.com Wind River Hotel & Casino 10269 Highway 789, Riverton, Wyoming (866) 657-1604 windriverhotelcasino.com Wyoming Inn 930 West Broadway (307) 734-0035 Jennifer@thewyominginn.com wyominginn.com
RESORTS
Four Seasons Resort and Residences (307) 732-5175 fourseasons.com/JacksonHole Grand Teton Lodge Company Located in the heart of Grand Teton National Park (307) 543-2811 gtlc.com/jm
VACATION RENTALS
Cabin & Company 98 Center Street, Suite D (307) 201-1861 kelly@cabinandcompany.com cabinandcompany.com Rendezvous Mountain Rentals & Management 3610 Moose Wilson Road, Wilson, Wyoming (307) 739-9050 lodging@rmrentals.com rmrentals.com The Clear Creek Group 120 West Pearl Avenue (307) 732-3400 info@tccgjh.com tccgjh.com 166
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Alpine Solstice Art Festival (307) 413-9911 alpinesolsticeart@gmail.com alpinesolstice.com Grand Teton Lodge Company Located in the heart of Grand Teton National Park (307) 543-2811 gtlc.com/jm Grand Teton Music Festival Walk Festival Hall, 3330 Cody Lane, Teton Village (307) 733-1128 gtmf@gtmf.org gtmf.org MC Presents Shows at Teton Village and The Virginian Conference Center (303) 570-9763 brooks.cynthia@comcast.net mcpresents.com Western Design Conference Exhibit + Sale (307) 690-9719 allison@westerndesignconference.com westerndesignconference.com
SKI RESORTS
Big Sky Resort (800) 548-4486 bigskyresort.com/summer Grand Targhee Resort 800-TARGHEE info@grandtarghee.com grandtarghee.com Jackson Hole Mountain Resort Teton Village (307) 733-2292 info@jacksonhole.com jacksonhole.com
WILDLIFE VIEWING
EcoTour Adventures (307) 690-9533 Info@jhecotouradventures.com jhecotouradventures.com Jackson Hole Wildlife Safaris 650 West Broadway (307) 690-6402 jacksonholesafaris@gmail.com jacksonholewildlifesafaris.com Wildlife Expeditions of Teton Science Schools 700 Coyote Canyon Road (307) 733-2623 info@wildlifeexpeditions.org wildlifeexpeditions.org Wild Things of Wyoming (307) 690-6784 kurt@wildthingsofwyoming.com wildthingsofwyoming.com
FLOAT TRIPS
Barker-Ewing Grand Teton National Park Float Trips (307) 733-1800 or (800) 365-1800 floattrips@barkerewing.com barkerewing.com
FLY FISHING
Grand Teton Fly Fishing 225 West Broadway (307) 690-0910 or (307) 201-1880 info@grandtetonflyfishing.com grandtetonflyfishing.com
GOLF AND TENNIS
3 Creek Ranch Golf Club (307) 732-8960 membership@3creekranch.org 3creekranchgolfclub.org Jackson Hole Golf & Tennis Club 3000 Spring Gulch Road (307) 733-3111 gevans@gtlc.com jhgtc.com Teton Pines Country Club & Resort 3450 North Clubhouse Drive, Wilson (307) 733-1005 tetonpines.com Teton Reserve Golf Course 11 East 6000 South, Victor, Idaho (208) 787-4224 dconyers@tetonreserve.com tetonreserve.com Snake River Sporting Club (307) 201-2560 srsportingclub.com jheilbrun@srsportingclub.com
MUSEUMS
Jackson Hole Historical Society and Museum 225 North Cache Street - “Homesteading the Hole: Survival and Perseverance” & “Art of the Hunt” 105 Glenwood - “Indians of the Greater Yellowstone” (307) 733-2414 info@jacksonholehistory.org jacksonholehistory.org National Museum of Wildlife Art 2820 Rungius Road (307) 733-5771 wildlifeart.org
SPAS
Chill Spa Hotel Terra, Teton Village (307) 739-4055 spa.htj@tetonresorts.com hotelterrajacksonhole.com/spa/ Solitude Spa Teton Mountain Lodge & Spa, Teton Village (307) 732-6865 spa.tml@tetonresorts.com tetonlodge.com/spa/
ARTISTS
Annie Band Jewelry (307) 690-0972 annieband5@gmail.com annieband.com
Daylite Stained Glass Studio 260 East Howard Avenue, Driggs, Idaho (208) 313-5426 daigh12@msn.com daylitestainedglass.com
Trio Fine Art 545 North Cache Avenue (307) 734-4444 trio@triofineart.com triofineart.com
Helen Horn Musser (214) 384-1236 helenmusser@msn.com helenmusser.com
West Lives On Gallery 55 & 75 North Glenwood (307) 734-2888 fineart@westliveson.com westliveson.com
ART AUCTIONS
The Coeur d’Alene Art Auction (208) 772-9009 cdaartauction.com Jackson Hole Art Auction 130 East Broadway (866) 549-9278 jacksonholeartauction.com coordinator@jacksonholeartauction.com
GALLERIES
Altamira Fine Art 172 Center St (307) 739-4700 connect@altamiraart.com altamiraart.com Azadi Rug Gallery 165 North Center Street (307) 733-3388 By Nature Gallery 86 East Broadway (307) 200-6060 jacksonhole@bynaturegallery.com bynaturegallery.com Hines Goldsmiths 80 Center Street (307) 733-5599 carolyn@hines-gold.com hinesgold.com Kismet Rug Gallery 150 East Broadway (307) 739-8984 info@kismetrugs.com kismetrugs.com Legacy Gallery 75 North Cache Street (307) 733-2353 info@legacygallery.com legacygallery.com MANGELSEN- Images of Nature Gallery 170 North Cache (888) 238-0177 mangelsen.com RARE Gallery of Fine Art 60 East Broadway, 2nd Floor (307) 733-8726 rick@rarejh.com raregalleryjacksonhole.com Ringholz Studios (307) 734-3964 thewizard@ringholzstudios.com ringholzstudios.com Trailside Gallery 130 East Broadway (307) 733-3186 trailsidegalleries.com
Shopping Baggit 35 West Broadway (307) 733-1234 baggitjhwy@gmail.com baggitjacksonhole.com Boot Barn 840 West Broadway (307) 733-0247 bootbarn.com Estate Collectables 1150 West Highway 22 (307) 690-6777 estate-collectables.com Hoback Sports 520 West Broadway Avenue, #3 (307) 733-5335 info@hobacksports.com hobacksports.com JD High Country Outfitters 50 East Broadway (307) 733-3270 jdhcoutfitters.com
WILD THINGS OF WYOMING Wildlife Safaris & Natural History Programs
Join an experienced naturalist on an unforgettable excursion into the wilds of Jackson Hole and Yellowstone. We offer wildlife safaris, Yellowstone safaris, photography safaris, astronomy nights and speaking engagements of the absolute highest quality. In addition to being the owner and chief naturalist guide for Wild Things of Wyoming, Kurt F. Johnson is the author of the most thorough field guide to Yellowstone and Grand Teton ever written. Join a guide for your National Park experience who literally wrote the book to these parks.
307.690.6784 kurt@wildthingsofwyoming.com
MD Nursery - Gift Shop, Greenhouse & Garden Café 2389 South Highway 33, Driggs, Idaho (208) 354-8816 mdlandscapinginc.com Scandia Down Shop 165 North Center Street (307) 733-1038 or (800) 733-1038 scandiajh@wyoming.com scandiadownjh.com Stio 10 East Broadway (Cache Street entrance) (307) 201-1890 stio.com Susan Fleming Jewelry/Workshop 180 East Deloney Street (307) 733-5520 susanflemingjewelry.com workshopjh.com Terra, Terra Tots, The Chemist Shop at Terra 105 East Broadway (307) 734-0067 terrajh.com Thoenigs 125 West Deloney (307) 733-4916 sales@thoenigs.com thoenigsfinejewelry.com Twenty Two Home 45 East Deloney Avenue (307) 733-9922 info@twentytwohome.com twentytwohome.com
Jackson Hole’s Finest selection of Homes, Cabins and Condominiums in Teton Village and the Aspens. More room, more privacy and less money than most hotels. With over 40 years of combined lodging expertise, Rendezvous Mountain Rentals is the ideal partner for your next Jackson Hole vacation. Toll Free 888.739.2565 | Phone 307.739.9050 Visit our all NEW website at www.rmrentals.com
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Wild West Designs 140 West Broadway (307) 734-7600 wildwestdesignsinc.com Willow Creek Home Furnishings 115 East Broadway (307) 733-7868 willowcreekhf.com Wool & Whiskey Crystal Springs Building, Teton Village (307) 732-4080 info@jacksonhole.com jacksonhole.com
Dining RESTAURANTS
Bin22 200 West Broadway (307) 739-9463 bin22jacksonhole.com Bubba’s 100 Flat Creek Drive (307) 733-2288 bubbasjh.com Café Genevieve 135 East Broadway (307) 732-1910 info@genevievejh.com genevievejh.com Couloir Restaurant Top of Bridger Gondola, Teton Village (307) 739 -2675 info@jacksonhole.com couloirrestaurant.com
Four Seasons Resort Fourseasons.com/JacksonHole Ascent Lounge (307) 732-5613 The Handle Bar (307) 732-5156 Westbank Grill (307) 732-5620
Spur Restaurant and Bar Teton Mountain Lodge & Spa, Teton Village (307) 732-6932 tmlf&b@tetonresorts.com tetonlodge.com/spur-dining/
Ignight 945 West Broadway (307) 734-1997 ignightjacksonhole.com Il Villaggio Osteria Teton Village (Inside Hotel Terra) (307) 739-4100 jhosteria.com
Terra Café Hotel Terrra, Teton Village (307) 739-4025 htjf&b@tetonresorts.com hotelterrajacksonhole.com/dine/terra-dining/terra-cafe/ The Bunnery Bakery & Restaurant 130 North Cache Street (307) 733-5474 bunnery.com
Liberty Burger 160 North Cache (307) 200-6071 givemelibertyburger.com
The Kitchen 155 North Glenwood (307) 734-1633 thekitchenjacksonhole.com
Lotus Cafe, Organic Bakery, Bistro & Lounge 145 North Glenwood Street (307) 734-0882 organic@tetonlotuscafe.com tetonlotuscafe.com
The Rose 50 West Broadway (307) 733-1500 therosejh.com
Merry Piglets 610 North Cache Street (307) 733-2966 merrypiglets.com Million Dollar Cowboy Steakhouse 25 North Cache Street (307) 733-4790 cowboysteakhouse.net Nikai Sushi 225 North Cache Street (307) 734-6490 nikaisushi.com Pizza Artisan 690 South Highway 89 (307) 734-1970 pizzaanticajh.com Q Roadhouse & Brewing Co. 2550 Moose Wilson Road (307) 739-0700 qjacksonhole.com Rendezvous Bistro 380 South Highway 89 (307) 739-1100 rendezvousbistro.net Sidewinders 945 West Broadway (307) 734-5766 sidewinderstavern.com Silver Dollar Bar & Grill Wort Hotel (Corner of Broadway and Glenwood) (307) 732-3939 worthotel.com Snake River Brewing 265 South Millward Street (307) 739-2337 beer@snakeriverbrewing.com snakeriverbrewing.com Snake River Grill On the Town Square (307) 733-0557 www.snakerivergrill.com
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CATERING
Bistro Catering (307) 739-4682 bistrocatering.net erin@jhfinedining.com Genevieve Catering 135 East Broadway (307) 732-1910 info@genevievecateringjh.com genevievecateringjh.com
Wine & Spirits Grand Teton Distillery 1755 North Highway 33, Driggs, Idaho Info@tetonvodka.com tetonvodka.com tetondistillery.com Jackson Hole Winery 28001/2 Boyles Hill Road (307) 201-1057 jacksonholewinery@gmail.com jacksonholewinery.com Westside Wine & Spirits The Aspens (307) 733-5038 westside@wyoming.com Wyoming Whiskey 100 South Nelson, Kirby, Wyoming (307) 864-2116 wyomingwhiskey.com
Transportation AvCenter, Inc. 1483 Flightline, Pocatello, Idaho (208) 234-2141 wendy@avcenter.com avcenter.com Precision Aviation, Inc. Twin Falls, Idaho (208) 308-1852 charter@paviation.com paviation.com
Teton Aviation Center 253 Warbird Lane, Driggs, Idaho (800) 472-6382 or (208) 354-3100 info@tetonaviation.com tetonaviation.com
My Great Help Reliable, Trusting Care & Peace of Mind Jackson Hole’s Premier Booking Agency
Real Estate Black Diamond Real Estate (307) 733-6170 buy@bdjh.com bdjh.com Budge Realty Group Chad Budge, Associate Broker (307) 413-1364, chadbudge@jhrea.com Dianne Budge, Associate Broker (307) 413-1362, diannebudge@jhrea.com Rebekkah Kelley, Associate Broker (307) 413-5294, rebekkahkelley@jhrea.com
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House Sitti
Babysitting
Pet Sitting
Housekeep
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Senior Care
Call today or visit our website to make a reservation online!
www.mygreathelp.com 307.699.7482
Expand Your Summer
Cornish-Lamppa Realty Team Brokerage of the Tetons Andrew Cornish (307) 733-8899 or (307) 413-7799, andrew@resjh.com Todd Lamppa (307) 733-8899 or (307) 413-0590, todd@resjh.com Meredith Landino (307) 690-8028, mlandino@tetonre.com Jamie Turner (307) 203-9055, jamie@brokerageofthetetons.com
Reading List
CULTURE
The Liftie Life
OUTSIDE
Fun Beyond Skiing
DESIGN
Mountain Modern Homes
GETTING OUT
Raptor Rehab
magazine
Jackson Hole
Jane Folgeman Real Estate, Inc. Jane Folgeman (307) 413-5263 jane@folgeman.com folgeman.com
WINTER 2014
Jackson Hole Exploring our western landscape and lifestyle with award-winning writers and photographers.
Huntsman Springs Real Estate (208) 354-1888 501 Huntsman Springs Drive, Driggs, Idaho info@huntsmansprings.com huntsmansprings.com
Subscribe at jacksonholemagazine.com.
Thrive or
Fall/Winter 2013-14
Survive?
Some wildlife revel in winter. Other animals merely endure our harshest season.
Big City
Artful Fabrics Getaway HOME OFFICE
HAVEN
Jackson Hole Real Estate Associates Exclusive Affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate (888) 733-6060 jhrea.com
Teton Home and Living Explore breathtaking architecture and interior design, while enjoying the latest styles, tastes, and stories of the Tetons. Subscribe at lifeinthetetons.com.
DISPLAY THROUGH MARCH 2014 $5.95 US / $7.95 CAN
Christy and Garth Gillespie Jackson Hole Real Estate Associates (307) 413-5243, gillespieteam@jhrea.com jacksonholeexperts.com
The NeVille Group Jackson Hole Real Estate Associates David A. Neville, Associate Broker (307) 734-9949, davidneville@jhrea.com
A Grand Wedding
| COMPLIMENTARY IN THEEDITION KITCHEN2014 & TRENDS | TREASURED THINGS | TIPS
An event planner & resource guide for the perfect Teton wedding. Pick up around town. Creating Your
Perfect
EARLY SUMMER 2014
LintonBingle Associate Brokers Jackson Hole Real Estate Associates Carol Linton (307) 732-7518, lintonbingle@jhrea.com Betsy Bingle (307) 413-8090
www.LifeInTheTetons.com
Teton Family Magazine
Teton Wedding C O M P L I M E N TA R Y
PLANNING GUIDES FOR: BUDGET • PHOTOGRAPHY • RECEPTION • MUSIC • BRIDESMAIDS • REGISTRY
_cover.indd 3
Pick up around town.
A S E L F -WAT E R I N G
CON TA IN E R GS H OAR TRG RDOW IEN GNS E A S O N
ImagesWest The Guide to the Arts in Jackson F O R A Hole ( PAG E 1 2)
John Scott, Associate Broker Jackson Hole Real Estate Associates (307) 690-1009, johnscott@jhrea.com
Cultivating a healthy & sustainable community.
1/21/14 1:54 PM
2013 Edition
H O M E S C H O O L I N G • S K AT E B O A R D I N G F O R PA R E N T S • PA R T Y I D E A S • L U N C H B O X M E A L P L A N S • U P C YC L I N G
Images West The Guide to the Arts in Jackson Hole. Pick up around town.
Jackson Hole Sotheby’s International Realty 185 West Broadway (307) 733-9009 or toll-free (888) 733-9009 jhsir.com Barbara Allen, Associate Broker Jackson Hole Sotheby’s International Realty (307) 413-3510, barbara.allen@jhsir.com
307.733.2047
SUMMER 2014 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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Tom Evans, Associate Broker Jackson Hole Sotheby’s International Realty (307) 413-5101, tomevansre@jhsir.com tomevansrealestate.com Mercedes Huff, Associate Broker Jackson Hole Sotheby’s International Realty (307) 690-9000, mercedes.huff@jhsir.com mercedeshuff.com John Resor, Associate Broker Jackson Hole Sotheby’s International Realty (307) 739-8062, john.resor@jhsir.com shootingstarjh.com
Snake River Interiors 164 East Deloney Avenue (307) 733-3005 showroom@snakeriverinteriors.com snakeriverinteriors.com Stockton and Shirk Interior Designs (307) 733-0274 design@stocktonandshirk.com stocktonandshirk.com Willow Creek Home Furnishings 115 East Broadway (307) 733-7868 willowcreekhf.com
Pamela Renner, Associate Broker Jackson Hole Sotheby’s International Realty (307) 690-5530, pamela.renner@jhsir.com
Ranch Marketing Associates rmabrokers.com Ron Morris (970) 535-0881, ron@rmabrokers.com Billy Long (970) 948-1333, billy@rmabrokers.com
Spackmans & Associates Jackson Hole Sotheby’s International Realty Brandon Spackman, Associate Broker (307) 739-8156, brandon.spackman@jhsir.com Dave Spackman, Associate Broker (307) 739-8132, dave.spackman@jhsir.com spackmansinjh.com
RE/MAX Obsidian Real Estate 307-739-1234 jhobsidian.com Clitus H. “Chip” Marvin, Associate Broker (307) 690-2657, chipmarvin@gmail.com Fred Harness, Sales Associate (307) 690-0417, fred.harness@gmail.com
LANDSCAPING
Jackson Wyoming Real Estate Teri McCarthy, Broker/Owner 690 South Highway 89, Suite 200 (307) 690-6906, teri@terimccarthy.com jacksonwyomingrealestate.com
Home Loans
RUG CLEANING
JH Property Guide 1225 Maple Way (307) 733-2047 info@jhpropertyguide.com jhpropertyguide.com Live Water Properties 802 West Broadway, 2nd Floor (307) 734-6100 livewaterproperties.com Olympic Properties Sara Hahn, Broker 321 East Main, Bozeman, Montana (888) 441-8497, sara@olympic-properties.com olympic-properties.com Prugh Real Estate Greg Prugh, Broker (307) 413-2468, g@prugh.com prugh.com RARE Properties of Jackson Hole 60 East Broadway, 2nd Floor (307) 733-8726 rarejh.com Rick Armstrong, Owner/Broker/Curator (307) 413-4359, rick@rarejh.com Hollee Armstrong, Owner/Associate Broker/Director (307) 413-4772, hollee@rarejh.com Nick Czesnakowicz, Associate Broker (307) 413-3388, nickczes@aol.com Realty Group of Jackson Hole Jackson Hole Sotheby’s International Realty (307) 739-8070 realtygroupjh.com rgjh@jhsir.com Rob DesLauriers (307) 413-3955, rob.deslauriers@jhsir.com Jake Kilgrow (307) 413-2822, jake.kilgrow@jhsir.com Kelli Ward (307) 690-5286, kelli.ward@jhsir.com Jeff Ward (307) 690-0873, jeff.ward@jhsir.com 170
The Clear Creek Group Real Estate 120 West Pearl Avenue (307) 732-3400 info@tccgrealestate.com tccgrealestate.com Phil Stevenson, Responsible Broker (307) 690-3503, phils@tccgjh.com Reynolds Pomeroy, Sales Associate (307) 413-2429, reynoldsp@tccgrealestate.com Janet Helm, Brokerage Assistant (307) 699-7708, janeth@tccgrealestate.com
JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014
OneTrust Home Loans 230 East Broadway (307) 733-5800, aripps@onetrusthomeloans.com onetrusthomeloans.com
WRJ Home - Design Studio & Interiors 30 South King Street (307) 200-4881 info@wrjdesign.com wrjdesign.com MD Nursery & Landscaping, Inc. 2389 South Highway 33, Driggs Idaho (208) 354-8816 mdlandscapinginc.com Revive-A-Rug Studio & Spa (307) 774-RUGS (7847) reviveyourrug@gmail.com reviveyourrug.com
RUSTIC BARN HOMES
Banks
Sand Creek Post & Beam (888) 489-1680 sandcreekpostandbeam.com
Bank of Jackson Hole 990 West Broadway (307) 732-BOJH bojh.com
Medical Centers
Home Services ARCHITECTS
Carney Logan Burke Architects 215 South King Street (307) 733-4000 design@clbarchitects.com clbarchitects.com Miller Architects PC 208 West Park Street, Livingston, Montana (406) 222-7057 info@ctmarchitects.com ctmarchitects.com Plan One/Architects 189 North Main, Suite 112, Driggs, Idaho (208) 354-8036 hrheneage@planone.com planone.com
INTERIOR DESIGN
Harker Design Wilson, Wyoming (307) 733-5960 Idaho Falls, Idaho (208) 523-3323 harkerdesign.com Laurie Waterhouse Interiors 90 East Pearl Avenue (307) 732-0130 lwi@laurieinteriors.com laurieinteriors.com Shannon White Design (307) 690-1594 info@shannonwhitedesign.com shannonwhitedesign.com
St. John’s Joint Replacement Center at St. John’s Medical Center 625 E. Broadway (307) 739-7501 or (888) 739-7499 tetonhospital.org/coe
Chocolate Petit Secret Chocolate (307) 699-7482 lauranceperry@gmail.com getmorechocolate.com
Personal & Family Protection Dogs Svalinn (formerly Snake River K9) (307) 200-1223 info@svalinn.com svalinn.com/privateclient
Help Services My Great Help (307) 699-7482 mygr8thelp@gmail.com mygreathelp.com
Media Companies Teton Media Works 1225 Maple Way (307) 733-2047 kevin@tetonmediaworks.com
search YOUR REAL ESTATE
STARTS HERE.
Jackson Hole’s most complete forum for independent real estate news, neighborhood profiles and current property listings. More than 1,900 properties, 4 counties, One Site.
JUST A FEW THINGS TO DO IN
JACKSON HOLE If you love this map as much as we do, you can buy prints online at www.jhmarketplace.com (it’s under the “arts” tab). 172
JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014
JACKSON n Hit the farmers market (p. 148). n Enjoy a Tigers Milk cocktail and butter chicken at The Indian. n Look for the bullet hole inside the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar (p. 108). n Appreciate the unsung pickup
crew at the Jackson Hole Rodeo (p. 40). n Drink in sun and suds at the remodeled Hayden’s Post inside Snow King Resort. n Take a free walking tour of historic downtown (p. 72). n People watch in the Town Square (p. 74).
n Tour downtown’s coolest modern homes (p. 56). n Marvel at Western, wildlife, and contemporary art on a Third Thursday Art Walk (p. 158).
TETON VILLAGE n Catch a Grand Teton Music Festival concert (p. 174). n Hike the new(ish) Wildflower
Trail from the base to the top of the Bridger Gondola.
n Stargaze at the top of Signal Mountain (p. 142).
n Go for a tandem ride with Jackson Hole Paragliding.
n Check out the quirks of Kelly (page 22).
GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK n Get smarter on a free guided hike with a Grand Teton National Park ranger.
n Do a breakfast or dinner cruise on Jackson Lake (p. 123). n Go on a wildlife photo safari (p. 128). n Relax on the front porch of the
Laurence S. Rockefeller Preserve Center (p. 36).
WILSON n Float the Snake in a McKenzie drift boat with Wooden Boat Tours (p. 114). n Listen to the Stagecoach Band play Sunday nights at the Coach.
FURTHER AFIELD n Hit the Gros Ventre Highline Trail (p. 105). n Hike to the top of Sleeping Indian (p. 132). n Climb Wyoming’s tallest peak, Gannett (p. 96). Go to jacksonholemagazine.com for more details. SUMMER 2014 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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Best of
calendar of events
ONGOING JACKSON HOLE RODEO: Lasso up your best cowboy hat and watch bull riding, barrel racing, calf roping, and more. 8 p.m. Wednesdays and Saturdays through August 30, tickets start at $20, 307/733-7927, jhrodeo.com AERIAL TRAM RIDES: Soar 4,139 vertical feet from the base of Teton Village to the top of Rendezvous Mountain for stunning views of Jackson Hole, Grand Teton National Park, and the Gros Ventre Range. Through September 28, tickets start at $35 (adult), $28 (senior), $21 (junior), free (5 & under), 307/733-2292, jacksonhole.com 174
JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014
GRAND TETON MUSIC FESTIVAL: In its 53rd season, the Festival offers seven weeks of concerts, from July 3 through August 16, in the acoustically superb Walk Festival Hall at Teton Village. 307/733-1128, gtmf.org
The midway and carnival rides light up the evening sky during the Teton County Fair from July 18-27.
JACKSON HOLE PARAGLIDING: Experience a bird’s-eye view of Teton Village. No experience necessary to fly tandem with a professional pilot. Daily at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort base, 307/739-2626, jhparagliding.com
JACKSON HOLE FARMERS MARKET: Enjoy the freshest produce and goods from Jackson and surrounding towns, alongside weekly showcasings of local chefs/restaurants and entertainment. 8 a.m. to noon Saturdays from July 5 through September 20, Town Square, jacksonholefarmersmarket.com
JACKSON HOLE PEOPLE’S MARKET: Local produce, prepared foods, music, and brews. 4 to 7 p.m. Wednesdays from June 18 through September 17 at the base of Snow King, free, jhpeoplesmarket.org
JACKSON HOLE SHOOTOUT: A tradition since 1957, the Jackson Hole Shootout is the
PRICE CHAMBERS
JH
= ARTS & CULTURE-RELATED EVENTS
longest continuously running gunfight in the United States ... a re-enactment, of course. 6 p.m., Monday to Saturday through Labor Day, Town Square, free, 307/733-3316 STAGECOACH RIDES: Ride around for ten minutes through downtown Jackson on an old-fashioned stagecoach. Daily through Labor Day, tickets start at $4, corner of Broadway and Cache NATIONAL MUSEUM OF WILDLIFE ART: Includes a 4,000-some-piece permanent collection. Exhibitions this summer are: From Stone to Glass – Wildlife Sculpture in Multiple Media (opens June 13); Tusk, Horn, Flesh & Bone – Graphic Design by Asher Jay (opens September 20); and Audubon and the Art of Birds (opens October 4). Open daily until 5 p.m., tickets $12 (adults), $10 (senior), $6 (children), free (5 & under), 307/733-5771, wildlifeart.org
MAY
28 THE WYOMERICANA CARAVAN consists of three award-winning Wyoming bands: Screen Door Porch, J Shogren, and The Patti Fiasco. 7 p.m., Pink Garter Theatre, $7-$15, 307/733-1500, pinkgartertheatre.com
JUNE 1 15TH ANNUAL RUN AND RIDE FOR THE CURE includes a 5K run and 15K bike ride and benefits the Cancer Patient Support Fund at St. John’s Medical Center Foundation. 8 a.m., Wilson Elementary School, 307/733-6094 3 SUMMIT ON THE SNAKE calls all river guides and enthusiasts. Listen to experts speak about your passion for the Snake. 5 p.m., Old Wilson Schoolhouse, $5, 307/690-3529, snakeriverfund.org 6-7 THE LAFF STAFF performs improv comedy.
PRICE CHAMBERS
23 TO 26 33RD ANNUAL OLD WEST DAYS celebrate Jackson’s rich history with live music, theatrical entertainment, arts and crafts, food, rodeo events, and more. 307/733-3316, jacksonholechamber.com
Catch the thrill of the Jackson Hole Rodeo every Wednesday and Saturday night through August 30.
8 p.m., Center for the Arts, $10, 307/7334900; jhcenterforthearts.org 8 2ND ANNUAL TOUCH-A-TRUCK! Jackson Hole Children’s Museum sponsors this interactive exhibit displaying trucks and vehicles. 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., King Street in Jackson, $25 for a family of four, 307/7333996, jhchildrensmuseum.org 9 TROUT CULTURE The History of Fishing in the Rocky Mountain West: Listen to an expert speak about the history of fishing and trout. 6 to 8 p.m., Teton County Library, free, 307/690-3529, snakeriverfund.org
14 JACKSON HOLE HALF MARATHON AND 5K 7 a.m., Teton Village/Phil Baux Park, 307/4132695, profectusindependent.com/jhhalf2/ 14-15 CONTEMPORARY DANCE WYOMING performs The Meal, where dancers move around, on, and under a wooden table. 6 p.m. on June 14, 6 and 8 p.m. on June 15, Center for the Arts, 307/733-4900, jhcenterforthearts.org 15-21 JACKSON HOLE WILD FESTIVAL is a week filled with events that use the arts to teach about Jackson’s wonderful nature. 307/413-9507, wildjacksonhole.org SUMMER 2014 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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15 RAPTORFEST celebrates birds of prey with food, music, activities, raffles, and art. 1 to 5 p.m., Teton Raptor Center, free, 307/2032551, tetonraptorcenter.org 20 STEAMROLLER PRINTMAKING lets you watch valley artists carve images and create steamrolled Wild West prints. 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Jackson Street in downtown Jackson, wildjacksonhole.org 20 PUSH: PHYSICAL THEATER is a New York-based group that performs physical illusions and gravity-defying moves. 7:30 to 9 p.m., Center for the Arts, tickets $25 (adults) and $12 (children), 307/733-4900, jhcenterforthearts.org 21 PLEIN AIR FEST A thrilling race between artists to complete their works. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Silent Auction, 2:30-3:30 p.m.), National Museum of Wildlife Art, 307/7335771, wildlifeart.org 21 SPECIES PARADE Accessorize with your favorite animal mask and puppet, joining the species of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem on a parade through downtown Jackson. 5 to 6 p.m., meet at Snow King baseball diamond and end in Jackson’s Town Square, wildjacksonhole.org
12-13 & 17-18: THIN AIR SHAKESPEARE is a playful and engaging outdoor Shakespeare performance. Center for the Arts’ Center Lawn, free, 307/733-3021, offsquare.org
21 SOLSTICE STREET FAIR celebrates the longest day of the year with an activityfilled festival continuing after sundown with torchlight streets. 6 to 11 p.m., Jackson’s Town Square, wildjacksonhole.org
18-20 10TH ANNUAL TARGHEE FEST is a threeday music festival at Grand Targhee Resort. Day tickets start at $55, 3-day tickets start at $159, 307/353-2300, grandtarghee.com
26 TO 28 THE JACKSON HOLE WRITERS CONFERENCE brings together editors, agents, and writers from across the country. jacksonholewritersconference.com
18-27 TETON COUNTY FAIR includes comedy shows, concerts, and pig wrestling. Teton County Fairgrounds, 307/733-5289, tetonwyo.org/fair
JULY 4 GRAND TETON MUSIC FESTIVAL’S MUSIC IN THE HOLE 8 p.m., Walk Festival Hall, 307/733-1128, gtmf.org
AUGUST
11-13 49TH ANNUAL ART FAIR The valley’s largest and longest-running fine art and craft fair. Opens at 10 a.m. daily, Miller Park, free for Art Association members and $5/day for nonmembers, 307/733-8792, jhartfair.org
8-10 49TH ANNUAL ART FAIR The valley’s largest and longest-running fine art and craft fair happens a second weekend. Daily at 10 a.m., Miller Park, free for Art Association members and $5/day for nonmembers, 307/733-8792, jhartfair.org
12 RISE OF THE FENIX is a Ringholz Productions art installation accompanied by live music, cocktails, dinner treats, gifts, and photo ops. 7 to 11 p.m., National Museum of Wildlife Art, tickets start $75, 307/734-3964, ringholzstudios.com
11 JACKSON HOLE LAND TRUST 34TH ANNUAL COMMUNITY PICNIC celebrates Jackson’s open, protected spaces. 4 to 8 p.m., $50, 307/733-4707, jhlandtrust.org 30 JACKSON HOLE MARATHON AND HOLE HALF MARATHON invite you to run, run, run all around the valley. 7 a.m., jacksonholemarathon.com
SEPTEMBER 6 LOTOJA CLASSIC is the longest one-day USAC-sanctioned bike race in the country (over 200 miles) and one of the nation’s top amateur cycling races. It finishes in Teton Village after racers start in Logan, Utah. lotojaclassic.com
BRADLY J. BONER
3-14 30TH ANNUAL JACKSON HOLE FALL ARTS FESTIVAL is one of the Rocky Mountain West’s premier cultural events. 307/7333316, jacksonholechamber.com
Get a bird’s-eye view of Teton Village in the truest sense. No experience necessary to fly tandem with a professional pilot. 176
JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014
13 THE 8TH ANNUAL JACKSON HOLE ART AUCTION is one of the premier Western art sales in the country. Center for the Arts; jacksonholeartauction.com 27 FEE-FREE DAY in Grand Teton National Park. 307/739-3399, nps.gov/grte JH – CAROLINE MARKOWITZ
W
EXHIBIT + SALE
SEPTEMBER 4 – 7 JACKSON HOLE, WY SNOW KING CENTER
TICKETS: WesternDesignConference.com
OPENING PREVIEW PARTY
AUCTION, FASHION + JEWELRY SHOW FEATURING LIVE MUSIC, AWARD WINNING ARTISAN CRAFT, LOCAL CULINARY CREATIONS AND SIGNATURE COCKTAILS DURING A FESTIVE NIGHT OF SHOPPING.
DESIGNER SHOW HOUSE
JURIED ARTISAN CREATIONS AND CUSTOM INTERIOR DESIGN IN A HOME ENVIRONMENT.
RETAIL ROW A UNIQUE SHOPPING EXPERIENCE. SOUGHT AFTER RETAILERS EXHIBIT UP-AND-COMING FASHION TRENDS SPONSORED BY COWBOYS & INDIANS.
4-DAY EXHIBIT + SALE FEATURING ONE-OF-A-KIND CREATIONS IN FURNITURE, FASHION AND HOME ACCESSORIES FROM MORE THAN 130 ARTISTS SPONSORED BY MOUNTAIN LIVING. CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: ELYSE ALLEN, SUSAN ADAMS, ASHLEIGH BRANSTETTER, KIT CARSON, HENNEFORD FINE FURNITURE, BRIT WEST
Integrity • Expertise • Locally Renowned • Globally Connected BUILDING PROFESSIONAL RELATIONSHIPS, ONE CLIENT AT A TIME.
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HISTORIC 95 RANCH
Two contiguous 35 acre tracts rest on the “Snake River” Beneath the expansive breadth of the Grand Teton Mountain range Price upon request
GRAND VIEW ESTATES Spectacular subdivision located north of town Striking Grand Teton Views | Individual Private Ponds | Mature Landscaping Price upon request
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3.
SHOOTING STAR HOME SITE
4.
STUNNING ANGLER’S CABIN
Panoramic views of the Tetons Tom Fazio designed golf course World famous Jackson Hole Mountain Resort | $2,750,000
Custom built Fishing Cabin on 6.75 acres with Buffalo Fork River Access Views of the Grand Teton and Mount Moran Price Upon Request
David A. NeVille, Associate Broker | Susan NeVille | Shawn M. Asbell, Sales Associate | Douglas Howard, Associate Broker 307.734.9949 | 307.690.3209 | tng@jhrea.com
YOUR LIFE. YOUR LEGACY. 307-733-9009 | JHSIR.COM
WE OUTSELL ALL JACKSON HOLE BROKERAGES.* Trust the local experts to guide you home. JACKSON HOLE SOTHEBY’S INTERNATIONAL REALTY 185 W. Broadway, Jackson, WY 83001 | 888.733.9009 jhsir.com JACKSON HOLE SOTHEBY’S INTERNATIONAL REALTY 185 W. Broadway Jackson, WY 83001 jhsir.com Jackson Hole Sotheby’s International Realty is Independently Owned and Operated. *Source: 2013. Sales Volume Market Share Average. Teton Board| of888.733.9009 Realtors MLS, Teton County, WY. ®,™ and SM are licensed trademarks to Sotheby’s International Realty Affiliates LLC. An Equal Opportunity Company. Equal Housing Opportunity. Jackson Hole Sotheby’s International Realty is Independently Owned and Operated.