Jackson Hole magazine // Winter 2019

DINING

Meatballs’ Moment

NIGHTLIFE

Aprés Ski

GETTING OUT

Traverse the Tetons

WINTER 2019

The State of Ski Bums

Are they headed for extinction or merely evolving?

BODY & SOUL

The Whole You

A life lived wild is a life well lived.

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Jackson Hole

Winter 2019

Features

Page

56

64

After more than a century, changes are afoot to the elk-feeding regime on the National Elk Refuge, but it remains unclear how managers will meet their goals.

Father and son Richard and Jason Baldes look at the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem as conservationists and as Eastern Shoshone, a tribe whose ancestry spans 13,000 years in the Tetons.

Elk Feeding’s Fuzzy Future

BY MIKE KOSHMRL

Cross Cultural Conservation

76

BRADLY J. BONER

The Remarkable Staying Power of Ski Bums

The demise of ski bums has been predicted for decades, yet the lifestyle perseveres, albeit evolved.

BY BRIGID MANDER

BY MOLLY LOOMIS

PHOTO GALLERY

72

The Soul of Jackson Hole //

PHOTOGRAPHY BY DAVID J SWIFT

ON THE COVER: Jackson Hole photographer Chris Figenshau has been shooting skiers and riders at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort (JHMR) for more than 20 years. Last winter, he took this image of local skier Jeff Leger, aka Dr. Huckinstuff, catching air near the top of Rendezvous Bowl. “We weren’t very far from Corbet’s Cabin,” says Figenshau, whose work also appears in Ski Journal, Powder, and Sports Illustrated. Figenshau shot this image while JHMR was filming a short movie of his own career, “Chris Figenshau—20 Years behind the Lens.” In it you can see him take this photo. Watch the movie at jacksonhole.com/blog/10-and-counting.

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JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE WINTER 2019

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Jackson Hole

Winter 2019

Best of JH 99 GETTING OUT Traverse the Tetons

18 TETONSCAPES Cut and Vote, Big Momma, Your Coffee Personality, Snow Trail Fun

Page

26 PIQUED

42

Some of our favorite winter stuff

30 MEET THE LOCALS Q&A Wolfi Gensch, Angus Thuermer Jr., and Mary Kate Buckley 36 ON THE JOB A Winterkeeper’s Wild World The manager of Granite Hot Springs lives a life of isolation, minus six busy hours every day.

BY MIKE KOSHMRL

42 BUSINESS Cents of Place Page

99

Inspired by this valley, these local businesses have expanded well beyond it.

BY DINA MISHEV

46 DESIGN Tiny House, Big Draw Small homes are growing in popularity, even if Teton County isn’t always sure what to do with them.

BY JOOHEE MUROMCEW

86 LOOKING BACK Teton Village From swampy marshlands to a major ski resort

BY LESLIE HITTMEIER

90 OUTDOORS Sleeping Beauties Bears are perfectly evolved to nap all winter long.

JOHN SLAUGHTER

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JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE WINTER 2019

BY KYLIE MOHR

BY BRIGID MANDER

102 The Village Commons An ice rink and life-size snow sculptures at the base of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort

BY WHITNEY ROYSTER

106 Ski to Eat At these spots, the Nordic skiing is as good as the lunch menu.

LILA EDYTHE

110 BODY & SOUL The Whole You Valley doctors and therapists integrate alternative therapies with traditional Western medical treatments.

BY JOOHEE MUROMCEW

114 NIGHTLIFE Choose Your Own Happy Hour Adventure WHITNEY ROYSTER

116 DINING For the Love of Meatballs This staple is anything but simple, and it’s enjoying a resurgence in popularity.

BY JULIE FUSTANIO KLING

126 ART SCENE More than Meets the Eye Visual arts get most of the attention, but Jackson Hole has a strong performing arts scene, too.

BY ISA JONES

132 AS THE HOLE DEEPENS Nonskiers Anonymous

BY TIM SANDLIN

134 JACKSON HOLE MAPPED 136 CALENDAR OF EVENTS

JO SAVAGE

JH Living

Ski to Grand Targhee from Jackson Hole Mountain Resort.

1175 EAST BUTTE ROAD, JACKSON

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Greetings from the Editor LOCAL AUTHOR TIM SANDLIN (“Nonskiers Anonymous,” p. 132) has been writing a humor piece for Jackson Hole magazine far longer than I’ve been this magazine’s editor. (He’s also written the Gros Ventre trilogy of novels, Skipped Parts, and Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty, and I recommend you read all of his books, preferably starting as soon as possible; Valley Bookstore and Jackson Hole Booktrader will have them.) Every issue I tell Tim that his piece is the best one yet (and mean it) and also that reading it caused me to laugh so hard I snorted espresso out of my nose and singed one or both nostrils. (By now I should know not to drink and read a Tim Sandlin story at the same time.) This issue I really mean it. I always wondered how nonskiers survived our long winters.

As funny as Tim’s story is, the features by journalists Molly Loomis and Mike Koshmrl are serious. Loomis wrote an insightful profile of Eastern Shoshone father and son conservationists Richard and Jason Baldes (“Cross Cultural Conservation,” p. 64). Koshmrl tackled one of the valley’s biggest wildlife controversies: the supplemental feeding of elk (“Elk Feeding’s Fuzzy Future,” p. 56). One of the reasons I love

editing (and writing) so much is the opportunity it affords for me to learn, and I don’t know that I’ve learned so much from two stories in many years.

And writer Whitney Royster’s two articles, “What’s Your Coffee Personality?” p. 22 and “Choose Your Own Happy Hour Adventure,” p. 114. This is an embarrassing admission for an editor to make, but I don’t have the words to describe their awesomeness. Just know that when you’re looking for the coffee shop in the valley that best matches your personality or the perfect happy hour adventure, follow Royster’s lead and you won’t be disappointed.

The photo essay (p. 72) in this issue is different than anything we’ve done in the past. But then David J Swift, who, for more than forty years, photographed this valley and the people who loved it, was different from anyone I’ve ever known. When he died unexpectedly while skate skiing in Grand Teton National Park last January, it was a punch in the gut to the entire community; we began processing his death by sharing on Facebook our favorite David photos. This photo essay is a continuation of that.

As always, I hope you enjoy reading this issue of Jackson Hole magazine as much as I’ve enjoyed editing it. – Dina Mishev @JACKSONHOLEMAG

@DINAMISHEV

PUB-JHM18-4

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JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE WINTER 2019

Jackson Hole

magazine

It’s About

ConneCtIons...

Winter 2019 // jacksonholemagazine.com

What’s your favorite nonskiing winter activity?

PUBLISHER

Kevin Olson

Reading Jackson Hole Magazine!

ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER

Adam Meyer

Driving up to Colter Bay where the road is closed and jumping off snowbanks The phenomenal wildlife viewing in places like Miller Butte and along the Snake River

EDITOR

Dina Mishev

Playing tennis in the bubble at Teton Pines

ART DIRECTOR

Elise Mahaffie PHOTO EDITOR

Ryan Dorgan

Reading by a fire never gets old. I prefer real fire like the one at my house,

but there’s a nice one in the lobby of the Wort.

Night sledding on Teewinot behind the Four Seasons with my daughter and friends

3-Hour Multi-Gun 1-Day Long Range Adventure Private Lessons

COPY EDITOR

Nina Resor CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

I detach from adrenaline

and the busy world: I’ll watch wildlife on the

Elk Refuge and then hop in a natural hot spring.

Dog romps with my dynamic duo on the dike

by Emily’s Pond

Safe • Fun • Educational

Cody Cottier Julie Fustanio Kling Molly Loomis Brigid Mander Whitney Royster

Soaking at Granite Hot Springs (See p. 36!) or napping with my pup

Isa Jones Mike Koshmrl Lila Edythe Joohee Muromcew Tim Sandlin

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

Amber Baesler Bradly J. Boner Price Chambers Jonathan Crosby Jeff Diener Ryan Dorgan Chris Figenshau Rugile Kaladyte Drew Rush Jenna Schoenfeld John Slaughter David J Swift Angus Thuermer Jr.

Cooking all the game meat my husband bagged in the fall

Check out our TripAdvisor reviews!

ADVERTISING SALES

Alyson Klackiewicz

Deidre Norman

ADVERTISING ACCOUNT COORDINATOR

Maggie Gabruk AD DESIGN & PRODUCTION

Luis Ortiz Taylor-Ann Smith

Kyra Griffin Kal Stromberg

Lydia Redzich Sarah Wilson

DISTRIBUTION

Hank Smith Jeff Young

Shoot 1 Mile+ in the high Wyoming desert!

OFFICE MANAGER

Kathleen Godines

NomadRifleman.com

© 2019 Jackson Hole magazine. All rights reserved. No part of this production may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. No responsibility will be assumed for unsolicited editorial contributions. Manuscripts or other material to be returned must be accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope adequate to return the material. Jackson Hole magazine is published semiannually. Send subscription requests to: Jackson Hole magazine, P.O. Box 7445, Jackson, Wyoming 83002. (307) 732-5900.

Email: dina@jhmagazine.com. Visit jacksonholemagazine.com.

307-690-7921 ShootInJH.com WINTER 2019 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE

15

Contributors

Julie Fustanio Kling (“Meatballs are Having a Moment,” p. 116) is a freelance writer, a yogi, and a mom to two teenagers. A graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and Boston College, Kling’s writing has appeared in SF Yoga Magazine, Homestead, and RANGE: Design + Living in JH. She is the founder of TEDxJacksonHole. Current writing projects are related to conservation in Africa.

Growing up on New York’s Long Island, Brigid Mander (“The Remarkable Staying Power of Ski Bums,” p. 76 and “Traverse the Tetons” p. 99) was unaware of a lifestyle called “ski bumming.” She discovered this subculture while in college. After college, Mander decided to be one. Today she is based in Jackson and writes regularly for Backcountry Magazine and The Wall Street Journal, among other publications.

#TARGHEEVIBE Photo: Rickers Film Production

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JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE WINTER 2019

This issue, Joohee Muromcew, a Valley resident whose work has appeared in Condé Nast Traveler, Departures, Town & Country, and City Secrets: Paris and who serves on the Board of Directors of the Teton Science Schools, writes about tiny houses (“Tiny House, Big Draw,” p. 46) and alternative medicine (“The Whole You,” p. 110).

“First Republic gave us a loan in 1990 to build the home we still live in today.

In all that time, the service hasn’t wavered.”

K E N J O N E S , Chairman, Sea Hawk Capital S I G N E K I M L AU R I D S E N -J O N E S , Attorney

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JH Living

TETONSCAPES

PRICE CHAMBERS

Halfway through a haircut with Mike Randall, Ted Dawson contemplates his unofficial voting decisions at Teton Barbers.

Cut and Vote

Teton Barbers’ political polls are pretty good at predicting who will win with Teton County voters.

BY JULIE FUSTANIO KLING

THE MARGIN OF error in Teton Barbers’ election poll has always been slim. That’s why, starting in the 1970s, the Casper Star Tribune called the unassuming barber shop just off Jackson’s Town Square for its results, says Thomas Howard, the Star Tribune’s former publisher who is now retired, lives in Wilson, and faithfully participates in the annual election poll himself. The Star Tribune wasn’t the only newspaper calling. Teton Barbers co-owner Mike Randall says, “Back when Jackson was a two-newspaper town The News and The Guide would each call for early poll numbers, but we wouldn’t tell.” The Teton Barbers poll has about a 92 percent success rate in predicting the candidates that will win in Teton County.

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JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE WINTER 2019

No one remembers when exactly Reid Sanderson, who bought Teton Barbers from its founder in the 1970s, started the poll.

When Randall and Debbie Bancroft bought the barber shop in 1994, the paper poll expanded from calling the presidential race to adding the governor, mayor, town council, and county commissioners races. Randall, a Democrat, says he always hands a ballot to the moms who bring in their kids to even out the odds. He and Bancroft, a registered Republican, cancel out each other’s votes so sometimes they forget to even cast them.

While Randall and Bancroft might forget to vote themselves, together they count as many as 1,200 paper ballots a year. By hand.

ON A CLOUDY day last summer, the mostly gray-haired male clientele was simultaneously sarcastic and sentimental. “I am so worried about the world and youth today,” said Joe Peck, a retired St. John’s Medical Center employee who leans to the left and has been spinning in Randall’s chair for twenty years.

Randall, who’s not shy with his opinions, coifs both recent gubernatorial candidate Foster Friess and former Vice President Dick Cheney, among other conservatives. But the liberal contingent of razor fades is growing.

And this year, Teton Barbers even did a full shave for one of rapper/singer/entrepreneur Kanye West’s producers.

Randall sees Jackson Hole as an expanding blue spot in a red state while Bancroft sees the valley as more purple. In 2016, the poll, like Teton County, favored Hillary Clinton over President Trump. “I’m pretty amazed and impressed with how closely our poll tracks with Teton County results, Randall says.” But why not? When, as Bancroft points out, “We get our cowboys in here who I would consider red and we get our granola heads who I would consider to be blue.” Randall adds, “I think we touch on all the bases.”

As divided as the country now feels politically, the poll, like Teton Barbers, remains a beloved institution, even when people get in each others’ faces. Recently, after some concern about Democrats coming in and casting ballots without paying for services, the shop added the rule that you have to pay for a haircut ($16) in order to cast a ballot.

Randall and Bancroft also decided to have more fun by expanding the poll beyond elections and polling people about issues, albeit still with a political leaning. They asked clients if they approved of Jackson Mayor Pete Muldoon’s decision to take down Trump’s portrait in the town hall and replace it with one of Chief Washakie. (Muldoon’s move made national news.) The nays had it. Not that the Jackson Town Council was influenced by this poll, but they did later vote (3-2) to rehang the Trump portrait. JH

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JH Living

TETONSCAPES

Big Momma A LOCAL LEGEND was discovered on March 12, 2016: a female bald eagle that had been electrocuted by a power line and was rescued not far from the Jackson Hole Airport.

Because she had a tag, a time-stamped serial number in the archives of the U.S. Geological Survey, wildlife biologists at the Teton Raptor Center, where she was sent to recover, could see she was alive way back in 1982. So in 2016, she was at least thirty years old. (Most female bald eagles survive about twenty years in the wild.) Further investigation revealed she had been tagged near Hoback, Wyoming. Center staff named her: “She was just sort of a different bird,” says the center’s rehabilitation director Meghan Warren. “More mature. More mellow. She had a different kind of energy. So we started calling her ‘Ma’am’ and ‘Big Momma.’ ” Big Momma was the oldest known tagged bald eagle west of the Mississippi River, and the third-oldest tagged bald eagle ever confirmed anywhere in the country. When she was born, her species was on the Endangered Species List. As Warren cared for soft-tissue injuries to the bald eagle’s wrist and feet, center staff quickly began extrapolating on the role Big Momma likely played in repopulating the country’s national bird from her nest up on Saddle Butte.

“When she was a chick in nest, her parents were one of [about] four hundred pairs in the Lower 48, and now there are thousands [of pairs],” Warren says. “She probably had nineteen

years of mating and one to two chicks per year, making a huge impact on the population.”

While there is no telling exactly how many offspring she had, biologists speculate it could be in the hundreds if you include eaglets, grandeaglets, and great-grandeaglets.

There’s no doubt that Big Momma’s babies helped bald eagles get removed from the U.S. government’s list of endangered species (this happened in 1995) and, in 2007, removed from the list of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife in the Lower 48 states. Over her long life, she saw the reintroduction of wolves, and had a bird’s eye view of growth in Jackson Hole.

Thanks to an incredibly long life, one Jackson Hole bald eagle helped her species recover.

BY JULIE FUSTANIO KLING

put Big Momma out of her suffering. “She had been part of this community, of Jackson Hole, for 34 years.” JH

ELECTROCUTION BY POWER lines is one of the leading causes of death for bald eagles. As much as the Teton Raptor Center did to help Big Momma recover from her electrocution, she couldn’t be saved. The electricity that passed through her body burned her up from the inside. On April 21, 2016, almost six weeks after she was electrocuted, Big Momma was euthanized. Her wings were about to fall off. “I don’t think we have ever seen a patient that has tugged on our heartstrings as much as [Big Momma],” says Amy McCarthy, the raptor center’s executive director. She adds that her staff was in tears when they

20

JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE WINTER 2019

BRADLY J. BONER

“Big Momma,” a 34-year-old bald eagle during rehabilitation at the Teton Raptor Center

AUTHORIZED PERMITTEE OF THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

JH Living

TETONSCAPES

What’s Your Coffee Personality?

BY WHITNEY ROYSTER JACKSON’S COFFEE CULTURE is quaint and bridges the gap between coffee-on-everycorner and only-chain stores. And our coffee and baristas are good; none of our coffee shops suck. Seriously. (How often does that happen?) But, each has its own personality.

Take our quiz to figure out where you should get your coffee fix.

How complicated is your order?

A Coffee. Hot. B Latte with skim milk.

C Decaf cappuccino with a dash of cinnamon for me and four of

my friends.

How hungry are you for real food in addition to coffee?

A Coffee is food. I’m done with you.

B Maybe a muffin.

C Yeah, I could use some protein.

D I’m about to eat the spine of this magazine.

When I look around, I would like to see other people: A B C D

Googling “How to make a local production of The Wiz”.

Chatting with other people about ski conditions.

Flopping into comfy couches and talking politics.

Talking business deals; maybe overhear something important.

D Double mocha skinny decaf chai with sustainably harvested

robin’s egg milk.

What are you looking for in a barista?

A Someone who gets the job done. Quickly.

B I want them to say, “You want the usual?”

C Know the difference between a Shot in the

How technologically savvy are you?

A B C D

I just upgraded from rotary to push-button on my phone!

My phone is in the car.

I can Venmo you for that.

Apps organized by cultural references, of course.

Dark and a Red Eye. D Make a heart or bicycle shape in the foam in

my latte, please.

RESULTS: A ‘s Mostly – Hit Pearl Street Bagels (145 W.

Other things I would like to buy in addition to coffee are: A B C D

Finger puppets and cake pops.

Warm pear salad.

Breakfast burrito.

Hot croissant stuffed with prosciutto and brie.

A I walked/biked.

B A Subaru, what else?

C A pickup truck with dog slobber on the

windows and a questionable starter.

D My parents’.

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JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE WINTER 2019

AMBER BAESLER

The car you drove here in is:

Pearl Ave.) or Starbucks (10 E. Broadway). Both are quick and fairly no nonsense; lines may be long but move quickly.

B ‘s – Try JH Roasters (50 W. Broadway). It’s often overlooked, but has great food and ambience. A bit more spacious than other spots, too.

C ’s – Cowboy Coffee (125 N. Cache St.) has deep comfy leather couches and a well-rounded menu. Don’t be in a rush.

D ‘s – Sister cafes Persephone (145 E. Broadway) and Picnic (1110 Maple Way, Suite B ) are the valley’s hippest joints. They both have apps and a pick-up window, which you should make sure to use. Intense, artisan pastries; don’t overlook the basic coffee cake or plain croissant though. JH

JH Living

TETONSCAPES

Snow Trail Fun

GRAND TETON NATIONAL Park’s Inner Park Loop Road might be the single most beautiful groomed winter trail in the world. But there are other groomed trail systems around the valley, each with their own unique scene. And, while Nordic skiers and snowshoers have long used these, today, thanks to an increase in grooming and in people using the trails, it’s also possible to ride a fat bike, run, snowmobile, and hike on many of them. Dogs are even allowed in some areas. For grooming reports and additional details, go to jhnordic.com. Need gear?

Try Hoback Sports (307/733-5335), Skinny Skis (307/733-6094), and Wilson Backcountry Sports, (307/733-5228). JH

RESEARCHED BY CODY COTTIER THE BASICS

THE SCENE

SPECIAL SAUCE

INSIDER SCOOP

Expect crowds, but these usually thin out past the first mile of the groomed road; single-track trails on either side of the canyon are less crowded.

With burbling Cache Creek, “[This canyon] is gorgeous in the winter,” says Tim Farris, BridgerTeton National Forest Jackson Ranger District trail supervisor.

Beware of dog poop—Cache Creek is among the most popular spots in the valley for dog walking.

Cache Creek East Jackson More than thirty miles of trails, about five miles of which are groomed twice weekly for Nordic skiing; about ten miles of trails are groomed for fat biking. No rentals.

Bradley/Taggart Lakes Grand Teton National Park $10 park entrance fee; classic and skate tracks, and a walking/ snowshoeing lane are groomed for fourteen miles; no rentals on site.

The groomed road is flat.

Snowshoers and adventerous skiers head for Bradley and Taggart Lakes on user-made trails.

Umm, have you seen the Tetons? Go ahead and ski or snowshoe This track winds right along their across Bradley, Taggart, or Jenny Lakes; you might get to hear the base. thick ice below you “moaning.”

Trails wind around what, in summer, is a golf course. Cody Downard of Teton Pines’ Nordic Center says it’s “a very safe learning environment.”

Excellent Nordic instructors, a clubhouse that serves one of the best lunches in the valley, and, often, a couple of resident moose stalking the grounds.

Locals agree that the Pines’ restaurant has one of the valley’s best happy hours: 4-6 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday. The burgers are delicious.

Trails here were designed by Hans and Nancy Johnstone, who both competed in the 1992 Olympics.

The goal was to have trails of every level. They succeeded.

Turpin Meadow is Jackson Hole’s first destination Nordic resort and its historic main lodge serves lunch to nonguests and has a fire roaring all winter long.

It’s worth splurging on one of the cozy cabins here for a night or two.

Trail Creek has both strenuous uphills and screaming descents.

“It’s a very challenging set of trails,” says Brian Krill of the Jackson Hole Ski & Snowboard Club.

Founded by Olympic downhill skier (1936 Games) Betty Woolsey, Trail Creek is today where local junior racers train.

The public is welcome too.

That kid that flew past you on the last uphill? You might see her in the Olympics one day.

On the western side of the Tetons, Targhee is a nice day trip from Jackson Hole; it’s less than a ninety-minute drive, but its low-key vibe feels a world away.

Call it “the ’Ghee.”

Teton Pines Teton Village Road Day passes are $10; season passes are $200; ten miles of classic and skate tracks are groomed daily; rentals and lessons available on site.

Turpin Meadow Ranch Buffalo Valley Day passes are $15 and give you access to twelve miles of classic and skate tracks groomed daily, and to dedicated fat bike trails.

Rentals available.

Trail Creek Wilson $15 for a day pass or $250 for a season pass; ten miles of classic and skate tracks are groomed daily.

Grand Targhee Ski Resort Alta $15 for a day pass; $159 for a season pass; nine miles of Nordic trails and seven miles of trails for fat bikes; rentals available 24

JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE WINTER 2019

Trails are all levels. There are easy loops close to the Nordic Center; deeper in, trails head up steep slopes.

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JH Living

PIQUED

1 / HOT HANDS Every season our search for the perfect everyday backcountry touring glove starts anew. And every season we find a glove we like, but that we’d need to tweak just a few details of to make perfect.

This season there’s no tweaking necessary on Mammut’s Stoney Advanced Gloves. A bonus is that the glove, which has waterrepellent goat leather on its palm and back, is great for skiing the lifts too, thanks to just enough synthetic fiber filling. $115, Available at Skinny Skis, 65 W. Deloney Ave., us.mammut.com

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2 / LIGHT IS RIGHT We’ve long dreamt of a jacket with the warmth of down but without down’s puff. And we’ve long realized the likelihood of such a piece existing is about equal to the likelihood of a unicorn prancing around the Town Square in fringed chaps. But, Eddie Bauer. The company’s new BC EverTherm jacket pairs a revolutionary new fabric (Thindown®) that replaces traditional, high-loft down clusters with ultrathin down sheets, with a waterproof, breathable Pertex shell. So you get the warmth of down without the puff, and you get waterproofness. It’s all we can do to keep our heads from exploding. $499, Available at Eddie Bauer, 55 S. Cache St., eddiebauer.com

3 / SAFE AND STYLISH It’s hard to make a helmet sexy, but, with its new Obex SPIN model, POC has done it. Slimmer in profile than previous POC helmets, the Obex SPIN (Shearing Pad Inside) incorporates a patent-pending series of silicone gel pads sewn into the helmet’s liner that shear in any direction to dissipate energy. The end result is a lightweight, all-mountain/freeride helmet that offers enhanced oblique impact protection and is comfortable enough to wear all day. $200, Available at Snow King Mountain Sports, 400 E. Snow King Ave., pocsports.com

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4 / THE PERFECT TRAVEL BAGS

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You’d think the fact that the waterproofness of Eagle Creek’s new Wayfinder collection of travel backpacks and waist packs comes from recycled polyvinyl butyral (PVB) resin (the stuff that keeps auto glass from shattering) would be the coolest thing about it. You’re wrong. Whether you opt for the Wayfinder’s 20-, 30-, or 40-liter pack, you’ll find intuitive and versatile organizational compartments. From $79, Available at JD High Country Outfitters, 50 E. Broadway, eaglecreek.com

5 / CLEAR OUT YOUR CLOSET

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JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE WINTER 2019

The first pant we’ve found that is equally at home Nordic skiing, backcountry touring, ice climbing, and ski mountaineering— Mammut’s Base Jump Touring Pant—is available in men’s and women’s specific fits. (Thanks in part to its brushed reverse interior, it’s even great for lift skiing on all but the coldest days.)

Its Schoeller FTC 3XDRY shell is as water-resistant as it is abrasion-resistant and dries faster than a wet poodle with its head out the passenger seat window. Meshed side vents help keep you cool when you’re working hard and integrated gaiters keep snow out. $275, Available at Teton Mountaineering, 170 N. Cache St., us.mammut.com

JH Living

PIQUED

6 / TAKE A BREAK FROM BEING HARDCORE

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Yeah, we know you drop bigger cliffs, climb harder, and run faster than most everyone else in town. Still, you’ve got to take a break from rad-ness at some point, right? But even if you’d rather not relax, Stio’s new Gannett Peak Pants (available for men and women) will likely inspire you to. Made from techy Karushi fleece—a 100 percent polyester, lightweight, breathable, and stretchy fabric that is abrasion-resistant and doesn’t pill—the pants have a gusseted inseam, articulated knees, and a modern silhouette that looks as good at the coffee shop as on the couch.

Women can up the coziness factor by layering on the brand’s new Skycrest Insulated Snap Skirt, which pairs durable synthetic down insulation and a mini-ripstop outer fabric treated with a DRW finish. $149 (pant) $159 (skirt), Available at Stio Mountain Studio, 10 E. Broadway Ave., stio.com

7 / PACK IT IN Confession: The first time we tested Gregory’s Targhee 32 backcountry touring pack, which was several years ago, we didn’t love it. Testing it this time around, we don’t know what the heck we were thinking: Maybe we didn’t like it because it was too perfect? Able to carry skis in an A-Frame shape or diagonally, the Targhee 32 is just the right size for everything you need for a day in the backcountry, and a full-length back panel opening allows for easy access to it all. There’s a dedicated pocket to hold your avy gear and Gregory even thought to create an insulated shoulder harness for your hydration bladder’s hose. $189, Available at Skinny Skis, 65 W. Deloney, Gregorypacks.com

8 / ONE BOOT TO RULE THEM ALL

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Scarpa didn’t have to change a thing with its Gea (women’s) and Maestrale (men’s) alpine touring (AT) boots. They’re the bestselling AT boots in the world. But last winter they gave both models a significant upgrade, making each five ounces lighter than they had been and increasing stiffness and cuff range (from 37 degrees to 60!). Thanks to a carbon fiber-infused Grilamid Web Frame shell and a Grilamid cuff, the Maestrale RS has a 130 flex and the Gea RS a 120 flex. To transition from touring mode to ski mode, Scarpa added the patent-pending Wave Closure System, which uses a Z-shaped cable linked to a single buckle while still offering the fit adjustment of a two-buckle closure. $795, Available at Wilson Backcountry Sports, 1230 Ida Dr., scarpa.com

9 / EMBRACE THE SPACE

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JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE WINTER 2019

We weren’t so sure about Altra’s Lone Peak 4 RSM the first few times we took them out for a run. The toe box borders on clownishly large. And then we realized we just had to tighten the shoes’ laces more. On both ascents and descents, our toes were so happy to have room to relax and spread out, and we felt more stable for it. Other things we love? The shoe’s zero drop platform, which encourages low-impact form, the claw-like traction of its sticky rubber, rugged outsole, and its eVent upper, which is the most waterproof and breathable material for winter and spring running. It’s no surprise this shoe is a fav with many of the country’s winningest ultrarunners. $150, Available at Skinny Skis, 65 W. Deloney Ave., altrarunning.com

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Doug Herrick Owner / Associate Broker 307.413.8899 dherrick@jhrealestate.com www.bhhsjacksonhole.com

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138 N. Cache St., P.O. Box 4489, Jackson, WY 83001 Š2018 BHH Affiliates, LLC. Real Estate Brokerage Services are offered through the network member franchises of BHH Affiliates, LLC. Most Franchisees are independently owned and operated. Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices and the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices symbol are registered service marks of HomeServices of America, Inc. Ž Information not verified or guaranteed. If your property is currently listed with a Broker, this is not intended as a solicitation.

JH Living

LOCALS

Wolfi Gensch WHEN WOLFI GENSCH was seven years old, his mom, Sarah, got a call from his ski coach. While the coaches were distracted tending to a kid who had tomahawked down the iconic Corbet’s Couloir run at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort (JHMR), the secondgrader had himself dropped into the line, generally considered to be the most difficult in-bounds ski run at any North American resort. Sarah says this was when she realized that she needed to let go of her fears about Wolfi playing in their extended front yard: The Genschs live in the JHMR employee condos across the parking lot from the Aerial Tram. Wolfi, the son of a snowcat driver and grandson of one the longest tenured ski instructors at Aspen Mountain, was born with only one functioning kidney (and the one he has doesn’t fully compensate for the one he’s missing as is usually the case in people with one kidney). Now 11, he’s restricted from playing contact sports but skied 75 days last season, including backcountry runs on Teton Pass and out-of-bounds at JHMR. Then he also did a summer glacier race camp at Mt. Hood. This winter, Wolfi has his eye on Four Shadows, a steep line on Cody Peak in the backcountry south of JHMR.FROM 30

JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE WINTER 2019

QA

RYAN DORGAN

Q. Is Wolfi your real name? Where did it come from?

A. My real name is Henry Wolf Gensch.

My grandpa was named Wolf. So everyone calls me Wolfi.

Q. Other than not being able to play contact sports, does your kidney slow you down?

A. The doctor said I should be playing golf and music, but I’m skiing and mountain biking, so I don’t think so. I wear a special Zoombang rodeo vest thing that he gave me. Also, I don’t think my doctor realizes what we mean when we say “downhill mountain biking.” I think he thinks it’s more of a [mellow] crosscountry thing.

SPACKMANS & ASSOCIATES

Q. Do you think about your kidney when you’re out skiing or biking?

A. I kind of do but no, not really. I more just ski and bike and don’t worry about that as much.

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Q. What do you think about?

A. I think about doing good and not looking like I don’t know how to ski. With biking it’s more like lean the bike in the turn and lean my body downhill.

Q. What do you think your mom is thinking about?

A. I think she’s thinking, “Oh my gosh please don’t get hurt, please don’t get hurt, please don’t get hurt.”

Q. Do you ever go out grooming with your dad?

A. Yes. I drove the snowcat last year. Two years ago I was able to go in the Leitwolf.

It’s such a big cat. Its 4 feet longer than the BR 350. I helped put on the winch (a retractable line that tethers the cat to the top of a steep slope).

Q. Is your dad going to get in trouble if his boss reads that?

A. No they’ve all seen me drive.

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Q. Do you remember your first time in a snowcat?

A. The first time was when I was like a couple of months old. I just slept. Now it’s really fun because you are able to see the mountain from a different perspective.

Most people aren’t really able to be up in the middle of the night with almost no one around just looking down at all the lights of the Village. When it’s New Years, I go up with my dad and watch the fireworks.

Q. Do kids try to get you to join into sports you shouldn’t do when you’re at school?

A. Football is a sport that I wouldn’t have

ever been into. If they ask me to play at recess now its easy. I can just be like, “No.” It is kind of good and bad to have one kidney if they ask me to do stuff I don’t like so they don’t say that’s not cool that I don’t like football.

SKI-IN/SKI-OUT AT GRANITE RIDGE

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With three unique levels that have intimate gathering spaces like a game room, a theater, a bunk room and skier’s lounge and more, the home ultimately unites to create an all-seasons haven. MLS# 16-1978.

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WWW.SPACKMANSINJH.COM SPACKMANS@JHSIR.COM 307.739.8156

INTERVIEW BY BY JULIE FUSTANIO KLING

WINTER 2019 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE

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JH Living

LOCALS

Angus Thuermer Jr. ANGUS THUERMER JR. arrived in Jackson Hole in 1974 to climb. “I stayed at the [Grand Teton] Climbers’ Ranch and when I ran out of money, I washed dishes at the Silver Spur and made beds at The Virginian,” he says. For four years, Thuermer was a climbing bum, migrating between the Tetons, the Wind River Mountains, Alaska, and Yosemite. To make money, he spent winters working on oil rigs all around Wyoming— near Kemmerer, Evanston, Bridger Valley, and Casper. In 1978, right as Thuermer was fired from his oil rig there was an ad for a job as a pressman at the Jackson Hole News.

He applied, thinking it’d be fine for one winter. And then the following spring, a reporting job opened up. “Both of my parents had worked for the AP [Associated Press] so that was a little intriguing and All the President’s Men was one of my favorite books at the time, so it sounded like a cool thing to do—and the job was asking questions on the part of the public,” says Thuermer, who had majored in English and wrote for the paper at Yale University. In the 1980s he was named the paper’s managing editor, and was its editor in chief by the early 1990s. Thuermer served as the latter until 2014, when he left to join WyoFile, a nonprofit that does in-depth, online reporting around the state (WyoFile.com), as its natural resources reporter.

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JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE WINTER 2019

QA

PHOTO CREDIT BRADLY J. BONER

Q: Was leaving the newspaper a difficult decision?

A: It was time for some other people to make the decisions about how to run the newspaper in this town. Plus WyoFile was an opportunity to do some reporting on a statewide scale that we couldn’t do at the News&Guide because we were restricted by county boundaries. It was a chance to paint on a bigger canvas.

Q: What are the big issues affecting the state that you’re reporting on now?

A: Drilling, water, and sage grouse. Coal’s fate has been decided. It will continue to be important to Wyoming, but we’re not going to have another coal boom. But natural gas, that’s growing and it’s pretty invasive and it’s going to run over sage

grouse. And water—Wyoming is trying to figure out how to keep its share of water of the Colorado River drainage, but it doesn’t quite know yet how to develop it.

Q: What were some of the biggest local issues you reported on at the paper?

A: The fires of 1988 were a big deal—the debate about natural fire regime versus fighting fires. In the end they spent $100 million and brought in the National Guard, and it didn’t make a whit of difference. One September day it snowed, and that was the end of it.

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Q: Other things?

A: I was always interested in mountaineering and skiing news including rescues and avalanches. I knew enough about the mechanics to be able talk to the people involved and then to explain the circumstances to a larger audience with the hope that people could learn from others’ mistakes.

Q: Do you think your reporting made a difference?

A: I don’t know how much I had to do with it, but I think people are generally much more sensible and aware these days. There are also now institutionalized efforts to help people make better decisions in the backcountry like [Teton County Search & Rescue’s] Backcountry Zero.

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Q: It was climbing that first brought you to the Tetons. When did you start backcountry skiing here?

A: About 1977. As editor, I’d take a lunch line—I’d leave at 11:30 and be back at 1:30.

Q: How much did you ski Teton Pass last winter?

A: Not enough.

Q: Did you realize when you took the pressman job that that was the end of your days as a climbing bum?

A: I didn’t think it would end, and it didn’t absolutely in the beginning. I got a month off to go to Alaska to climb some absurd peak, but eventually the responsibility became too big to take that time off.

Q: Are there still climbs out there that you wish you had done?

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INTERVIEW BY DINA MISHEV

WINTER 2019 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE

33

JH Living

LOCALS

Mary Kate Buckley MARY KATE BUCKLEY, who started her new job as president of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort (JHMR) this past June, first skied at the resort in 1985. Since that first trip, Buckley, who grew up in a nonskiing family in southern Connecticut, has returned to ski JHMR every winter but two. “Even when I was based in Paris or Hong Kong, I made sure to come back,” says the former Disney and Nike executive. In 2005, she finally bought a home in Teton Village. “I realized that every time I came here I was sad to leave,” she says, adding, “I wish I had bought something in 1985.” As big of a step as this was, the year prior Buckley had bought something even bigger: a sheep pasture on Tuscany’s Etruscan Coast. Her plan? To work with master Italian ski boot maker Roberto Cristoforetti to turn the land into a vineyard and winery; Azienda Agricola Urlari released its first vintage (2008) in 2010. Although spending significant time getting Urlari up and running, in 2013 and 2016 Buckley was a member of the 100 Club, a group that recognizes skiers and snowboarders who ski 100 days at JHMR in a single season.

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JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE WINTER 2019

QA

RYAN DORGAN

Q. What’s harder: getting a vineyard and winery going or skiing 100 days at JHMR? A. Both were pursuits of passion and so worth the challenge. I’m proud of both, [but] I’d say founding an award-winning winery edges out the 100-day feat simply because of how much longer it took— ten-plus years versus one hundred days!

[Also], creating [Urlari] required learning a new set of skills including Italian, wine making, and wine marketing/distribution.

Q. Do you have a favorite run?

A. On a great day, it would be Ten Sleep over to Expert Chutes then cut over to the bottom half of Toilet Bowl, over to Raymer Plots and just keep going.

Q. Have you skied Corbet’s?

A. I think you have to.

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Q. And? A. It wasn’t pretty, but I liked the challenge of pushing myself over the edge at the top.

Q. It seems you like challenges in general?

A. All of my favorite business experiences have had huge learning curves.

Q. And the position of president of JHMR is no exception?

A. I haven’t run a ski resort, but I have

Audrey L. Williams

been on the board for four years and have run a lot of businesses with emotional brand attachment—Disney and Nike have really strong cultures that employees and consumers identify with, just like [JHMR] does. The team on the ground here is running the mountain. They don’t need me, or anyone, coming in from the outside to tell them what they’re doing.

Q. How’d you come to found a winery with an Italian who made custom ski boots for World Cup racers for 43 years?

A. We met skiing in Portillo, Chile. I was the Regional Vice President and General Manager for Nike’s Americas Region at that point, and we started talking about athletic footwear. His family has a history of farming. Later we talked about wine. I was still working at Nike when we bought and planted the field. I got transferred to Amsterdam with Nike so I could be closer to it.

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Q. How have the wines turned out?

A. Last year we were recognized as Tuscan Winery of the Year in the New York International Wine Competition and our SuperTuscan blend, Pervale, earned a “Double Gold” from a panel of top wine critics.

Q. What do you think is more remarkable: that you’re one of the few women at the helm of a major North American ski resort or that you’re a co-founder of a winery in Italy?

A. I love that when you look at a label of Urlari it says, “Imported to Teton Village, Wyoming.” It’s the only Italian wine imported here. I feel like I got the [JHMR job] on my merits. [They] weren’t looking to put a woman in this job.

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185 W. Broadway

Jackson Hole, WY

INTERVIEW BY DINA MISHEV

WINTER 2019 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE

35

JH Living

ON THE JOB

A Winterkeeper’s Wild World

The manager of Granite Hot Springs lives a life of isolation, minus six busy hours every day.

BY MIKE KOSHMRL // PHOTOGRAPHY BY AMBER BAESLER 36

JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE WINTER 2019

JEREMY HUNN IS foggy headed. A pesky pine marten kept him up much of the night.

The sleek, weasel-like pine forest dwellers are a rare treat for most people to see in the wild, but Hunn’s relationship with them is well past the honeymoon phase. “They’re called the cutest assassins,” Hunn says. In the very early hours of the March day I visit him, one of these assassins had been noisily rummaging through bags full of towels and cans left on a deck of the two-floor Granite Hot Springs cabin. Its mischief was repeated and repeated, and happening just feet

AMBER BAESLER

THIS IS A SOLO GIG THAT BRINGS JEREMY HUNN TO A SPECIAL PLACE NESTLED ALONG A SCENIC MOUNTAIN STREAM AT THE SOUTHERN FOOT OF THE GROS VENTRE RANGE. HE’S THERE EVERY OTHER WEEK, THROUGHOUT THE WINTER, LIVING A LIFE HE “NEVER WOULD HAVE IMAGINED.” away from where Hunn was trying to sleep. “I’d scare him off, and go back to sleep,” he says. “Then he’d come back every half an hour. He did that from midnight until 3 in the morning. I finally got him out of there, or I was so out of it I just slept through.”

As Hunn speaks, tourists stewing in the 108(ish) degree Fahrenheit geothermally heated, Civilian Conservation Corps-built hot pool inch their way toward another marten. It scampers into a fissure in the snowpack that surrounds much of the pool, and then quickly takes off. Only a few minutes lapse before another species of mischievous wildlife catches Hunn’s eye. “Who has the yellow backpack down there?” he calls down to a family enjoying the pool. A raven has opened this pack up and, perched atop it, is enjoying eating some of the spinach

As caretaker of Granite Hot Springs, Jeremy Hunn lives at the historic natural hot pool and empties and cleans the pool every night.

WINTER 2019 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE

37

Hunn drains, sanitizes, and scrubs the bottom of the pool.

salad formerly hidden inside the bag. Hunn sends the raven ple-pleasing for six-plus straight hours. Being the sole employskyward by simply reaching for a snowball—he doesn’t even ee on premises, he’s a one-stop shop for customer service— need to throw it. Both the 27-year-old winterkeeper and the playing cashier, cleaning changing rooms, and making sure raven have played this game before. people respect the rules, like no alcohol. On a typical winter Dealing with martens and ravens are an aside of Hunn’s job, weekday, this is a manageable job, because there are perhaps of course. For the past five winters, his professional duties are to only about twenty guests a day. On bluebird weekend days keep up and manage the historic Granite Hot Springs pool. This though, the crowd can swell to around one hundred. On the is a solo gig that brings him to a special place busiest of holidays, it’s total mayhem; Hunn nestled along a scenic mountain stream at the says 250-people days aren’t unheard of. southern foot of the Gros Ventre Range. He’s And then there are the days when Hunn BEING THE SOLE EMPLOYEE there every other week, throughout the wingets few guests. Avalanches that sweep over ON PREMISES, HE’S A ter, living a life he “never would have imagthe highway and close down the Hoback ONE-STOP SHOP FOR ined.” (He relocated to the area from the Canyon have kept guests out for days at a Central Valley of California.) Hunn’s grandtime. There’s also the potential for huge CUSTOMER SERVICE— father, Steve, owns the company Aud and Di amounts of snowfalls that deter people from PLAYING CASHIER, Campground Services that won the contract making the 10-mile oversnow trek. In the big CLEANING CHANGING for managing campgrounds in the Bridgerwinter of 2016-17, a snow gauge near ROOMS, AND MAKING SURE Teton National Forest. Part of the package is Granite Hot Springs logged 800 inches, this commercial hot springs 34 miles from Hunn says, and there were times when 4-foot PEOPLE RESPECT THE Jackson’s Town Square. In summer, you can dumps kept people away for days. Hunn enRULES, LIKE NO ALCOHOL. drive all 34 of these miles—the last 10 miles joys these days, and says that sometimes the are a gravel road—but, come winter, these isolation gets truly isolating. “When I’m up last 10 miles are not plowed. The road is snowpacked and here, I’m up here all the time,” he says. “There’s no chance to groomed, making Granite Hot Springs accessible only via skis, leave.” In his seven days off, Hunn lives in Alpine. snowmobiles, or on the back of one of Frank Teasley’s many dog There are a few old-timers with bad backs who routinely sleds (book the last via Jackson Hole Iditarod Sled Dogs Tours). visit the hot springs to soak, but otherwise the majority of Hunn’s guests are tourists that fly into Jackson Hole, mixed HUNN’S WINTERKEEPER ROUTINE starts in the early with Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah residents who drive to the morning, when he rises to shovel snow and ready the site and area. Occasionally, local celebrities make an appearance. “Travis springs for visitors. Once guests arrive, he transitions to peo- Rice, for one of his snowboard videos, once rode down the 38

JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE WINTER 2019

WE ARE THE ONES WHO KEEP JACKSON HOLE WILD. Let’s follow in the footsteps of locals and friends of Jackson Hole who have always been champions of the land — a tradition that made this town the birthplace of America’s first national park.

WE ARE WHAT MAKES JACKSON THE LAST REAL MOUNTAIN TOWN. We embrace the culture, the heritage and the spirit of the West.

We strive to protect its legacy.

WE ARE THE EMBODIMENT OF BALANCE BETWEEN PEOPLE AND NATURE. Our lives are intertwined with the land and wildlife that surround us.

We respect the ecosystem of which we are a part.

WE ARE THE MASTERS OF OUR NATURAL RESOURCES. Our everyday consumption habits have an impact on the world around us.

We leave no trace at all times and seek ways to reduce consumption, to reuse and to recycle.

WE ARE THE FABRIC OF OUR COMMUNITY. The strength of our community connections makes Jackson Hole special.

We invest in our community by buying local, buying green and being of service.

Jackson is a gateway to something more than ourselves.

It’s on us to protect and preserve it.

Learn more at visitjacksonhole.com/sustainability.

Caretaker Jeremy Hunn snowmobiles out a load of trash at the end of the work day.

pillow-tops and landed in the pool,” Hunn says. (Rice is a Jackson-born professional snowboarder who was named the best contemporary snowboarder in the world by Red Bull in 2013.)

GRANITE HOT SPRINGS has a rich and deep history. Manipulation of the flow to form the pool dates to a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) project more than eighty years ago. One longtime winterkeep was Hoback resident and outfitter Gap Pucci, who chronicled his decades managing the pool in his 2011 book, We Married Adventure. Hot springs enthusiasts with little interest in the official hours of operation were a major problem back in the day. “One night about 80 hippies descended on the springs and what could we do?” Pucci wrote. “We tried calling the sheriff after driving 20 miles and no one showed.”

Though Hunn has at times dealt with similar overeager soakers, his best line of defense happens after the last paid customers leave for the day. He cranks a valve lefty-loosy on a headgate that sends thousands of gallons roaring into a gully that feeds into nearby Granite Creek. Fifteen minutes later, the pool is empty, and it remains in a partially full state for the next twelve hours. (It is fully filled again only a few hours before the next day’s guests arrive.) This tactic clears out debris and bacteria, dissuades pool poachers, and ensures the water is as hot as possible (temperatures vary by season, peaking near 110 degrees in the winter).

ON THE MARCH day I visit, the last of the hot-potting guests depart right at closing, 5 p.m. Silence and running water replace the banter of families and screams of

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JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE WINTER 2019

180 east deloney jackson • wyoming

307.203.7856 workshopjh.com

kids. With guests gone, whether because the pool or roads are closed, Hunn’s animal friends keep things interesting.

Once, while snowmobiling out with his dad, he came around a corner and startled a raptor that had a red squirrel clenched in its talons. “I scared [the raptor], and he dropped [the squirrel].”

Hunn says. The squirrel free-fell out of the sky. “It was unbelievable. He didn’t kill it, and it ran off.”

Then there are the ornery moose that don’t want to leave the ease of travel offered by the snowpacked road and nearby trails, no matter how many skiers, dog sleds, or snowmobiles they’re holding up. And, of course there are the misbehaving martens, which at times were so numerous that Hunn live-trapped and relocated them (to a spot down the road, away from his sleeping quarters). Hunn says there probably aren’t many jobs with responsibilities like his. JH WINTER 2019 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE

41

JH Living

BUSINESS

Cents of Place

Inspired by this valley, these local businesses have expanded well beyond it.

BY DINA MISHEV

JACKSON HOLE IS RECOGNIZED around the country as a premier vacation destination, but not so much as a premier place to do business. Some seasons it seems restaurants and shops come and go with the rapidity of a fresh hatch on the Snake River.

Wannabe workers sometimes can’t find (or afford) housing. Employers complain that workers disappear on powder days. But, for the right companies, there’s no place other than Jackson that they could have gotten their start.

JO SAVAGE

DMOS

DMOS DMOS: “‘Do My Own S___’—we never finalized it,” says Harvard Business School alumna and former financial consultant Susan Pieper. In 2015, Pieper founded DMOS Collective, which makes lightweight shovels (some with serrated teeth for breaking up ice and compacted snow) with collapsible handles out of aircraft-grade aluminum alloy. Stuff? Shoveling? S&!% ?

Whatever consumers decide the “S” in DMOS stands for, they’re in agreement that these shovels are unlike anything on the market. In Silicon Valley parlance, where Pieper (in January 2018) secured Series-A investment from global investment firm Astia Angels, DMOS is disrupting America’s hardware industry. Prior to Astia’s investment, Pieper launched two Kickstarter campaigns. The first (in October 2015) raised 42

JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE WINTER 2019

$37,000, which exceeded Pieper’s goal by more than 80 percent; the second (started in December 2016) raised $205,000—more than 1,300 percent of its goal. Now DMOS Collective makes six different models of shovels that are sold on its own website and also at REI, Duluth Trading Company, Backcountry.com, Sportsman’s Warehouse, Moosejaw, and Huckberry. Articles in publications from Forbes to Men’s Journal say the shovels are “gear you can stake your life on.”

Pieper is the first to say that DMOS would not exist had she not moved to Jackson in 2012 with her son and now-ex-husband. She got the idea for a heavy duty, lightweight shovel while watching her snowboarding son, Steven Bailey, break shovel after shovel as he and friends built snow ramps and jumps in her East Jackson backyard. “I saw that lawn and garden

tools were generic and dumbed down,” she says.

While DMOS’ original market was backcountry snowboarders and skiers—“The idea was that snowboarders would take it into the backcountry with them to build jumps,” Pieper says—she quickly realized the shovels had much wider appeal.

Today DMOS customers include firefighters, disaster cleanup crews, ski patrols, rescue teams, and even the military. Also, “It’s become the shovel that every winter driver should have in their car,” Pieper says. “DMOS gives you the tools you need to get unstuck. It makes shovels essential emergency gear.”

DMOS isn’t the only success story to come out of Steven’s backyard terrain parks: He’s now ranked sixth in the International Freeskiing and Snowboarding Association men’s 15-18 big mountain snowboarding league.

KATE’S REAL FOOD

available in stores in forty-six states and annual sales exceed $1 million. “Despite all the changes and the new name, the roots of the company haven’t changed at all,” Schade says. “Change happens, but not with our roots or our recipes.”

“To be honest, when I first started making the bars, I was just choosing ingredients I liked and that were of a high quality,” says Schade. “It was after I had a bar that I liked the taste of that I realized I had come up with something that had quickburning carbs, slow-burning carbs, fats, and protein and could really sustain me when I went out on adventures. They are the perfect food for mountain towns and mountain adventures.”

Although Kate’s Real Food bars are now available across the country, Schade says she regularly gets emails from people who only discover them while vacationing in Jackson. “They’ll send me an email after they’ve gone home and then they notice the bars in a store there,” she says. “They’ll write that the bars remind them of their experience in Jackson Hole. These kinds of emails make my day.”

STIO

COURTESY PHOTO

KATE’S REAL FOOD In the early 2000s, if you were a diner at Nora’s Fish Creek Inn at the base of Teton Pass and got Kate Schade as your waitress, you might get a hand-rolled energy bar left with your bill.

Schade, who moved to the valley in 1993 to ski as much as possible, worked part-time at Nora’s. In her own kitchen, she concocted calorie-rich energy bars to get her through long ski days.

Schade called her bars, which included oats, honey, peanut butter, milk chocolate, brown rice crisps, dried apricots, raisins, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, and sea salt, Tram Bars, because, well, she most often found herself eating them in the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort (JHMR) Aerial Tram line.

In 2007, after more than a decade of passing Tram Bars out to friends, Schade graduated to selling them in local stores like Teton Mountaineering and Jackson Whole Grocer. In 2010, with the idea of growing the company even more, she took on an investment partner and Tram Bars LLC was formed. At that time, you could find Tram Bars (and newer flavors like the Grizzly Bar) in stores in about twenty states; annual sales were about $100,000. By 2014, Kate’s bars were available in about thirty states, and annual sales had grown to about $700,000.

Today, Tram Bars LLC has changed its name to Kate’s Real Food and manufactures six different flavors of bars, all of which are organic and still handmade in Victor, Idaho. They’re

RYAN DORGAN

STIO Stio launched its first product line in 2012. Founded by outdoor apparel veteran Stephen “Sulli” Sullivan, Stio’s goal from that very first collection was to capture the essence of Jackson Hole’s lifestyle in every piece of its clothing. “From top to bottom, concept to finished product, the entire company is fueled by a desire to remain authentic to the Jackson Hole lifestyle— an existence epitomized by adventure, conservation, and, of course, fun,” says Sulli, who prior to founding Stio founded the outdoor clothing company Cloudveil with Brian Cousins.

Chief product officer Kelly Hill Shuptrine is more direct: “Stio wouldn’t exist without Jackson,” she says. “That is our key differentiator. From a product point of view we are in the mountains and making products for people who want to be in the mountains. That’s very different from being in a metro area and creating products for the outdoor window syndrome.”

Shuptrine, who previously worked at Cloudveil and has been with Stio since 2012, says Stio infuses the Jackson Hole environment in “everything we do.” Influences from the Jackson Hole landscape and environment might inspire a particular print, or the clear blues seen in the sky here might be the perfect shade for a T-shirt. “The brand is all about Jackson Hole and our lifestyle here,” Sulli says.

WINTER 2019 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE

43

IGNEOUS

WYOMING WHISKEY

Today Igneous Skis is called the “godfather of the independent ski movement.” But the company, based out of a nondescript workshop in an industrial neighborhood in West Jackson, didn’t start out with a grand plan to launch a movement. Adam Sherman and Mike Parris just wanted skis that could last a full season skiing Jackson Hole. “Igneous wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for Jackson; we started making skis because the skis that were commercially available couldn’t stand up to the terrain and conditions that we skied and rode here,” says Parris, who began making skis with Sherman in the late 1990s, became a partner in 2000, and bought the business outright in 2007 when Sherman moved to the East Coast for other job opportunities.

“We were breaking skis all the time.”

Leave it to three Jackson Hole attorneys to found Wyoming’s first legal distillery and then make the state’s first whiskey suitable for anything other than starting campfires. Wyoming Whiskey, which has its administrative offices in Jackson, a production facility in Kirby, Wyoming, and gets its non-GMO grain from Byron, Wyoming, was incorporated in 2006 and released its first batch of whiskey in December 2012. This past summer, the company entered into a “strategic partnership” with Edrington, an international premium spirits company that owns Macallan, Highland Park, Glenrothes, Cutty Sark, and The Famous Grouse.

“When we were starting out we weren’t thinking about partnering with an international company,” says David

WYOMING WHISKEY

ANGUS THUERMER JR.

RYAN DORGAN

IGNEOUS Sherman founded Igneous on his own, and made his first pair of skis in 1994. Then he started making skis for friends and friends of friends, and Parris came on board. There was a brief period in the early 2000s when Igneous ramped production up to as many as 400 pairs a year, but Sherman and Parris quickly scaled back to around 100 pairs. “That keeps it manageable,” Parris says. “I like to get to know each client individually.”

Ideally, Parris will take a run or two with every Igneous client, too. Parris likes skiing with Igneous clients because he’s not just making skis that can handle the unique demands of skiing in Jackson Hole, but that also meet specifications determined by the person skiing them.

Every pair of Igneous skis is custom and starts with a discussion with the client. “We talk about how and where and why they ski, what terrain and conditions they like, what skis they’ve had in the past, their experience skiing, how many days they ski, the boots and bindings they use, and where they want to go with skiing,” Parris says. It’s no wonder Igneous skis have been called “the Ferraris of skis.”

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JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE WINTER 2019

DeFazio, one of Wyoming Whiskey’s three lawyer-founders and its chief operating officer. “And now that we have, we’re not going anywhere. Wyoming Whiskey will still run Wyoming Whiskey. Edrington has no desire to change the way we make our whiskey other than offer insight into ways to make subtle refinements, and to expose it to more markets.”

On its own, Wyoming Whiskey grew its distribution to thirty-two states. The new partnership with Edrington will result in distribution of the brand in all fifty states, with international distribution on the horizon.

DeFazio and Wyoming Whiskey’s other founders, husbandand-wife cattle ranchers Brad and Kate Mead, credit Jackson Hole and Wyoming for the growth they were able to achieve on their own. “Jackson Hole’s tourism helped: When you have three to four million visitors coming through an area, it can help a brand grow,” says Brad Mead. “People come to Jackson, bring back a bottle as a special memory of their vacation, and then, drinking it back home, see that it is outstanding and turn friends on to it.”

Mead adds that the state of Wyoming helped the brand grow, too. “I think the liquor division of the state is our biggest customer,” he says. “At the very beginning, they took a chance on a new product. I don’t know that that would happen in other states.”

TETON GRAVITY RESEARCH Todd and Steve Jones, two of the four founders of Teton Gravity Research (TGR), could have been happy starring in Warren Miller Entertainment (WME) films, which they were first asked to do in 1994. Except, when the brothers tried to take the WME film crew to their favorite spots, they protested. “We were excited to show them the Jackson Hole playground, and we tried dragging them all around the backcountry,” Steve Jones says. “But that’s not what they wanted.” The next year the Joneses, Dirk Collins, and Corey Gavitt pooled money they had earned working on commercial fishing boats in Alaska, bought camera equipment, and, despite none of them having any experience making movies, shot one.

Released in 1996, The Continuum “showcases what was going on in skiing, and did it in a younger, fresher way,” Jones says. He says this was possible in large part due to “the athletes that were here, like Doug Coombs and Rick Armstrong. There was this collective of athletes [in Jackson Hole] that we wouldn’t have had the benefit of elsewhere.”

Today The Continuum is in the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Hall of Fame and Museum and TGR has released 38 other movies. Jones says he’s seen people wearing TGR’s branded lifestyle clothing—hats, T-shirts, sweatshirts—as far afield as the Maldives.

The company employs between forty and fifty people in its offices at the base of Teton Pass; has a retail shop on the Town Square (and soon also at the Jackson Hole Airport);

TETON GRAVITY RESEARCH BRADLY J. BONER

partners with JHMR for kid’s ski and snowboard camps; annually donates the proceeds from the Teton Village premiere of its latest movie to a local nonprofit; is in talks with several dozens of stores in China that want to carry their clothing; was named one of the 20 most influential companies in the outdoor industry by Outside magazine; and recently came out with a full-length feature on bipolar disorder and a short film about cancer.

“As we went along, we started to recognize that we wanted to transcend action sports and tell stories about broader issues that affect more people,” Jones says.

“Storytelling was always something that was important to us; the first statement that we wrote [when we were starting] was that we wanted to be the premier action sports brand in the world and we recognized that that wouldn’t just be daredevils and overly macho kind of stuff.”

Neither the bipolar film, Andy Irons: Kissed By God, nor the short, Mountain in the Hallway, is as far from TGR’s wheelhouse of action sports as it seems. The latter follows a former TGR employee and another Jackson resident as both men go through treatment for colorectal cancer and then try to climb the Grand Teton. The former is about three-time world champion surfer Andy Irons, who had bipolar disorder and died in 2010 from a heart attack brought on by opioid addiction. “The Andy Irons [project] is probably the highest level of filmmaking that we have achieved to date,” Jones says. He couldn’t share details, but says an HBO executive saw it and called to ask if the company would be interested in doing a documentary. “To me, that’s the next level of filmmaking,” Jones says. “And it all started in the Tetons.” JH WINTER 2019 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE

45

JH Living

DESIGN

Test out tiny living in one of Wheelhaus’s Wedge models at Fireside Resort on Teton Village Road.

WHEELHAUS

Tiny House,

Big Draw

Small homes are growing in popularity, even if Teton County isn’t always sure what to do with them.

BY JOOHEE MUROMCEW

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JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE WINTER 2019

Pat and Olivia Kearney share a 700-square-foot Victor, Idaho, home with their pup, Pete.

IT PROVED QUITE difficult to find tiny homes in Teton County that were not ARUs or in a resort. Architect Peggy Gilday, Principal at GYDE, designed a 400-square-foot home on Snow King Avenue, affectionately called the Hip Pocket Home: “It pushed the boundaries of living in town, and livability in a small space.” It made creative use of outdoor TWICC (twoway insulated composite cladding) tiling that maximizes interior-exterior airflow and looks really cool. Currently occupied by a young couple who both work in the restaurant trade, its wavy white exterior stands out against the shingled bungalows and more recent large-scale development in this neighborhood. Asked if they had to get rid of a lot of stuff to move in, one of the current residents smiled and said, “We didn’t have any stuff!”

COURTESY PHOTO

dence for a family who wanted to live the tiny home life—small, uncluttered, extremely efficient, and with minimal carbon footprint.

DAVID J SWIFT / GYDE ARCHITECTS

I BECAME FASCINATED by the tiny home trend whilst building a 10,000square-foot house. It was sort of like booking a lavish cruise when what you really crave is a quiet hike through the woods. We ultimately sold the house, though my tiny house love is still alive. I saw my first tiny house in 2005 in the San Francisco Bay Area at an art and innovation event called Maker Faire. Cute and made for cuddling, just like a teacup poodle, tiny houses seemed like a nice idea for people with more ideals than shoes. I had a lot of shoes back then. I was also obsessed with a 2012 design challenge offered by Graham Hill, founder of Treehugger, to inventively redesign his 420-square-foot SoHo studio in New York City. Every nook and cranny held a clever space-saving innovation and built-ins from Resource Furniture, like a long dining table that slid into the counter, a desk that folded into the wall, a long narrow cubby for a bicycle, and plug-in induction cooking plates that freed up the kitchen counter. The finale was both cringe- and envy-inducing—a sit-down dinner party for 12 very skinny friends. Most New Yorkers were unimpressed. Four hundred and twenty square feet can seem like a vast expanse to city dwellers.

In general, tiny homes are around 500 square feet or less. They are fully functioning homes and many arrive on a truck or trailer, ready to be hooked up to utilities. Others contain composting toilets or their own propane-fueled amenities. In researching this article, I had a number of attractive tiny homes in the valley in mind, though most owners asked not to be included because they were not zoned for it. I was also surprised how unwelcomed tiny homes are by neighbors and municipalities. Tiny homes elicit far different reactions than guesthouses or auxiliary residential units (ARUs) in that their affordability and mobility seems to spur fears of a trailer park or transient communities. I also tried to make the distinction between tiny homes intended as a vacation rental or second home versus the primary resi-

GYDE Architects designed the Hip Pocket Home—a 400-square-foot house near the base of Snow King Mountain.

IN GENERAL, TINY HOMES ARE AROUND 500 SQUARE FEET OR LESS. THEY ARE FULLY FUNCTIONING HOMES AND MANY ARRIVE ON A TRUCK OR TRAILER, READY TO BE HOOKED UP TO UTILITIES. Patrick Kearney, a former teacher at Teton Valley Community School, bought his small two-bedroom one-bath home in Victor with the intention to live in it year-round, though a move back east finds him and his wife, Olivia, and their dog, Pete, using it only in the summer.

Not technically a tiny home at 700 feet, it still exudes the tiny home ethos of space efficiency and a full embrace of indooroutdoor living. Generous patios, some of them semisheltered, extend the livability of the house, and a sleeping loft makes WINTER 2019 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE

47

PRICE CHAMBERS

WHEELHAUS

The Wedge offers 400 square feet of living space and comes “turn-key” ready—you just supply the furniture.

Jamie Mackay’s Fireside Resort on the Village Road offers a number of 400-square-foot tiny cabins for vacationers.

use of high ceilings. Spare furnishings, part of the tiny house living aesthetic, make the space seem more spacious.

The notion of downsizing and simplifying one’s life has broad appeal, increasingly beyond retirees and emptynesters. Steve Snyders, a publicist working with Jackson-based Wheelhaus, a manufacturer of tiny homes, sums it up for many buyers: “Instead of buying a McMansion, why not simplify your life and enjoy the outdoors?” Wheelhaus homes are most visible in the valley at the Fireside Resort on Teton Village Road. Both Wheelhaus and Fireside are owned by local Jamie Mackay, but the Wheelhaus homes have become popular with developers elsewhere in the country. A tiny house resort in Utah is in the works, and Wheelhaus recently shipped

THE NOTION OF DOWNSIZING AND SIMPLIFYING ONE’S LIFE HAS BROAD APPEAL, INCREASINGLY BEYOND RETIREES AND EMPTY-NESTERS. 20 duplex houses to Yellowstone. The units are admirably attractive with clean design, striking roof lines, a pared-down palette of colors and materials, and smartly efficient interiors.

“The architecture is beautiful,” says Dennis Meyer, a Wheelhaus owner living in Auburn, California. The permitting and hook-ups proved to be more challenging than anticipated, but actually living in the tiny home with his wife has been a pleasant surprise. Meyer’s wife loves to entertain, so they talk about how to do that differently, and with no neigh48

JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE WINTER 2019

bors in sight, they can fully appreciate all the oversized windows. They plan on building a big deck to extend their outdoor living space, and it helps that they “live a busy life.” Meyers and his wife are not fully retired, and he said their transition from a large 6,500-square-foot house to their tiny house required shedding half their possessions in an initial move to a guest house, then shedding another half to move into their tiny home. They also built a barn nearby to house cars and equipment. Initially, they saw the tiny house as a transition to building a larger home elsewhere on their property, with the tiny house turning into labor housing. For now, however, their home, set on 22 acres of future vineyards, is “amazingly comfortable.”

Wesley White, vice president of Wheelhaus, says the accessible price points, low environmental impact, and contemporary designs are appealing to millennials and retirees. They are seeing increasing interest in houses meant for off-grid living, which many see as the eventual evolution of tiny house living.

Tiny House Crafters in Vermont specializes in off-grid tiny homes. Their 8-footby-20-foot Evergreen model features an off-grid water cachement system, a composting toilet, and propane cooktop range. Details like corrugated metal roofs and cedar clapboards give these houses a great deal of nestable charm.

LOOKING TO DOWNSIZE into a tiny home? First, check your permitting and zoning. Second, check your permitting and zoning. Then, begin to trim down your possessions. Take an utterly ruthless approach to clothing, books, furniture, and kitchen clutter. Will you really make puff pastry in your new tiny home? Toss that old spatula that ruins your eggs. A great challenge in Jackson Hole is the amount of outdoor gear we’ve all accumulated. Take a haul to the Jackson Hole Ski & Snowboard Club’s ski swap, and think of creative storage solutions like wall hooks and outdoor storage trunks.

However, before you take anything to Browse ‘n Buy, read once more Marie Kondo’s seminal work, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Extra credit for reading it on your iPad. JH

P H O T O : D AV I D O . M A R L O W

w w w.m i ller- ro o dell. co m 406.551.6950

JacksonHole.TemplatewithSuggestions.ConfirmedJH2.indd 1

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Special Interest Feature

Peak Properties THE FACTOR THAT makes the Jackson Hole real estate market so unusual is the relative scarcity of private land. Ninety-seven percent of Teton County, Wyoming, is publicly owned—either national park, national forest, or wildlife refuge. This computes to just 75,000 privately held acres in a county spanning 2.5 million acres. The guaranteed open spaces and unobstructed views these surrounding public lands afford make the remaining private land a real treasure. Add the abundance of recreational opportunities found in and around the valley, and the quality of life one can enjoy in Jackson Hole is simply unbeatable.

Moreover, many of the properties featured here are secluded, scenic retreats located in the midst of prime wildlife habitat. Most existing and prospective property owners in Jackson Hole cherish this notion, and serve—or will serve—as stewards of nature.

One cannot put a dollar value on waking to the Teton skyline, skiing home for lunch, or listening to a trout stream gurgling through the backyard. In Jackson Hole, “living with nature” is not a fleeting, vicarious experience a person has while watching TV. Here it’s a fact of life, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

TETON SKYLINE

8,636

square feet

6

bedrooms

6

baths

7,950,000 dollars

18-2875 MLS#

50

STAR DANCER

Centrally located between Town of Jackson and Teton Village, with a private end-of-the-road location and 270 degree Teton and valley views on nearly three acres. A sanctuary ideal for entertaining with easy year-round access. Master suite with private entrance; junior master plus three guest bedrooms; Chef’s kitchen, theater, billiards room; Guest apartment; four fireplaces; terraced yard, numerous decks, hot tub, fire pits; three garages.

Sold furnished including artwork. TetonSkylineJH.com

The Clear Creek Group Phil Stevenson - (307) 690-3503 www.tccgre.com phils@tccgjh.com

JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE WINTER 2019

9,589

square feet

5

bedrooms

4.72 Private acres, perched at the top of Indian Springs. Teton Views and wildlife activity. Main House: 5 Bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, 2 powder rooms, 8,581 SF. Guest house: 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom, 1,008 SF. Seasonal waterfall, 2 ponds and a creek. 1 Wood-burning and 7 gas replaces. 3-Car garage. 5 miles from Town Square and 10 miles from the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort.

8

baths

—

dollars

— MLS#

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Brokers of Jackson Hole Real Estate

Doug Herrick - (307) 413-8899 • doug@bhhsjacksonhole.com Jack Stout - (307) 413-7118 • jack@bhhsjacksonhole.com www.bhhsjacksonhole.com

ELEVATED LUXURY ATOP SPRING CREEK RANCH

6329

square feet

5

bedrooms

6

Sweeping views, space & beauty define this luxury property located at the top of Spring Creek Ranch.

Built in 2016, the 5 bedroom home was designed with meticulous attention to detail & the highest quality finishes. Dramatic views of the entire Teton Range greet you from the moment you step through the foyer & follow you through every room, bringing the captivating outdoor environment into this chic, contemporary residence.

baths

11,750,000 dollars

— MLS#

square feet

4

bedrooms

Jackson Hole Sotheby’s International Realty Huff |Vaughn| Sassi - (307) 203-3000 www.mercedeshuff.com theteam@jhsir.com

Stare at the Tetons as you watch the migratory birds fly by this immaculate, Broker-owned, Melody Ranch home. Surrounded by open space on a half-acre lot with a seasonal stream running through the beautifully landscaped yard. High-end finishes throughout.

3

— MLS#

acres

—

bedrooms

—

2,175,000 dollars

11804874 MLS#

7,999

square feet

9

bedrooms

baths

RARE Properties of Jackson Hole LLC Richard Armstrong - (307) 413-4359 rick@rarejh.com rarejh.com

This Park City lot boasts stunning panoramic views from the top of Sun Peak neighborhood, situated between Utah Olympic Park and Park City Mountain Resort. A short drive to historic Main Street and Kimball Junction and 30 minutes from Salt Lake International Airport.

See site-specific plans and renderings by nationally acclaimed Prescott Muir Architects at prescottmuir.com/ work/premise/cedarresidence. HOA-approved plans can be tailored to new owner.

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices - Utah Debbie Sexton - (435) 901-4065 DebbieSexton@bhhsutah.com www.homeinparkcity.com

EXQUISITE HOME IN SHOOTING STAR

10.5

baths

UPON REQUEST dollars

3.3

baths

KNOCK YOU OVER ... TETON VIEWS

2,996

LOT ON BEAR HOLLOW DRIVE

UPON REQUEST dollars

—

Located in Shooting Star this gorgeous home overlooking Fish Creek features floor to ceiling windows on the west side highlighting the spectacular mountain and aerial tram views. Home to be completed by December 2019.

Owner/members will enjoy all the amenities of Shooting Star, including its world-class spa and fitness facilities, tension edge lap pool, Jacuzzis, fine dining, tennis courts, Tom Fazio golf course, and on-call shuttle service to and from the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort.

John L. Resor Associate Broker JResor@ShootingStarJH.com

MLS#

WINTER 2019 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE

51

3 CREEK LOT

—

acres

—

GRAND TETON VIEWS IN TOWN

360 Degree views overlooking the Snake River Range and 3 Creek Ranch. Surrounded by larger estate sites.

In a private community setting with 24 hour security, blue ribbon fly fishing and a Rees Jones golf course.

10 minutes from the town square.

bedrooms

—

dollars

18-1878 MLS#

acres

—

bedrooms

—

baths

5,300,000 dollars

18-2328 MLS#

52

4 4

Large, expansive windows bring the incredible Grand Teton Mountain Range views into every room of this mountain modern home. Located on coveted Saddle Butte, this private sanctuary from the hustle and bustle of town, invites you to lounge on one of the large decks or outdoors at the fire pit to become one with the abundant wildlife and mountains. Completely remodeled 3000 sq ft, open concept floor plan home.

baths

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Brokers of Jackson Hole Real Estate

Doug Herrick - (307) 413-8899 • doug@bhhsjacksonhole.com Jack Stout - (307) 413-7118 • jack@bhhsjacksonhole.com www.bhhsjacksonhole.com

DRAMATIC GRAND TETON VIEWS

41.60

square feet

bedrooms

baths

1,375,000

3,000

Nestled on rolling hillsides just off of Spring Creek Ranch Road, this one-of-a-kind property is approximately 41.6 acres and offers the ultimate in privacy and spectacular view corridors. Complete with a 2+/- acre building envelope, the homesite is ideally situated to capture expansive 180-degree views of the surrounding Teton Mountain Range, iconic Jackson buttes, and valley ranch lands. This property is uniquely located just minutes from the Amangani Resort and the Town of Jackson.

Todd Domenico Real Estate Brenda Wylie - (307) 690-4181 Brenda@ToddDomenico.com www.ToddDomenico.com

JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE WINTER 2019

3,495,000 dollars

18-1941 MLS#

Jackson Hole Sotheby’s International Realty Jocelyn Emery - (307) 690-7138 www.jhrealestatesearch.com jocelyn.emery@jhsir.com

WWW.TETONPARCEL.COM

15.07 acres

—

bedrooms

—

baths

7,900,000 dollars

18-1880 MLS#

A rare opportunity to own one of Jackson Hole’s few remaining Teton view legacy properties. The two parcels, which total 15.07 acres, are adjacent to a Jackson Hole Land Trust easement, have minimal CCR’s, no HOA fees, equestrian friendly, and offer two full development sites.

Located within minutes of downtown Jackson Hole and just south of 3 Creek Ranch. The two lots are being sold together, but one could sell separately at a later date.

Jackson Hole Sotheby’s International Realty Audrey L. Williams - (307) 690-3044 www.AudreyWilliamsRealEstate.com audrey.williams@jhsir.com

POLISHED ONE-LEVEL HOME

4,851

square feet

5

bedrooms

5.5

Located on the 18th fairway of the Teton Pines Country Club golf course, this elegant home has been extensively updated. With more than 4,800 square feet of interior living space on one level, the feeling of space and comfort flows throughout with finishes including hardwood floors, walls of windows, natural stone, exposed wood beam ceilings and four wood-burning fireplaces. This home promises to impress.

baths

3,950,000 dollars

15-2575 MLS#

acres

—

bedrooms

—

Jackson Hole Sotheby’s International Realty Dave Spackman - (307) 739-8156 www.SpackmansInJH.com spackmans@jhsir.com

At the forefront of the Grand Tetons in all their glory, the Trapper’s Peak Ranch is comprised of 768 acres of the Packsaddle Bench, an exclusive group of private ranches near the Western boundary of the Yellowstone Plateau.

Trapper’s Peak is one of the most diverse ranches on the Bench, with open grasslands, quiet areas of old growth pine trees, groves of aspen, and the ranch’s steep canyon which forms it’s Western boundary.

baths

5,900,000 dollars

18-1572 MLS#

93.62 acres

—

bedrooms

—

For the price of a 5 acre lot in Wilson, drive 20 minutes or less and have a 93+ acre ranch at the base of Teton Pass, bordering Targhee National Forest on 2 sides and BLM to the North. Whether divided and developed or kept as one large ranch, this property has year-round access from the Old Jackson Hwy. and County Rd. 10800 South (Moose Creek). The property has dozens of secluded homesite possibilities.

baths

TRAPPER’S PEAK RANCH

768

TETON PASS, VICTOR, ID

2,100,000 dollars

17-1485 MLS#

THE AMERINE RANCH – DANIEL, WY

4,685

square feet

5

bedrooms

5

baths

Teton Valley Realty William Fay - (208) 351-4446 tetonvalleyrealty.com bill@tetonvalleyrealty.com

Teton Valley Realty Sam Lea - (208) 351-7211 tetonvalleyrealty.com samlea@ida.net

$1,399,990 dollars

18-725 MLS#

The Amerine Ranch is a turnkey equestrian/outfitter base facility on 60 acres in the heart of the famed Upper Green River Valley only about an hour south of Jackson Hole. The spacious main home is very well constructed with hand crafted logs featuring magnificent views of the Wyoming and Wind River Mountain Ranges. This recreational ranch includes: 60x180 indoor riding arena, 32 x 72 insulated & heated 8 stall barn, 60 x 40 heated woodworking shop & living quarters The deeded acres are contiguous with thousands of acres of BLM/USFS lands.

Jackson Hole Real Estate Associates, LLC Steve Duerr - (307) 699-4920 steveduerr@jhrea.com steveduerr.com WINTER 2019 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE

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ELK FEEDING’S

FUTURE After more than a century, changes are afoot to the elk-feeding regime on the National Elk Refuge, but it remains unclear how managers will meet their goals.

BY MIKE KOSHMRL

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BRADLY J. BONER

C

LUMPS OF CURED, brown grasses poked through the lingering white remnants of winter on the National Elk Refuge, but conspicuously missing were the elk. It was the waning days of winter 2017-18, and Brian Glaspell, the 44-year-old bearded refuge manager who was then a year into the job, was explaining the complexities of taking the first-ever steps in the federal property’s 106-year history toward weaning elk off supplemental feed. His audience was a handful of folks who don’t always see eye-to-eye: lifelong big game outfitter Harold Turner, wildlife conservation watchdog Lloyd Dorsey, Wyoming Game and Fish Department expat Steve Kilpatrick, Spring Gulch cattle rancher Rita Lucas, and John Wilbrecht, who sat in Glaspell’s chair forty years ago. Everyone listened attentively.

“We did a good thing, for a long time, with the feed program,” Glaspell told the group. “We were successful. Elk were a rare critter when the refuge was established in this neck of the woods, and they certainly aren’t anymore. We did a good thing and it worked for one hundred years. The question now is, is that the continued right approach in light of everything else that we face?”

BRADLY J. BONER

ABOVE: National Elk Refuge manager Brian Glaspell speaks with a group of locals who all have a stake in the number and whereabouts of elk in the valley, from a big game outfitter to a rancher, a former Wyoming Game and Fish Department employee, and even a retired refuge manager.

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RYAN DORGAN

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“WE DID A GOOD THING, FOR A LONG TIME, WITH THE FEED PROGRAM. WE WERE SUCCESSFUL. ELK WERE A RARE CRITTER WHEN THE REFUGE WAS ESTABLISHED IN THIS NECK OF THE WOODS, AND THEY CERTAINLY AREN’T ANYMORE.” Brian Glaspell, Elk Refuge manager

One pressure facing the National Elk Refuge is its own mandate: The 24,700acre U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sanctuary must comply with a 2007 federal plan that calls for reducing elk numbers to 5,000, and bison to 500. The larger shaggy brown beasts, trimmed by a decade of hunting, are near that goal. But the tawny namesake ungulates that gather on the refuge for five months a year are trending in the opposite direction, and it’s problematic. Last winter there were more than 10,000 elk on the refuge.

It was in 1912 that Congress first appropriated $45,000 to start feeding elk on 2,760 acres along Flat Creek north of the Town of Jackson. There were tales of settlers being able to walk 2 miles on the backs of dead elk, and while that is undoubtedly an embellishment, wapiti did indeed drop by the thousands. Die-offs during severe winters are part of the natural ebb and flow of Rocky Mountain elk populations (98 percent of which are unfed), but as the National Elk Refuge and its feeding program grew over the years, this became easier to avoid.

Last winter, a higher proportion of the Jackson Elk Herd (the name collectively given to the approximately 11,000 elk that winter north of Highway 22) came to the refuge than at any other time in history; it was also the first time ever that the Gros Ventre River valley was virtually devoid of elk. (Most of these elk came instead to the National Elk Refuge.) It was the same story for natural winter range dispersed all around the valley: Elk stayed away from these areas and poured onto the refuge instead. Last winter was not an isolated one, but rather a continuation of a trend that

managers say is undesirable.

“We’re trying to understand the drivers of this trend of fewer and fewer elk wintering on native winter range,” says Doug McWhirter, Game and Fish’s regional wildlife coordinator, “and whether that’s something we can influence, or not. That’s central to our management, and one of our biggest questions, too.”

JACKSON HOLE’S ELK are redistributing, and their new wintertime digs are on the National Elk Refuge. It’s unclear what’s causing this change, or how it can be reversed. Wolves, reintroduced to the ecosystem 23 years ago, are a frequent target for finger-pointing, but the science explaining the ongoing shift to the refuge is far from settled. At the same time, a long-feared disease with untold consequences for the herd just arrived to the valley. A decade ago, the “leading edge” of this degenerative neurological malady called chronic wasting disease (CWD) was near Thermopolis. It bounded nearer steadily since then, reaching Dubois, Pinedale, and Star Valley, and then, this November, Jackson Hole.

Routine blood tests performed on a roadkilled mule deer buck found near Kelly— only hundreds of yards from the refuge boundary—made its arrival official.

CWD sounds like it was made for a horror movie. It’s always fatal, causes elk and other ungulates to literally waste away, and it’s spread by nearly indestructible “prions” that can survive outside their animal hosts in grasses and soil.

Once CWD takes hold on a landscape, it’s there forever. “It just scares the heck out of me,” says Kilpatrick, a wildlife habitat specialist during his last years at Game and Fish. “The projections are, if we only have 13 percent prevalence in this Jackson Herd, in elk, we’re gonna see the population going down.”

At least immediately, wildlife managers aren’t phasing out elk feedlots because of chronic wasting disease. It’s an open question how compatible elk feeding and CWD will be, but as a general rule the higher the density of animals, the faster the spread. Artificial feeding

Last winter was the first in 38 years that wintering elk did not require supplemental feed on the National Elk Refuge.

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RYAN DORGAN

concentrates animals to a degree that’s not replicated in the natural environment. Wildlife managers like Glaspell, who from afar have watched CWD ravage deer populations in central Wyoming, don’t want to be caught sitting back and hoping for the best. “Wishful thinking is nice at home, but it’s irresponsible as a refuge management tool,” Glaspell says. “What keeps me up at night is being on the watch here when we get CWD and we’ve done nothing to prepare for it. That’s a zombie-apocalypse kind of scenario.”

Lucas Bielby and Jay Hoggan drive their team out to feed about 1,000 elk wintering in the Gros Ventre River valley.

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THIS EVOLVING ELK herd and horrific, just-arrived disease are the backdrop of the refuge’s big task, which is to trim elk numbers and reduce feeding. Those goals go hand-in-hand: In a winter of typical severity, if there are only 5,000 elk, the science says that the herd can be sustained via natural vegetation. So that’s what the goal is: 5,000. This number came from the refuge’s 2007 “bison and elk management plan,” co-signed by Grand Teton National Park and the Bridger-Teton National Forest. A long legal fight and intensive “environmental impact statement” planning process preceded the plan, which gives the refuge 15 years to reach its goals (which go well beyond elk and bison numbers, but that’s for another story). That means, as the calendar turns this winter, the refuge will be 12 years into the plan, with just three years left to go.

It’s not just time the refuge is working against.

Another one of the Elk Refuge’s constraints moving forward is the overall number of elk in the Jackson Herd. The state of Wyoming has determined the herd should be about 11,000 animals; it uses hunting licenses to maintain this number. So

JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE WINTER 2019

right now, the Jackson Hole Elk Herd is exactly the size the state of Wyoming wants it to be. This in itself isn’t a problem; the problem arises when the entire herd flocks to the refuge like it did last winter. Then the refuge has more than double the number of elk its plan calls for. “I think that herd objective has to be on the table as we move forward and evaluate things,” Glaspell says, “but right now the plan that we’ve collectively committed to is that we’ll pursue that objective. The way to thread that needle is to provide other places for elk to winter and to find a way to buy tolerance.”

Meeting both the refuge and herd goals simultaneously will be a tough row to hoe, and you can count third-generation Triangle X dude rancher and outfitter Turner as among the skeptics. “I think it’s apple in the sky right now to think you’re going to get these elk to start using their historical winter ranges,” Turner says. The spring and fall elk migrations that stream by Turner’s backcountry hunting camp near the Teton Wilderness’ Enos Lake have fallen off in a big way over recent decades, and he’s fearful that a smaller overall Jackson Herd would affect the bottom line of himself and other outfitters.

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department is not planning to revisit its goals for the Jackson Herd for another two years, and if the agency does propose a smaller herd size to help the refuge it’s bound to get pushback. State wildlife officials aren’t legally tied to the refuge’s goals, but they’re doing what they can to help solve the quandary. “Although our intent is to still manage to the goals of the [refuge’s] bison and elk management plan, the way things are on the landscape right now we don’t feel that’s achievable,” says Brad Hovinga, who leads Game and Fish’s

“I THINK WE ARE FACED WITH SIGNIFICANT CHANGE IN THE NEXT 10 YEARS, MORE SO THAN

CWD, but nevertheless has grave consequences for producers who ANY OTHER TIME come down with an infected herd.

OVER THE LAST Jackson Hole’s ranchers all recall the horror stories from when brucello100 YEARS.” sis spread into the Lockhart and Porter family’s ranch in 2004: Steve Kilpatrick, Federal regulators required them to wildlife habitat specialist slaughter the entire herd. Nowadays, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s INTUITIVELY, ELK WILL be more prone to bouncing around if feed is not in one centralized spot. response to detections is much less draconian, but a breakout When those wapiti are off searching for a meal, it’s possible that still necessitates an intensive quarantine and test-and-kill prothey’ll land on more fruitful pastures, like those belonging to cess. One Teton County cattle rancher—who the agencies have the Lucases, one of the valley’s few remaining cattle ranching not named, per state law—is dealing with that process right now. A succession of breakouts in Wyoming could cost the state families. So it’s a tough sell.

“They can’t be in our feedlines, they just can’t,” Lucas told the its brucellosis–free status, which can trigger more intensive group assembled with Glaspell. “Our place would likely be the first testing statewide.

Ironically, close congregations created by feeding cause place they go. It would be the first hit, and it would be reasonable to say that it would be economic devastation for us.” Her worry brucellosis’ spread among elk—and at the same time, stockmen isn’t that the elk will eat feed meant for her cows—although are leery of ending feeding for fear it’ll cause elk to commingle that’s certainly a concern—but brucellosis, a disease common in with their cattle. It is feedgrounds that cultivated the strains of brucellosis the Jackson Herd carries, and keeps their contracJackson Hole elk and transmissible from elk to cattle.

Brucellosis causes cattle to abort their first-born fetuses. It’s tion rates high. Already, Lucas deals with swarms of elk for nonfatal in adults, and in many ways a less scary disease than much of the winter, and, armed with few other options, she alJackson Region. “We are doing as much as we can to work toward those goals now. We’re trying to hold elk in the Gros Ventre, and trying to keep more elk from going to the refuge. But things are different now, and we just haven’t been able to make that happen.”

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WYOMING MANAGES 22 FEEDGROUNDS WEST OF THE CONTINENTAL DIVIDE.

BRADLY J. BONER

lows hunters to pursue them relentStill, until the dole is actually THE JACKSON HERD, lessly to keep them off her property. It’s delayed, there’s no knowing how WHICH TRADITIONALLY a problem that has gradually worsened Jackson Hole’s storied elk herd as the decades since settlement have will respond. Last winter there was USED FOUR OF THESE passed, and the elk that live in the subno feeding for the first time in 38 FEEDGROUNDS, IS division and ranchland lining the years, but this was because there

BY FAR THE LARGEST Snake River corridor have grown from were historically mild conditions a tiny fraction of the Jackson Herd to at low elevations so it’s an imperELK HERD RELIANT ON FEED. more than a third of its ranks. “We have fect indicator. “This year we elk all the time, and they travel in these learned we can host the entire little clusters like they do here,” Lucas herd,” Glaspell says. Despite no says. “I don’t really see how it’s better for them to be at our place feeding happening, 97 percent of the herd either migrated onto in a cluster than here in a cluster.” the refuge or immediately adjacent, in the Curtis Canyon and Flat Creek areas.

THE MECHANISM FOR winnowing down the refuge herd Last year was actually Jackson Hole’s second consecutive and reducing the tonnage of alfalfa pellets lined out across the outlier winter. The prior season, of 2016-17, swung in the oplandscape each winter is supposed to be “step-down” plans that posite direction—it had the severity of yesteryear. There were tier off of the original, identifying specific tactics. Bureaucracy brutally frigid spells and a 160 percent-of-normal snowpack and politics have snagged those documents’ release for three that grew so deep even at low elevations the entire year’s crop years running, and as this story was being reported there was of mule deer fawns in much of western Wyoming died. Even on little hope they would be coming out anytime soon. In early the refuge, where feeding started in January and where elk August, Glaspell lost his boss, Greg Sheehan, who resigned could fill their guts with alfalfa daily, one in five calves sucfrom the Trump administration’s top job at the U.S. Fish and cumbed to the elements. There’s no saying how bad the morWildlife Service. Lacking direction, the refuge manager is in a tality would have been in the absence of feeding—but it would tough place to take action. “A lot of other similar kinds of deci- only swing in one direction, which is toward more dead elk. sions are appropriately delegated to the refuge manager,” In winters as severe as ’16-’17, feeding will not stop in the Glaspell says, “but in this case we’re talking about making some foreseeable future, Glaspell insists. “We are not advocating starchanges to an iconic refuge and to a program that’s been in vation,” he says. “Never have, never will, and that’s the bottom place for one hundred years.” line. If and when we start moving forward with any of these Though the step-down plans are still hypothetical, what plans, it’s not like we flip the switch and everything’s different they likely will entail is pushing elk feeding later into the winter on the landscape tomorrow. It will be a very slow process where and ending it earlier. Currently, feeding usually starts by the last we make tiny steps and then we review the impact.” week of January, and continues to late March.

But some conservationists and biologists worried for the

High above the National Elk Refuge, Doug Brimeyer and Barb Long of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department use spotting scopes to tally elk during the annual census.

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herd’s future cringe at the slow pace of change. Seven months before its arrival Kilpatrick said, “CWD’s going to get here, and the public will be ready to try something different. But until then, these guys have a job I would never want: trying to keep wildlife healthy and numerous and the public happy at the same time.” Author and biologist Bruce Smith, a former National Elk Refuge staffer, has long advocated for a total cessation of the feeding program and he scolded his former employer’s parent agency for dragging its feet and creating a situation where the Jackson Herd is more reliant on the refuge than ever before. “The Department of the Interior has wasted the last 11 years by not beginning the process right after the plan went into effect,” Smith says. “Why have they waited and wasted all these years? There’s no reason why the Jackson Elk Herd couldn’t be the first of Wyoming’s elk herds that are currently fed to be unfed.”

(Besides the federal-run National Elk Refuge, Wyoming manages 22 feedgrounds west of the Continental Divide. Altogether, about 20,000 elk spread across six different herds in northwestern Wyoming are fed, though the Jackson Herd, which traditionally used four of these feedgrounds, is by far the largest.)

Kilpatrick’s hope is that the Jackson Hole community comes together to try to solve the problem of scaling back a feeding program that supports an elk herd that’s more bunched up than ever before. Collaborative roundtable-type approaches are a plan worth considering, he says. “I think we are faced with significant change in the next 10 years, more so than any other time over the last 100 years,” Kilpatrick says.

While a complete phase-out of the elk-feeding program isn’t in the cards anytime soon, Glaspell says the refuge’s staff is “ravenous” to get going on some type of change. “It took us one hundred years to get to this point,” he says. “We’re turning an aircraft carrier. It’s going to take some work and a little more time than a lot of us would hope for, but I’m confident that we’re going to do it. We have the preponderance of scientific opinion and a couple decades of effort from refuge staff and other Fish and Wildlife folks. It all points in one direction, which is making some change.” JH

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WINTER 2019 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE

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CROSS cultural CONSERVATION

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T

HE GRAND TETON. Pierre’s Hole. Moran. Gros Ventre. Jackson. With the exception of Teewinot mountain, which means “many peaks” in the Shoshone language, the presence and influence of Native Americans on the current local landscape is largely relegated to art galleries, and antique and souvenir shops. But the territories of the Bannock and Shoshone—Shoshone includes interrelated bands like the Northern, Eastern, and Mountain Shoshone—once encompassed a vast area including both Jackson Hole and Teton Valley.

FATHER AND SON RICHARD AND JASON BALDES LOOK AT THE GREATER YELLOWSTONE ECOSYSTEM AS CONSERVATIONISTS AND AS EASTERN SHOSHONE, A TRIBE WHOSE ANCESTRY SPANS 13,000 YEARS IN THE TETONS.

BY MOLLY LOOMIS // PHOTOGRAPHY BY AMBER BAESLER

The remnants of circular log dwellings, called wickiups, and artifacts such as projectile points, knives, and even ladles made of sheep horns, can still be found in the region. Jenny Lake was a site for traditional Shoshone Sun Dances, while the 13,285-foot Enclosure, a pinnacle just to the west of the Grand Teton in Grand Teton National Park, is thought by some to have been a site for vision quests, fasting, and ceremonies. Evidence from recent archaeological studies shows that the region was not simply a seasonal stopping point for tribes (as was long thought), but instead a base for much of the year until the harsh winter hit. At least until the arrival of white explorers and homesteaders.

The Eastern Shoshone Tribe’s bison graze on the Wind River Indian Reservation. After three calves were born in 2018, the herd is up to 23 animals.

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Richard Baldes is a member of the Eastern Shoshone—pronounced show-SHOW-knee—Tribe and a former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service project leader.

I

n 1863, on the heels of the 1862 Homestead Act and the Bear River Massacre, in which U.S. soldiers attacked a village of Shoshone and killed as many as 384 men, women, and children—one of the highest recorded casualty counts of all the American Indian Wars—the Fort Bridger Treaty was signed.

It was part of the U.S. government’s effort to clear a safe path for white settlers heading west and forced the Bannock and Northern Shoshone tribes south from their traditional lands and onto the Fort Hall Reservation (which is between today’s Idaho Falls and Pocatello, Idaho). It relocated the Eastern Shoshone to a reservation that totaled approximately 44,672,000 acres across Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, and Montana—at least until 1868, when the government reduced the Eastern Shoshone’s territory to a total of about 3 million acres.

A decade later, rather than grant the Northern Arapaho their own reservation, the U.S. government relocated that tribe onto the Eastern Shoshone’s Wind River Indian Reservation (WRIR). This was done to punish the Northern Arapaho for being “hostiles” and despite the fact the two tribes were traditional enemies. Today about 26,000 Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone live on the WRIR’s 2,222,720 acres and “we only have a handful of elders that speak the language and have the traditional worldview, that in a sense tells us how to live with the land, live with the animals. We’re trying to hold onto those things, revitalize them,” says Jason Baldes, an Eastern Shoshone who grew up on the WRIR, graduated from Montana State University with a master’s degree in land resource sciences in 2016, and today consults for organizations like the National Wildlife Federation, Montana Conservation Corp, and the Wind River Foundation. (He has also served as the director of the Wind River Native Advocacy Center.)

IN ADDITION TO its human residents, the WRIR is also home to moose, whitetail and mule deer, elk, pronghorn, bighorn sheep, and, as of November 2016, bison, known as buffalo to Native American people. It is one of the few reservations in the country to have all of the ungulate species, and predators, 66

JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE WINTER 2019

Richard Baldes walks through his backyard in Fort Washakie on the Wind River Indian Reservation.

that lived on it prior to Lewis and Clark’s 1803 Corps of Discovery expedition, living on it today. This is no accident, and it’s Jason’s father, Richard Baldes, who can take credit—not that he ever would.

Born on the reservation in 1941 to a cement mixer and a housekeeper, Richard left the reservation to pursue wildlife management at the University of Wyoming, then a master’s degree in fisheries at Colorado State University. Eventually, he returned home to work in the unusual role of project leader, not for a tribal entity, but for the federal government’s Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). Richard worked for the USFWS for 27 years, finally retiring in 1996. “My dad worked for many years when things were pretty difficult during the transition from termination to self-determination in the early 1950s through late ’60s when tribes were given a lot more autonomy

“BUFFALO WERE LIFE’S COMMISSARY: OUR FOOD, CLOTHING, SHELTER AND ARE STILL ESSENTIAL TO OUR CEREMONIES, ESPECIALLY OUR SUN DANCE AND SWEAT CEREMONIES. IF WE AS TRIBES HAVE THE ABILITY TO DO SO, WHY WOULDN’T WE GIVE THE UTMOST RESPECT TO THAT ANIMAL?” — Jason Baldes

in dictating our own affairs, whether in law enforcement, fish and wildlife management, or healthcare,” Jason says.

During his career at USFWS, Richard was a unique bridge between different worlds and went above and beyond his official duties by serving on boards of Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) conservation/environment groups like the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, Wyoming Outdoor Council, Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, and National Wildlife Federation. He was often the only Native American on these boards, and was the first Native American member of the National Wildlife Federation’s board of directors.

Richard tackled several highly controversial issues, including water rights and a game code. The former was a fight in which non-Native farmers from multiple water districts requested Baldes’ removal—by nothing less than Congressional

action—from his position. Four times. Richard says, “If I hadn’t had some good friends who understood what we were doing for the fish, wildlife, and tribal management policies, I’d been going down the road kicking rocks.”

The elder Baldes’ work on a game code that would regulate hunting to sustain wildlife populations on the reservation wasn’t any more popular. At that time—the early 1980s— pronghorn and bighorn sheep had been extirpated from the reservation, and elk, moose, and even deer, were in decline. In 1984, Richard got hunting seasons set and established limits on the number of animals that tribal members could harvest.

“That was highly, highly controversial,” Jason says. “Imagine telling Native Americans that they can no longer hunt on their own lands; that was a very, very hard thing to accomplish.”

Today, populations of bighorn sheep, pronghorn, and the WINTER 2019 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE

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TODAY, POPULATIONS OF BIGHORN SHEEP, PRONGHORN, AND THE OTHER SPECIES THAT HAD BEEN IN DECLINE ON THE WIND RIVER INDIAN RESERVATION ARE RECOVERING, THANKS TO THE CONTROVERSIAL GAME CODE RICHARD BALDES INSTITUTED IN THE 1980S. “WHAT WE PREDICTED WOULD HAPPEN WITH GOOD, SOUND MANAGEMENT PRACTICES HAS HAPPENED.” — Richard Baldes

other species that had been in decline are recovering. “Now after all these years [tribal members] see the wildlife and that what we predicted would happen with good, sound management practices has happened,” Richard says. “A lot of opponents, they won’t come up to me and say it, but they tell Jason and others that, ‘[the game code] was a good thing; we’re glad your dad did that.’ But at the time, they thought I was divesting their hunting rights away from them.”

IT IS ENTIRELY coincidental that the Wind River Indian Reservation is nearly identical in size to Yellowstone National Park (2,219,789 acres), which is less than 70 miles to the northwest as the crow flies. On the eastern flank of the Wind River Mountains, the reservation, like Jackson Hole, is part of the 16 million- to 22 million-acre (depending on who’s counting) 68

JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE WINTER 2019

A bison from the tribal herd grazes on the Wind River Indian Reservation. The bison are currently fenced in, but Jason Baldes hopes to one day have the herd on an open range.

GYE, one of the largest nearly intact temperate-zone ecosystems on Earth and home to the largest concentration of wildlife in the Lower 48 states. With the exception of the 3.4-million-acre Bridger-Teton National Forest and the 2.4-millionacre Shoshone National Forest, the Wind River Reservation is the largest parcel of land within the ecosystem.

But, even though there is no doubt the Wind River Reservation is a key component of the GYE and that there is currently an increasing emphasis on protecting the GYE, “Most of the time tribal input isn’t sought,” Jason says. “For far too long tribes have been left out of the conversations.” Richard says that when he was first on the board of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, the Wind River, a 185-mile-long river that flows through the reservation and eventually joins the Yellowstone River, was never mentioned as part of the ecosystem. “Still today most people forget that,” he says. (The Wind River’s headwaters are near Togwotee Pass. Close to Thermopolis, Wyoming, the river’s name changes to the Bighorn River, and on the Wyoming/Montana border, it is the star of the 120,000-acre Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area.)

Jason says, “an invitation to the table should have been made 50 years ago when we had the people that had that knowledge [of how to live with the land and animals], the cultural morals, and values to guide us in the right way. We have tribal members now that would rather look at cows on the landscape than buffalo and rather divert the water for agriculture than keep it in the river for fish.”

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AS PASSIONATE AS Jason is today about preserving and protecting wildlife on the reservation and in the GYE, that wasn’t always the case. It was in 1997 (when Jason was 18), after returning from a trip to East Africa with his father, that “I had a newfound appreciation of my home, culture, people, and land base,” Jason says. On this trip, Jason and his father visited parks and reserves including Amboseli, Tarangire, Maasai Mara, the Ngorongoro Crater, and the Serengeti. It was his experience in the Serengeti, that Jason says was “monumental. We drove for one hundred or so miles one day and all you could see around you, in any direction, was wildebeest.”

The Serengeti’s wildebeest migration is about 1.5 million animals, and today is the largest ungulate migration in the world.

“But what was more influential was the fact that the [Serengeti’s wildebeest population] is less than 5 percent of what [the U.S.] buffalo population was two hundred years ago. That was unfathomable. It just blew us away. We had our own Serengeti here. We destroyed it. And largely it was destroyed as a means to kill off a

have the ability to do so, why wouldn’t we give the utmost respect to that animal? And by doing so, you not only heal history, you heal the atrocities of the past. We heal our people from those things like genocide, the reservation era, the boarding school era. And we heal by a cultural revitalization by being able to use the buffalo, use the parts, and eat it again, which is vital to our diet.”

In November 2016, 10 bison from the Neal Smith Wildlife Refuge in Iowa were transplanted to the WRIR and put in a 300-acre pasture near Morton, Wyoming. Both Jason and Richard, along with about 250 other people, were there for their release. On May 3, 2017, Jason, accompanied by journalist Angus Thuermer, Jr. (read a profile of him on pg. 32) saw the first bison calf born to the Shoshone tribe on the reservation in more than 130 years.

The Boy-Zhan-Bi-Den (buffalo return) movement now has twenty-three bison on the reservation, all of which are genetically reputable. (Over time, because their numbers dipped to as

Bison graze and wallow on the Wind River Indian Reservation. Wallowing—rolling in the dirt—is a common behavior of bison that is important to the prairie ecosystem because it creates divets in the soil for water to accumulate.

Native American food source. The reason the Americas are the way they are today is because they want[ed] to annihilate our wildlife, our food source and take our land.”

Jason says that, prior to this trip to Africa, “I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life.” Returning home, he had a goal: Bison reintroduction and restoration—something he and his father had talked about for years—became the object of his undergraduate and graduate degrees. As an undergraduate, Jason worked closely with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and Dr. Peter Gogan, a bison specialist, to develop a draft management plan for what a bison program on the WRIR could look like. Then he got fellowships from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to fund his graduate work on the ecological role of bison, tribal policy, and the cultural importance to foods, tools, and medicines in ecosystems where bison are established.

“Throughout our ancestry we have depended entirely at times on buffalo,” Jason says. “They were life’s commissary: our food, clothing, shelter and are still essential to our ceremonies, especially our Sun Dance and sweat ceremonies. If we as tribes 70

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low as 100—from as many as 60 million in 1840—many bison in private herds interbred with cattle; as far as is known, the ancestors of these bison did not.) Jason says, “My hope is that five, ten years from now there will be an established population where buffalo are allowed to be buffalo. They can move up in the mountains. They can move down. They can go where the water is and they exist just like other wildlife does. They would eventually grow in size and population to the point where we could adequately issue tags so that we would have a draw, just like we do our other wildlife, like moose and bighorn sheep and trophy deer.”

Jason says that a sustainable bison population on the reservation would be about one thousand animals. Richard points out the uniqueness of the reservation’s bison: “There’s a million bison in the United States today, but less than 10,000 of those exist under natural environmental factors, like predation and climate. We not only have the opportunity to manage buffalo for cultural revitalization and management under the game code as wildlife, but we also have the opportunity to par-

THE COUNTRY’S FIRST WILDERNESS AREA THE WILDERNESS ACT was passed by Congress and signed

by President Lyndon Johnson in 1964. The act was revolutionary in creating a formal mechanism in designating wilderness and, even more so, for defining wilderness.

“A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, 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 In the 1930s though, the Bureau of Indian Affairs had determined—sometimes without tribal consultation—that 16 tribally owned areas throughout the West would be “roadless.” The definition of “roadless” was very similar to how wilderness was defined 26 years later. In 1938, the WRIR worked with the federal government to establish the Wind River Reservation Roadless Area.

When the Wilderness Act was initially being discussed, it was proposed that these Native American roadless areas be included in the new national system of Wildernesses protected for perpetuity. But Native Americans successfully lobbied Congress to drop this proposal from the act and finally give the dozen tribes that had had roadless areas forced upon them the sovereignty to decide what to do with them: keep them roadless, develop them, or do something in between.

Perhaps because it was a tribal decision in the first place, the Wind River Reservation Roadless Area was the only one of the 16 kept as roadless. Today it is the oldest roadless conservation area in the nation. “The tribes and the tribal government recognized the importance of doing so in order to have sustainable wildlife populations down the road,” Jason says.

The WRIR Roadless Area includes 180,387 acres that encompass more than 200 alpine lakes, glaciers, mountains, several hundred miles of rivers and streams, and forested foothills.

ticipate in the conservation of the species because we have buffalo with Yellowstone genetics. Less than five [bison] populations in the U.S. have pure Yellowstone genetics and are managed with natural environmental conditions [that allow] them to be buffalo. Most of the buffalo in the U.S. today are manipulated by man—produced for consumption and managed like cattle.”

Richard and Jason would both love to see non-Natives be involved with the reservation, and for the reservation to have a voice in the conservation topics affecting the whole GYE. “Within our own tribal government we don’t have an entity that oversees [air and water and wildlife and fisheries], let alone an organization that’s a nonprofit outside of tribal government. It comes back to not having enough people and qualified people that can manage an organization like that,” says Jason. “So we don’t have an entity per se that people could support. It is difficult to say, ‘Yeah, here’s how you can help’ but at the same time say, ‘Yeah, we want that help.’ ” JH WINTER 2019 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE

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DAVIDJ SWIFT

THE SOUL OF JACKSON HOLE

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DAVID DIED UNEXPECTEDLY WHILE SKATE SKIING IN GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK ON JANUARY 16, 2018. HE WAS 69. DAVID HAD BEEN PHOTOGRAPHING THE VALLEY SINCE THE 1970s.

BY BRANTLEY SYDNOR // PHOTOGRAPHY BY DAVID J SWIFT

//PHOTOGALLERY WINTER 2019 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE

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DAVIDJ SWIFT

// PHOTOGALLERY

I first met David at the hospital. My two chihuahuas, Ani and Cecil, and I were newly minted Pet Partner volunteers at St. John’s Medical Center, and David was to take the required photos of us. I expected something staid and perfunctory—after all, it was a photo shoot at a hospital. I soon realized this shoot was going to be special. As I connected with David’s firm, unaffected handshake and smile it took only a few minutes for me to decide he was one of the most genuinely charming and witty people I’d ever met.

Drowsy nurses watched from the cafeteria as David snapped photos of me on the fly, showering me and the pups with praise and energy as he tossed his thick mane of hair from his eyes. In front of David’s lens, we were supermodels on a runway instead of volunteers striding down a hospital hallway. I felt beautiful and seen, and that was David’s real magic as a photographer, and as a person: Whoever he was talking to immediately became the only person in the room. He quizzed them about their life, eager to know all about their work, passions, love, and adventures—and he actually listened to the answers; David was a great listener.

As we became friends, David also became my mentor. David is the reason I am a photographer. He handed me the keys to his office, told me to stop by anytime, and that he would teach me everything he knew if I just showed up. Shortly after his mentorship started, I asked David why he was investing his time in me.

Again with his twinkly eyes and chuckling grin: “I’m old and bored and need a project. I need some inspiration. You’re young and alive with curiosity. I’d like to share with you what I’ve learned in the photog biz over all these years. What’s in it for me is to see you succeed.”

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I showed up at his office a lot and ventured deeper into the photography world. Anything he had was mine to learn and work from—his office, his equipment, his expertise. David taught me aperture and in return, I helped him get organized. This was no small feat, as David’s love of photography was matched only by his love of not throwing anything away. He saw the value in all things and treasured every single photo, article, letter, and thank you note. He so dearly loved his family, friends, and clients and cherished every memory and photograph he created with them.

A valuable lesson David taught me is to not take myself too seriously. He led by example and would rarely sweat the small stuff. David understood that life is short and wonderful and meant to be experienced. “Go fast. Take risks” were often his parting words to me. He was a natural artist that celebrated the entire spectrum of life’s experiences through his friendships, travel, writing, music, and photography.

What I, and the entire Jackson Hole community, loved about David is what people love about his work. He was genuine, spunky, and eternally young at heart with an insatiable enthusiasm for adventure, light, and beauty. His photos capture this— the unfiltered allure of everyday moments and people alive and free. David expressed passion and charisma in all he loved to do—from taking pictures to riding his bike, meeting friends for tea, and skate skiing in his beloved Tetons.

Brantley Sydnor moved to Jackson Hole in 2006, met David in 2011, and founded her own studio, She B Photography (shebphotography.com) in 2017. JH

‘‘

STAY YOUR PATH. NO, MAKE NEW PATHS. HOW DOES THIS ‘PATHS’ THING WORK? YOU’LL MAKE IT WORK.

‘‘

ADVICE DAVID GAVE TO HIS MENTEE, BRANTLEY SYDNOR

An archive of David’s photography is being curated by photographer and friend Ted Wood. Wood is working with the Jackson Hole Historical Society & Museum to preserve the photos that are culturally, historically, and socially important or of interest to the valley; eventually the archive will be visible online, likely in a David Swift collection. Wood selected these photos to feature in this photo essay because he knew David was particuarly proud of them and because they show David’s wide range. To make a tax-deductible contribution to the David Swift Photo Archive Project, go to gofundme.com/david-swift-photo-archive-project.

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Emily Wright

THE

REMARKABLE

STAYING POWER OF

• Sharif Zawaideh • Alex Gambal

Ski Bums THE DISAPPEARANCE OF SKI BUMS

HAS BEEN PREDICTED FOR DECADES, YET THE LIFESTYLE PERSEVERES, ALBEIT EVOLVED.

BY BRIGID MANDER // PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOHN SLAUGHTER

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JEFF DIENER

THE FLICK The Last of the Ski Bums opens like so many ski movies: clips of skiers making turns on steep, deep, open faces and through trees, disappearing in a wall of white. It gives viewers the same feeling as any movie from 2019.

Filmmaker Dick Barrymore’s opening voiceover laments that it used to be common to see ski bums on the road in Europe, but not anymore—a common topic in today’s outdoor media—so it sounds like a 2019 ski movie, too. But you know it isn’t a 2019 movie because in it skiers’ knees are together, pole plants are upright, and the skis are long and skinny (and then there are the outfits, which, well, go watch the movie for yourself). The Last of the Ski Bums was released in 1969.

It’s now been fifty years since Barrymore noted the demise of ski bums and ever since, ski and outdoor journalists have agreed, predicting in various articles and books the imminent disappearance of the lifestyle. (Jeremy Evans’ 2010 book In Search of Powder is subtitled “A Story of America’s Disappearing Ski Bum.”) But all it takes is five minutes in a lift line out at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort (JHMR) to see that ski bums, practitioners of a carefree lifestyle whose mantra is simply: “Ski as much as possible,” still exist.

“A ski bum is someone who organizes their life around skiing, so their days are free for skiing,” says Wade McKoy, a Jackson-based photographer and writer who moved to the valley (to ski) in 1974, and has been documenting skiers of all types ever since. “When I got here, I remember Tom Raymer lived in an igloo on the mountain, and ski patrolled dur-

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ing the day. There are still those classic ski bums out there, I think.”

McKoy is right, kind of. While there’s no one living in an igloo at JHMR anymore, every season I meet a new crop of ski bums. But it is more and more difficult for traditional ski bums, aka skids—those fresh out of high school or college and on tight budgets—to find inexpensive places to live. During my ski bum days in the mid- and late-00s, I was one of these and lived in draughty cabins, sheds, lofts, and even a cozy laundry room. The low rent for places with such, umm, personality, allowed me to ski more than I worked in the winter, and, during summer, often take a month or two to travel to South America to ski. These ramshackle rentals are disappearing though; in the last few years I’ve watched as most of the places I lived in were sold and redeveloped into properties that are well beyond a skid’s budget. And while it was never easy being a skid, the housing situations in ski towns across the country have made it more difficult today.

At the same time, 60 is the new 40, more jobs can be done remotely, and a work-life balance has grown in importance. For every tenacious skid skiing up all the powder, bucking convention, and doing as she pleases with only next season in mind I meet someone who’s retired early so they can ski 100 days a season or a 30- or 40-something who has created a work life that allows them to prioritize skiing. Today’s ski bums might come to the lifestyle in different ways but have crucial elements in common: They organize their lives around the sport of skiing and are unconcerned with the outside world.

EMILY WRIGHT SEES no obstacles—including little money and nowhere to live— to achieving her dream of skiing as much as possible. (This character trait of Wright’s is an important foundation for success in life, but an absolute necessity for successful skid-dom.) Last winter, the 23-year-old wrapped up her fifth season in Jackson— PURE SKID LIFE skiing all day, every day, including more Emily Wright than 100 days skiing off the JHMR Aerial Tram—without a job and without paying rent or paying for a ski pass.

“You can make it just fine if you lower your standards,” Wright tells me over a couple of semiwarm beers pulled from her backpack. We’re hanging out in the base area of JHMR after ripping around the resort all day, making top-to-bottom, nonstop tram laps in a few inches of soft new snow, skiing Rendezvous Bowl to cliffy tree runs to the Hobacks.

A native of New Zealand who started skiing with her family when she was a kid, Wright first came to Jackson in 2013.

Her older brother said it was a good ski moun“YOU CAN MAKE IT JUST FINE IF YOU tain, and that he’d come visit. Also, winter in LOWER YOUR STANDARDS,” Jackson coincided with her summer break from — EMILY WRIGHT university (she graduated with a degree in marketing in 2017). “It seems a waste of my youth and of this body I have, not to do this right now,” she says. “I’m so active, I like skiing so much. I can work and make money when I’m older, when I don’t

want to ski all the time and jump off cliffs and stuff.” During her first few winters here. Wright worked as a ski instructor at JHMR’s Mountain Sports School (MSS). By working for the resort, she got a season pass.

But last winter, her first here as a college grad, she didn’t work at the MSS, or anywhere else. She wanted the full ski bum experience. To get a free season pass Wright volunteered two days a week as a JHMR ski host. To live rent-free she made a one-time investment of about $3,000 to buy a van formerly used for cleaning carpets. She named the van “Free Candy” and made it livable by putting in a new floor, a bed, clothing racks, and even a dresser she found on a curb. “It is expensive here,” she says. “There is nowhere to live. But people still want to ski bum.”

Even with her expenses minimized, Wright kept a tight rein on her funds and an eye on the ball—she was in Jackson to ski, not to run out of money and struggle to pay her bills with pittances from a low-wage job. “I’m really good at saving.

I don’t spend much on food or booze, like most people are doing, and I don’t let anything go to waste,” she says. “I don’t live paycheck to paycheck, and I keep a safety fund. My bank card broke, too, so I really can’t spend money from my savings, unless I take out cash.”

Wright once stretched $7 over two weeks. “I don’t even know how I did it,” she says. “I might have spent $5 on a hockey ticket, and maybe $2 at Nick’s [the café below the tram dock]. I think there might have been a lot of events going on those weeks, with [free] food and stuff. And, sometimes friends give you leftovers, too.”

Having survived last winter, this winter Wright may return to Jackson, or she might try ski bumming in Whistler, Canada. “This is a cool time to be doing this. I don’t know that I want to be doing the same thing when I’m thirty,” she says.

“But for right now, I can keep doing it.”

Emily Wright gets into the goods at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort.

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Sharif Zawaideh soaks in his hotel pool after a big day on the mountain. “It’s more bougie [in Jackson] now, it’s definitely no longer the Wild West,” he says.

SKI BUM EVOLUTION

sharif zawaideh IN SHARIF ZAWAIDEH’S world, his only workday during winter is Monday.

So his ski bumming isn’t technically skiing all day, every day, but it’s not too shabby an evolution from the 12 years during which he did ski all day, every day.

“It’s tough not being a full-time ski bum anymore. I miss all the party days, and spring skiing. And the less I ski every season, the less I feel on my A-game,” he says. “But then the rest of the year, I do other things with my life which also make me happy, and it’s nice to know that I could support a family.

In 2014, Zawaideh founded Global Operations and Logistics, an event management company with clients including festivals like Bonaroo and Burning Man. For nine months of the year he works full-time. But for three months every winter, it’s Mondays only; he deals with the rest of his work via phone while riding the bus, the tram, or anywhere there happens to be cell service. While skiing full-time three months a year is a dream for many, it is a step down for those who know better. “If I could change anything, maybe I’d have [full-time] ski bummed for a little longer,” Zawaideh says. “Now, if I miss a powder day because some conference call happened to be scheduled, it still eats away at my soul.”

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Seattle-born and raised in a family of back into the teepee. I think the resort nonskiing Jordanian immigrants, knew, but they ignored it.” By the fourth Zawaideh was introduced to the sport winter, Sharif says the teepee became thanks to a bare-bones weekend kid’s lonely; he moved indoors for 2011-12, program at Alpental. He was hardly ob- and now, in 2018, the 38-year-old says he sessed, but, post-college and unsure of has become a “boring old working man.” his next steps, he moved to Jackson to Good ski bums are opportunists, and meet up with a friend and take a couple when the opportunity to make money— of months to figure out his future. Three a lot of it—in the summer came along by ski seasons later, during each of which he accident, Zawaideh seized it. He had volskied 120 days, Zawaideh was far from unteered at a small music festival in the clueless, mediocre skier he’d been when he arrived, and “IT’S TOUGH NOT BEING A he was totally hooked on the sport and lifestyle.

FULL-TIME SKI BUM ANYMORE. Zawaideh’s story is one of I MISS ALL THE PARTY DAYS, ski bum lore. Over his 16 winters in Jackson Hole, he spent AND SPRING SKIING.” some in conventional housing, others in hovels with no running water, and even four winters living Washington, found he was skilled with outside. During the latter, he creatively the logistics of it—and enjoyed doing linked up places to shower and eat; them—and doors began opening, culminights were spent in a sleeping bag in an nating in him founding Global MSS teepee at the base of JHMR. (He Operations and Logistics. was up and out by 6 a.m. every mornNowadays, Zawaideh rents a small ing.) “One morning, I woke up in a 16- suite at a Jackson hotel for the winter. inch snowdrift. I’d be first in the tram He’s done well enough with his company line. I’d ski all day,” he says. “It wasn’t just that he’s in the market for a local house. about money. It was a bit meditative, and As far as the state of ski bums that came that first winter I found I enjoyed sleep- after him? “It’s more bougie here now, it’s ing in uncomfortable places, and learn- definitely no longer the Wild West. It cering to be really minimalist in my needs. tainly doesn’t seem like people are living The next season I came back to town above garages, or in sheds anymore. But with a minus-20-degree bag and moved ski bums are a very resilient species.”

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THE SW EET LIFE

Alex gambal

Alex Gambal enjoys a bluebird day in Rendezvous Bowl.

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ALEX GAMBAL HAS a perma-grin. He has a goggle tan. He skis every day. Sixtyone-years-old, Gambal cuts a youthful, fit figure, and his new friends are in their twenties and thirties. He beams and walks around practically bursting with happiness, as if not even his perma-grin is enough of a release. This is because finally, starting in 2017, Gambal skis as much as he wants.

“I worked for 39 years!” he exclaims, by way of most unnecessarily excusing his early, semiretirement. Gambal and I chat after an afternoon of skiing in the spring sun. Our conversation is not fueled by a warm beer pulled out of a backpack, but by a crisp, white Burgundy. We sip in the civilized quietude of the membersonly club in the new Caldera House, which Gambal and his wife joined as a social outlet in their new town.

In his 20s, Gambal was based in Washington, D.C., and had a successful career in real estate and finance. Yet he had an inner itch to shake it all up, so he

and his wife at the time and their two kids moved to France for a year. The plan was for Gambal to work for a wine exporter and then return to the U.S. But he fell in love with wine culture, and one year became 25.

Today Gambal’s an accomplished vintner, with 30 acres of vineyards in the heart of France’s Bourgogne (Burgundy) region and his own winery, Domaine Alex Gambal. After two and a half decades, the latter was finally ready to thrive without Gambal’s constant presence; he and his second wife, Diana Williams, a former professional moguls coach, decided to return to the place he’d visited and fallen in love with on a 1975 family trip his senior year in high school and where they could ski their hearts out.

In 2017, the couple found and purchased a modest house off Teton Village Road and, to make it feel like home, had 500 cases of wine shipped over from their stock in France. Before moving, Gambal trained to ensure he’d be ready to get the

most out of skiing. “I hiked up and down the hills in France, with weights in a pack, so I could be fit to ski here,” he says.

Settled in Jackson Hole, AS TO WHETHER NEW SKI BUMS Gambal does rise early to IN JACKSON ARE GOING TO BE catch the end of the workday in France and deal with MORE LIKE HIM—INSTEAD OF business. “I get that done, SKIDS—GAMBAL HOPES NOT. and then I’m like—great!

Now I can go up and ski!”

“THE UNTENABLE HOUSING He skis six days a week, close SITUATION IS A CONCERN,” HE to 100 days a year, and is learning the skills necessary SAYS. “HOW ARE YOU GOING for safe backcountry skiing.

TO MAINTAIN A FUN, GENUINE, While they could live in the bubble of Jackson Hole MIXED COMMUNITY WITH second-home-ownership, DIFFERENT KINDS OF PEOPLE? Gambal and Williams don’t want to. They’ve fallen in WHEN YOU SKI YOU CAN BE love with the valley’s comFRIENDS WITH ANYONE.” munity and culture and take almost any opportunity to get to know other passionate skiers.

Gambal volunteered as a ski host not so

much for the free ski pass it comes with, but to get to know more people and better understand local issues.

As to whether new ski bums in Jackson are going to be more like him and Williams—instead of skids— Gambal hopes not. It is not directly a problem for him, but Gambal finds the issues facing young ski bums on tight budgets a sign of an undesirable community direction. “The untenable housing situation is a concern,” he says. “How are you going to maintain a fun, genuine, mixed community with different kinds of people? When you ski you can be friends with anyone: No one cares what was or is your career, only where you want to ski, climb, hike, or fish today.

This mixed community is what attracts people here and frankly keeps the crowds away who are looking for the hot disco, bar, or restaurant.” It turns out being a ski bum with money isn’t nearly as much fun if it doesn’t come with the other side of bumming—the skids. JH

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JH Living

LOOKING BACK

JACKSON HOLE NEWS&GUIDE FILE

Teton Village

The early days at Teton Village, when the base area was home to the Seven Levels Inn, the Aerial Tram dock, the Alpenhof Lodge, and the Sojourner Inn.

From swampy marshlands to a major ski resort

BY LESLIE HITTMEIER

IN SPRING OF 1965, a Swiss-German couple living in New Jersey packed their bags, put their three kids in a station wagon, and drove more than two thousand miles to Wyoming. A world-class ski resort was opening near the town of Jackson and they were going to build and run a mountain lodge that paid homage to their European roots. It took Anneliese and Dietrich Oberreit seven months to design and build the Alpenhof Lodge. It opened with the new ski resort that December, just before Christmas. Other buildings in the base area that first winter? There weren’t many: the Aerial Tram dock, which was still under construction (it didn’t open until the resort’s second season), the Sojourner Inn, and the Seven Levels Inn. Out of these, the Alpenhof is the only building still standing. (Of course there’s still a tram dock, but it was redesigned and rebuilt in 2009.)

SIXTY YEARS BEFORE the ski resort, the Alpenhof, and everything that’s come since, Teton Village was known as just “Teton,” and there wasn’t much to it. It was one

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JACKSON HOL E HISTORICA L

SOCIETY AND MUSEUM

of the last places in Jackson Hole to be homesteaded; it had dry, rocky soil and swampy marshlands that attracted mosquitoes. In the early 1900s, the base area was Crystal Springs Ranch. In 1947, high school teachers Ken and Shirley Clatterbaugh and their kids, Bruce and Susan, bought this ranch and ran it as a summer camp for girls. The family wrote in a brochure that, “Life at Crystal Springs Ranch gives you a perfect opportunity to wear your beloved blue jeans for all occasions. Yes, even to Church! This costume becomes a necessity since horses will be our mode of transportation.” The ranch had a main house and several smaller nonwinterized guest cabins, which were located where the Alpenhof is today. There was also a recreation hall (for square dancing, of course) and a big barn that sat at the base of Rendezvous Mountain.

In 1957, 41-year-old Paul McCollister moved to Jackson Hole from the San Francisco Bay Area. Recently retired from the advertising business, he was asked by a San Francisco friend what he was going to do in Wyoming. McCollister’s reply? “I’m not going to do anything. I’m just going to play.” He bought a 398-acre cattle ranch (where Jackson Hole Golf and Tennis is now) and became the president of the Jackson Hole Ski Club, an organization that trained local alpine and Nordic ski racers at Snow King, Wyoming’s first ski resort (it opened in 1939).

McCollister wasn’t idle for long. By 1959, dreaming bigger than Snow King, he started researching locations for a new ski area in Jackson Hole. “I started skiing in 1950. Like most people do, I fell in love with it. It was a new thing in the United States at the time and I thought to myself, gee, it would be kind of nice to own a mountain,” McCollister told Jo Anne Byrd at the Jackson Hole Historical Society & Museum (JHHS&M) when she recorded his oral history in 1995. (McCollister died in 1999.)

Flying above the valley with his friend, Paul Von Gontard, McCollister spotted Rendezvous Mountain. The day after he saw it from Von Gontard’s plane, McCollister put on skis and climbing skins, removable attachments on the bottom of skis that allow skiers to ski uphill, and explored Rendezvous Mountain. “It was fantastic,” McCollister told the JHHS&M. In 1961, McCollister and his business partner, Alex Morley, a native of Wyoming, World War II vet, and lifelong skier, began purchasing the Crystal Springs Ranch from the Clatterbaughs for $1,355 an acre.

In 1963, McCollister and Morley formed the Jackson Hole Ski Corporation, and in 1964 they started building lifts and cutting runs. In 1965, Apres Vous Mountain, the peak immediately north of Rendezvous Mountain, opened to skiers. In 1966, the Aerial Tram opened, carrying skiers from the base area up more than 4,000 feet to the 10,450-foot summit of Rendezvous Mountain.

Before Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, Ken (pictured) and Shirley Clatterbaugh ran Crystal Springs Ranch, a summer camp for girls, at the base of Rendezvous Mountain.

MCCOLLISTER, WHO HAD skied throughout Europe, and Morley imagined a Bavarian-style base village, but left it to others to develop. The men divided the former Crystal Springs Ranch into 35 commercial lots and 123 residential lots.

Commercial lots were $50,000 and residential lots $10,000.

In came the Oberreit family in their station wagon. By Christmas of 1965, they opened the Alpenhof Lodge. Its stucco walls, wood accents, and steeply pitched and shingled roof represented McCollister’s Bavarian vision well. The Oberreits ran the Alpenhof, which originally had 30 rooms (it now has 42) until 1988, when they sold it to Edward and Susan Cunningham, a San Francisco couple that had been longtime guests. The Sojourner Inn and Seven Levels Inn (so named for its three levels on the mountain side and four on the valley side) and Teton Village Sports also opened that December.

The year of 1967 was a big one for the base area: Dave Speck opened the Mangy Moose Spaghetti Emporium, and Alexander Colesberry “Colby” Wilson built and opened Hostel X, so named because a room there was $10 a night. (Wilson had noticed a need for accommodations the average family could afford; Alpenhof rooms were about $30 a night.) Parents staying at the Hostel could leave their kids at its day WINTER 2019 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE

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Looking for the Seven Levels Inn? It is now the Caldera House. In 2013, four friends purchased the property for $8 million, promptly tore the old building down, and built a six-story, 70,000square-foot condo-hotel (that opened last winter). Between welcoming the first skiers to Jackson Hole Ski Area in 1965 and its demolition, the Seven Levels led many lives. In the ’80s, it was remodeled and renamed the Village Center Inn. Its basement bar was a favorite hangout of the Jackson Hole Ski Patrol for many years before they decamped to “The War Room” in the Sojourner. (Now they relax in the “Boom Boom Room,” which is underneath the tram).

For almost a decade, Teton Gravity Research (TGR), a production company often credited with revolutionizing the ski film industry, was headquartered in office space in the Village Center Inn. At one point the Inn was home to a Pizza Hut that sold 5-cent beers. Benny Wilson remembers ordering an entire dishwasher rack of PBR. It was also home to the Bear Claw Café, where the sport of gelande quaffing was created (gelande quaffing is too difficult to explain—Google it). The Bear Claw turned into the Village Café, which served cheap beer and deliciously greasy slices of pizza until it shut down just before the building was torn down.

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COURTESY PHOTO

The many lives of the Seven Levels Inn

Paul McCollister and Alex Morley confer at the base of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort during construction of the original Aerial Tram in the mid-1960s.

care center while they skied. Wilson moved his entire family—a wife and five kids— to Teton Village from Cleveland, Ohio. The Wilsons lived in the Hostel and operated it until 2008.

WHEN WILSON’S SON, Benny, was growing up in the ’70s, a Jackson Hole lift ticket was $3 for kids and came with a free hot chocolate. (An adult lift ticket was under $10.) And there were tons of kids around. The mountain manager, Dick Randolph, and his wife, Peg, had seven kids; the Oberreits (of the Alpenhof) had three; and Chad and Ruth Carpenter, part owners of Crystal Springs Inn, had five. Teton Village kids made up half of the school in the community of Wilson. “Sometimes the [school] bus just wouldn’t show up to pick us up and we’d all just go skiing,” Wilson says. “At the time it was just Apres Vous and the tram so the adults would go on the tram and we would have Apres Vous all to ourselves.” The whole ski resort and base area was their backyard. They’d sled and build forts all over; they’d get kicked out of the hotels they lived in and do their homework together outside. “You’d go to your friend’s

THINGS IN TETON Village stayed low-key for a couple of decades. “In the ’70s and ’80s there was nobody here,” Wilson says. “Before snowmaking there were a lot of years where there was no snow at the base. The average date the Village used to open was December 15; we had a [season], ’76-’77, when the village opened on January 10 and closed March 15.”

Regardless, the resort’s terrain continued to make a name for itself. In 1967, Jackson Hole hosted the final international ski race of the inaugural season of the World Cup. After the race, the series champion, France’s Jean-Claude Killy, said about Jackson Hole to Sports Illustrated, “If there is a better ski mountain in United States, I haven’t skied it yet.” The resort hosted more international races in 1969 and in 1975. In 1970, it hosted the first national Powder 8 Championships. (It has hosted the Power 8 Nationals every year since, weather permitting.) Skier numbers gradually increased: In its first season, Jackson Hole had 22,200 skier days, a count of the number of skiers over a season. In 1975, this number was up to 101,500. In 1985, it was 213,400.

By the late 1980s, it was obvious the resort needed some serious capital investment. In 1992, McCollister sold Jackson Hole Ski Corp. to siblings Connie, Jay, and Betty Kemmerer, who had a family history in Wyoming stretching back more than one hundred years. Almost immediately the ski area began to see improvements: In 1992, the Thunder chairlift was upgraded from a double to a quad. In 1997, the family made the beginner-friendly Teewinot lift into a high-speed quad and also upgraded the Apres Vous chair from a double to a detachable high-speed quad. In 1997, the ski area’s first gondola, the Bridger Gondola, opened, along with new intermediate trails.

Teton Village began to see changes too. In 1999, the Teton Village Association began to charge for parking in the base area. In 2000, the Snake River Lodge and Spa, the base area’s first spa, was built where the Sojourner Inn formerly sat. The Teton Club, a hotel/fractional-ownership project, opened in 2001. In 2002, Teton Mountain Lodge opened. In 2003, Four Seasons Jackson Hole opened on land formerly home to ramshackle maintenance sheds and a dirt parking lot. In 2008, Teton Village got its first LEED-certified boutique hotel, Hotel Terra, which opened just uphill from the Hostel and was the first Teton Village hotel to be included on Conde Nast Traveler’s annual “Hot List.”

“We’ve seen a lot of changes in this valley,” Paul McCollister said in his 1995 interview with Byrd. “In the old days, when you went to a party everyone went in their Levis and you knew everybody. Today when you go to party everybody is dressed to the nines and you hardly know anybody. There has been a big social change in this valley.” And he said this before the Village got its first, much less its fifth, spa. JH JACKSON HOLE NEWS&GUIDE FILE PHOTO

Pepi Stiegler, an Austrian and the 1964 Olympic champion in slalom racing, was Jackson Hole Mountain Resort’s first ski school director. He kept the job until 1994.

house for a sleepover and it would be at a hotel. And you’d just have free reign over the place,” Wilson says.

Benny and his friends also ripped. They were taught to ski by some of the best skiers in the world. McCollister had recruited Pepi Stiegler, an Olympic gold medalist slalom skier from Austria, to be the head of the Jackson Hole Ski School. Stiegler convinced his Austrian and German race friends to come for a visit; some ended up staying because the skiing was so good. Among Stiegler’s recruits were Gisala Kenyon, Franz Ernstberger, Walter Perwein, Günther Damith, and Erich Hotter—all of whom had taught at the best European ski schools. In Jackson, you could take a lesson with them for $25.

IN 1967, JACKSON HOLE HOSTED THE FINAL INTERNATIONAL SKI RACE OF THE INAUGURAL SEASON OF THE WORLD CUP. AFTER THE RACE, THE SERIES CHAMPION, FRANCE’S JEAN-CLAUDE KILLY, SAID ABOUT JACKSON HOLE TO SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, “IF THERE IS A BETTER SKI MOUNTAIN IN UNITED STATES, I HAVEN’T SKIED IT YET.”

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JH Living

OUTDOORS

Sleeping Beauties

Bears are perfectly evolved to nap all winter long.

BY KYLIE MOHR

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THE AVERAGE BEAR LOSES 15 TO 30 PERCENT OF ITS BODY WEIGHT OVER THE FIVE(ISH) MONTHS IT HIBERNATES. THAT’S ANYWHERE BETWEEN 30 AND 120 POUNDS FOR THE AVERAGE SOW AND BETWEEN 30 AND 210 POUNDS FOR THE AVERAGE MALE.

Every winter, bears combat the season’s long, dark days and shortage of food by doing what some of us dream of: hibernating. Bears, including celebrity Grizzly 399, a 22-year-old sow known for raising her cubs around the willow flats near Jackson Lake Junction in Grand Teton National Park (GTNP), prepare for hibernation by eating as many calories as possible. While the most important bear food in September and October is whitebark pine nuts, they’ll also eat fall foods like pondweed root, sweet cicely root, sedges, bistort, yampa, strawberry, grouse whortleberry, buffaloberry, clover, horsetail, ungulates—including carcasses—and army cutworm moths.

The average bear loses 15 to 30 percent of its body weight over the five(ish) months it hibernates. That’s anywhere between 30 and 120 pounds for the average sow and between 30 and 210 pounds for the average male.

In the months leading up to hibernation, “They basically just eat nonstop,” says Kate Wilmot, Grand Teton National Park bear management specialist. Wilmot

DREW RUSH

PAWS CRUNCHING THROUGH the foliage, the female grizzly is on a mission. She lumbers through the forest, sniffing out different food sources in her annual quest to prepare for winter’s hibernation. Her nose, equipped with a sense of smell estimated to be about seven times greater than a bloodhound’s, can sense food miles away. And with a territory of 50 to 300 square miles, she needs that powerful nose. Carrying a blastocyst or two (see sidebar), if she bulks up enough these will mature into cub embryos she’ll give birth to while in her den this winter.

To do this, Ms. Grizzly might prey on elk calves when they’re still small, or, in areas around Yellowstone Lake, feed on spawning cutthroat trout. Sometimes she’ll cache her food for up to several days at a time or plunder other animal’s caches— like squirrels’ middens of whitebark pine nuts. She’s not picky. As the summer progresses, she’ll eat everything from succulent grasses to dandelions, thistles, ants, globe huckleberry, and false truffles. Maybe she’ll even scavenge wolfkilled ungulate carcasses.

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A black bear climbs a tree in pursuit of an abundance of berries in Grand Teton National Park. Plants, berries, and nuts make up a great deal of the species’ diet, though they are known to round out their omnivorous pickings with scavenged meat or smaller mammals.

isn’t exaggerating: “They’ll eat for 20 to 24 hours a day.” The amount of food consumed varies based on the type and quality of food, as well as the age, sex, and mass of a bear; bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem can consume up to 20,000 calories a day if they find highquality foods like army cutworm moths.

EATING THIS MUCH has a name: hyperfasia. “Hyper” means extreme activity or highly active; the suffix “phagia” (or “fasia”) has to do with eating. Bears begin to enter hyperfasia, a state in which they exhibit a continuous need to eat, around mid-July. By September, eating

can consume—no pun intended—about 90 percent of their day. “Their primary goal in life at that point is to just put on fat,” says Kerry Gunther, Yellowstone National Park bear management specialist. “They eat as much as they can. They can gain several pounds a day.”

While spending all of one’s time searching for food and eating is indeed onerous, hyperfasia prepares bears for their upcoming hibernation. Contrary to popular belief, bears do not hibernate as protection against cold weather, but because of the lack of food. “The further north you go, the longer bears hibernate,” Gunther says. “A lot of people

think it’s the cold weather, but really, bears put on a thick layer of fat and have thick fur coats. They’re pretty well adapted to cold weather. It’s the lack of food.”

Wilmot adds, “There’s nothing for them to eat.”

Bears in Mexico or Florida might den for a couple weeks, or not at all, while bears closer to the Arctic Circle in Alaska might den for half a year. Bears in Jackson Hole usually begin readying their dens between October and January; this is the time when their usual food sources become increasingly difficult to find (more and more snow buries them). But, “Bears are all individuals,” Gunther says. “Some

Hibernation Timeline BEARS BEGIN MAKING THEIR DENS, AND ENTER THEM.

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SOWS PREGNANT WITH CUBS GIVE BIRTH WHILE IN A SEMICONSCIOUS STATE. CUBS IMMEDIATELY BEGIN DRINKING MILK.

MID-JANUARY(ISH)

MALE BEARS, SOWS WITHOUT NEWBORNS, AND SOWS WITH YEARLINGS EMERGE FROM THEIR DENS

FEBRUARY - APRIL

Respect for the Spirit of Place “But the something about Jackson Hole how can we encompass it in words? I have heard residents try to pin it down in outbursts of enthusiasm, but they couldn’t find the words... No, we can’t describe the spirit of Jackson Hole, the Spirit of Place but many of us feel it.” Olaus J. Murie 1943

The Uniqueness of Bear Pregnancy

When born, bear cubs are small, blind, and almost hairless (if not completely so). A black bear baby weighs about as much as a stick of butter. Cubs immediately find their moms’ breasts and begin to suckle. “A bear’s milk is really high in fat, so those [cubs] will just grow, grow, grow, grow,” Wilmot says.

RYAN DORGAN

Both black and grizzly bears breed between mid-May and mid-July—before hyperfasia kicks in—and are truly pregnant for only about two months. Bear cubs are usually born in January, while moms are hibernating and in a semiconscious state. If this math—mating in the early summer, a two-month gestation period, and birth in January—seems off, you’re right. Bears have evolved a unique reproductive trait called “delayed implantation.” After mating, the fertilized egg develops into a tiny ball of cells—a blastocyst—and then it just hangs out, unattached and dormant, in the bear mom’s uterus. If a sow gains enough weight during hyperfasia—150 pounds is usually enough—around late November the blastocyst will implant in her uterine wall and continue to grow. (If the female fails to gain enough weight, the blastocyst will not implant, and pregnancy is terminated.)

For generations this shared sense of The Spirit of Place has been the foundation of the globally unique conservation legacy of Jackson Hole, The Crucible for Conservation. In the forward to this book documenting the decades long drama in the struggle to create Grand Teton National Park, the writer presents this prescient admonition: “We must persistently seek in our hearts and our minds a vision that will secure the future of this spectacular Teton Range and Jackson Hole valley.”

A respected writer recently observed: “Wyoming’s Teton and Park counties and Montana’s Gallatin are the only ones left in the Lower 48 where you can find the full complement of large wildlife species that were on the landscape 500 years ago. Without habitat there is no wildlife, which itself is a major economic engine for the (Greater Yellowstone) region.”

As the southern gateway to Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks, the essence of Jackson Hole, its most distinctive and valuable characteristic that sets it far apart from Any-Resort-Town USA - is our wildlife in wild places. How do we cherish and nurture this distinctiveness?

Steve Duerr • Top-Producing Broker for Jackson Hole Real Estate Associates • 21 years in real estate with success in aggregation of large tracts of ranch lands and conservation easement tax planning, 39 years in active law practice including 29 years as General Counsel for the regional electric and gas cooperative utility • Former member of the Teton County Planning Commission and Teton Board of Realtors • Recipient of the JH Chamber of Commerce Power of Place award and pioneer of the former Power of Place brand as executive director of the Chamber, envisioning a sustainable balance between commerce and conservation, people - wildlife and wild places • Former executive director of the Murie Center in GTNP and a catalyst for the Town of Jackson Proclamation in collaboration with the National Elk Refuge renaming North Park at the Greater Yellowstone Visitor Center on North Cache, The Murie Family Park. There is set Olaus’ Rock the 1965 community monument to conservation leadership.

SOWS WITH NEWBORN CUBS EMERGE FROM THEIR DENS.

LATE APRIL - EARLY MAY

steveduerr@jhrea.com | 307.699.4920 | www.steveduerr.com WINTER 2019 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE

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bears build dens weeks in advance and others seem to do it at the last moment.”

Bears differ in when they enter their dens, too: “Some are out until Christmas,” Gunther says. “Those [bears] are usually cleaning up wolf-killed ungulates.” In the 2011-12 winter, one sow grizzly didn’t den up with her yearling cubs until January. (While most bears are solitary in their dens, a female will often reden with her cubs as yearlings and sometimes even as two-year-olds before the kids go off on their own.)

THE EXTRA WEIGHT bears put on during hyperfasia gives them a better chance of getting through winter’s food

shortage. Increased weight gives them a lower surface area-to-mass ratio and cuts their metabolic rate to about 50 to 60 percent of normal. This means that, despite the frigid temperatures, they lose body heat more slowly. Still, they are using energy. “They’re living off body fat,” Gunther says. Overwinter mortality is rare for adults, bear management specialists say. It’s higher for younger animals, particularly the young of that year.

As impressive as bears’ ability to live off fat for months on end is, more unique is that they’re able to build protein while doing it. “If a human was bedridden for five months, [her] muscles would all atrophy,” Gunther says. Bears break down

Grizzlies tend to den on steeper slopes, usually at an altitude of 6,500 to 10,000 feet. Black bears usually choose slopes that are between 20 and 40 degrees, with an altitude of 5,800 to 8,600 feet on average. Both species seek out northerly slopes where southwest winds blow snow that accumulates and insulates their den site. The most common type of den is under the base of a tree, dug under the root system. Other locations include hollowed-out tree trunks, hillsides, natural rock cavities, and small caves.

ILLUSTRATION BY ELISE MAHAFFIE

During hibernation, a bear’s body temperature drops by about 12 degrees, breathing slows down, and heart rate drops. When active, a bear’s temperature is usually between 100 and 101 degrees Fahrenheit; they take between six and ten breaths per minute; and their hearts beats between forty and fifty times a minute. During hibernation, their temperature is about 88 degrees Fahrenheit, they inhale only about once every forty-five seconds, and their heart beats between eight and twenty times a minute.

the urea produced from the fat metabolism, and the resulting nitrogen is used to build protein. “A bear recycles waste products into protein,” Gunther says.

This ability allows bears to maintain their muscle mass through hibernation, something that’s caught the eye of a team of European biomedical researchers, biologists, and neuroscientists who study how bears hibernate. They’re looking at bears with an eye toward human-related benefits, such as how to maintain muscle mass and bone density for space travel to Mars.

Nap time doesn’t last forever, but when bears emerge from their dens varies tremendously. Deep snow and male

Bears generally do not defecate or urinate during hibernation.

Metabolic waste products are still produced, but they’re recycled.

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Bears bring in pine boughs, duff from the forest floor, or whatever is around a den site to make a bedding area. Air pockets within those materials collect heat from the body.

Bears make a short tunnel into a chamber for their den.

To maximize insulation, the entrance is usually just big enough for the bear to squeeze through.

Are Bears “True” Hibernators?

A long time ago, some wildlife biologists did not consider bears to be “true” hibernators. That’s since changed, Wilmot says, and “there has not been a debate for some time.” Gunther agrees. “Bears really are true hibernators.” Animals that have always been recognized as true hibernators include chipmunks and ground squirrels. “[Bears] do all the same things” as these species, Gunther says.

Gunther says a better distinction is shallow versus deep hibernators. A deep hibernating animal has a body temperature that dips below 40 degrees Fahrenheit, and Wilmot says, “Their bodies really take a dive in terms of biological parameters,” which makes it very difficult (and slow) for them to awaken.

But a shallow hibernator, like a bear, can be easily aroused. A hibernating bear’s metabolic rate is about 30 percent of normal, and heart rate is about 20 percent of normal. While a deep hibernator’s metabolic rate depends on species, body mass, and ambient temperatures, small rodents, like ground squirrels, can reduce their heart rates from more than one hundred beats per minute to less than five beats per minute.

RYAN DORGAN

bears present obstacles for newborn cubs. They have to be big enough and strong enough to be mobile. In 2017, Grizzly 399 had twin newborns, and the three weren’t spotted (by a road in GTNP) until mid-May. Bigger males are usually the first bears to wake up. This happens here as early as mid-February.

Females with yearlings also might come out around this time. Wilmot says that “by mid-March, about 50 percent of males are awake in this ecosystem. The last to wake up are the females with the small cubs.” In 2017, Grand Teton National Park biologists saw a sow grizzly with two two-year-olds on March 29.

Sometimes bears emerge and then decide to hit snooze. Wilmot says, “It’s not abnormal for a bear to take a cruise or a walkabout and decide they’re going back to bed.”

The first bear sighting of 2018 in Yellowstone National Park, was an 11-year-old male grizzly. He was spotted March 6. Whenever a bear wakes up, there’s no doubt it’ll be hungry. And then the cycle, in tune with nature’s clock, begins again. JH

While the possibility of a bear waking up to deal with an emergency, like a predator at the door, is a rare occurrence, the potential is always there. Their relatively high hibernating vitals mean they’re prepared and can respond if need be. “They can wake up quickly say, if wolves are trying to dig into the den to eat the cubs,” Gunther says.

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GETTING OUT

JH

Traverse the Tetons You could drive to Grand Targhee, but skiing there from Jackson Hole Mountain Resort is one of the area’s ultimate ski adventures.

BY BRIGID MANDER PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOHN SLAUGHTER

The 27-mile Tram to Trap ski traverse allows skiers to connect Jackson Hole Mountain Resort to Grand Targhee Resort.

WE ARE GOING to ski Grand Targhee and get a beer at the Trap Bar, so we meet in town and carpool to the free parking lot in Teton Village. No, we’re not lost: We’re skiing to Grand Targhee instead of driving. And so, nonchalantly, as if it were any other March ski day, my friends John Slaughter, Adam Glos, and I climb onto the Aerial Tram dock at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort (JHMR) with backcountry packs about triple the size of a normal day ski pack. From the top of the tram, we head out the backcountry gate at the south end of Rendezvous Bowl and begin climbing up Cody Peak. But, instead WINTER 2019 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE

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Hiking up Cody Peak just outside the boundaries of JHMR.

of doing one of our usual descents off this craggy peak’s east face, we stop on the back of the windswept upper flank, put our skis on, and drop, one by one, onto a gloriously untracked west-facing slope.

The route between JHMR and Grand Targhee is nicknamed “Tram to Trap,” and we are far from the first to undertake the approximately 27-mile oversnow traverse between the ski areas.

Our original plan was to take five days to cross the range, notching descents on a few of the famed, seldom-skied peaks along the way, like Fossil and Housetop, and any ski line or face that happened to look good. But that plan isn’t to be: Just before our departure, a ferocious windstorm hammered all aspects of upper elevations into unpleasant, unsafe, cardboard-like snow. Also, there’s an incoming winter storm warning. But before the big storm, forecasters say there are three days of sun. An adventurous, peak-bagging tour isn’t possible, but a traditional, straightforward traverse is. We change our plan to the latter.

THE SNOW ON the backside of Cody Peak is surprisingly soft.

At the bottom, we grin and high-five before putting our climbing skins on and heading west across a meadow. (Climbing skins, when used with specialized alpine touring bindings, allow skiers to efficiently move across flats, and even ski uphill.)

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Just as the light gets low, we arrive at Marion Lake, a popular summer hiking destination, but which, in winter, is very frozen, and very empty.

With us we have the usual necessities for winter camping— tents, puffy sleeping bags and pads, stoves, food, and fuel—plus topo maps, and a little extra fun: a container of a whiskey cocktail our friend, Timmy Cohn, a bartender at Osteria, gave us. By the time the pink alpenglow fades to darkness, camp is set and dinner is finished. A couple after-ski sips of Cohn’s cocktail send us into our sleeping bags for the night.

The next day dawns crystal clear and our goal is to cover some serious ground, hopefully 15 (or so) miles through terrain that cowboys call “seeing country.” And see country is what we do as we follow the spine of the Tetons and traverse the Death Canyon shelf. Eventually we cross from familiar-ish terrain into the range’s interior, where vistas of unfamiliar ridges, cliff bands, and summits spread in every direction.

The more we see, the more exotic the terrain seems. In a range like the Tetons, where so much incredible ski terrain is so easily accessed, you don’t have to venture very far off the beaten path for an adventure. Here we’ve gone in just a little deeper and, despite the recognizable horizon lines, are rewarded with another world full of high-walled couloirs and zones of mini-

John Slaughter, the author, and Adam Glos raise a glass at Grand Targhee’s Trap Bar following a three-day traverse of the Teton Range.

Skiing from JHMR to Grand Targhee requires skiers to spend between one and four nights out.

golf terrain. And then there’s the feeling of discovering something new that has been just under our noses for so long.

“Seeing country” is profoundly satisfying.

WE SPEND OUR second night on the north side of Alaska Basin, which feels so isolated we could be ski touring in Iceland.

The scene from the night before repeats itself, but the morning couldn’t be more different. We emerge from the tent to see that sun and blue skies have been replaced by snow, low visibility, and fierce winds. With just enough visibility to use line-ofsight navigation up out of Alaska Basin and along the ridge, we quickly pack up and begin skinning. Our progress is slow, and there is not much seeing country.

The clouds and thick snowfall sock in. Darkness is falling. We decide to ski down Table Mountain, the last peak before reaching Targhee, instead of pushing on to Targhee itself. This amendment to our plan requires we hitch a ride up Ski Hill Road to Targhee’s base area. We’ve adjusted so many things about this tour to better fit the conditions, but we’re not giving up on beers at the Trap.

Arriving at the base area, it is pitch black and tiny; still, we feel overwhelmed by it. After all, we haven’t seen another person or sign of life since we left the JHMR tram two days before.

But burgers. And nachos. And beer.

We push toward the Trap’s deck. A warm glow of interior lights shines out the windows. We pull the door. But it doesn’t open. We pitifully press our faces to the windows like lost Charles Dickens urchins until, at a glacial pace, the bartender ambles over. “We’re closed,” he says. Of course we’re crushed.

The Trap is supposed to be open until 10 p.m. and it’s not even 9 p.m. “We just want one beer,” I say. The bartender has a heart and swings the door open. The three of us shuffle in and take seats at the long, wood bar, which is populated only by a couple of workers enjoying a post-shift drink. The bartender pours us beer from taps he just cleaned, clearly hiding a smile. “You can stay until I’m finished cleaning up,” he says. JH

NUTS & BOLTS: Teton Backcountry Guides has a permit to guide in the Jedediah Smith Wilderness area, which stretches between Jackson Hole Mountain Resort and Grand Targhee, but is not permitted to use lift services.

(So you couldn’t do this traverse from the top of the JHMR tram with them.) They can guide alternate versions of the traverse; or skiers with backcountry knowledge can meet their guide outside the resort at the wilderness boundary. Guide services start at $595 per day for up to four skiers. tetonbackcountryguides. com, 307/353-2900 WINTER 2019 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE

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GETTING OUT

The Village Commons

An ice rink (hot chocolate nearby) and life-size snow sculptures that kids are encouraged to play on at the base of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort?

Yes, please.

BY WHITNEY ROYSTER // PHOTOGRAPHY BY RYAN DORGAN

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GOING ON A SKI vacation with your family is a lot of work. OMG. The planning, the gear, the expense, the whining.

Just how many suitcases, exactly, did you pack? Did you need a support vehicle?

Getting on the first chairlift is like an Olympic gold medal. You’ve made it. You did it. It’s too bad the chairlift doesn’t allow for a nap.

While parents have yet to figure out how to nap on chairlifts—if you have, please share your secret with me—elsewhere in Teton Village, the Powers That Be are trying to make it easy for families.

Witness the Village Commons. Stretching from behind the tram to the Mangy Moose Saloon, the park, which is a grassy field, patio, and water park in summer, is transformed in winter to a celebration of ice and snow where kids can run around (and parents can sit down by a warming fire pit).

The area is run by the Teton Village Association (TVA)—a sort of micro Chamber of Commerce just for Teton Village—and is created in partnership with Jackson Hole Mountain Resort (JHMR). The specific departments at JHMR that help with the park are those who have snowmakers, and/or chainsaws.

In other words, everyone’s favorite kind of partners. “We just want to make a great, fun, family-friendly space in the commons,” says Melissa Turley, TVA president.

The summer vibe has been a huge hit. “It’s lively and people love to hang out. We’re trying to carry that over in to the winter.

That was the goal originally.”

SO HOW DOES it work? Like this: You take your skis off, hopefully change out of both your boots and the kids’ boots (the best part of skiing—admit it), and walk out there. Then you tell your kids to go play. Then you do the best thing you will do on your vacation—you sit down.

I promise it will be awesome.

The kids climb into snow caves and up the side of a snow castle. Maybe they’ll slide down the castle’s other side.

They inch dangerously close to a snow arch under which people are walking, and if you are lucky, they don’t try to peg anyone with snowballs. They storm snow castles and raid snow villages. They rescue imaginary prisoners and chase unicorns, easily this valley’s most elusive wildlife. They get lost in the snow forest.

THE KIDS CLIMB INTO SNOW CAVES AND UP THE SIDE OF A SNOW CASTLE. MAYBE THEY’LL SLIDE DOWN THE CASTLE’S OTHER SIDE. THEY INCH DANGEROUSLY CLOSE TO A SNOW ARCH UNDER WHICH PEOPLE ARE WALKING, AND IF YOU ARE LUCKY, THEY DON’T TRY TO PEG ANYONE WITH SNOWBALLS. There is also an ice skating pond, which is the site of the water pop jets in summer. New this year is a mini-Zamboni, which will smooth the ice surface.

Bring your own skates and skate for free—that’s what Olympic figure skating medalist Nancy Kerrigan did last year— or rent skates on site for $7. The ice rink is subject to weather of course. Last year, warm weather melted it and closed the area to skating for several weeks in January, but this is usually not a problem Jackson Hole has.

Below: Kids and parents explore Bland Hoke Jr.’s The Beacon ice sculpture.

Left: Kids play in the Village Commons snow forest, created by the JHMR Park and Pipe Operations team.

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Families gather around the Village Commons ice rink for a presentation of Peter and the Wolf.

BRING YOUR OWN SKATES AND SKATE FOR FREE—THAT’S WHAT OLYMPIC FIGURE SKATING MEDALIST NANCY KERRIGAN DID LAST YEAR— OR RENT SKATES ON SITE FOR $7.

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LOCALS AND REGULAR visitors may remember the area was the site of a sledding hill for nearly a decade. Then a snow skate park came in—a mini-terrain park for people to try on mini-skis and do mini-jumps and mini-tricks on rails and other (mini) obstacles. Today Raynon D’Arge is JHMR’s manager of Park and Pipe Operations. In addition to helping with the Village Commons, in winter he manages the terrain and stash parks and in summer the resort’s mountain biking and hiking trails.

With a crew of a dozen or so, D’Arge first built the snow skate park, then that

The Village Commons ice rink has played host to Kazakh and Armenian national champion skater Akop Manoukian and his rendition of Sergei Prokofiev’s classic children’s tale, Peter and the Wolf.

grew to include snow sculptures. “It’s been an evolution,” he says. The skate park had two little castle creations. “Like, two piles of snow that we shaped basically into little towers. The kids loved those so much that we ended up not doing the snow skate [park], but transformed it into a sledding hill and different types of snow castles.”

D’Arge knows what he’s doing not because he has a degree in Snow Castle Management, but because he is cooler than you are. Way cooler. He grew up in Elk Mountain, Wyoming, (you’ve been near there if you have driven I-80 from

Rawlins to Laramie), population 200.

“We would build snow forts so big people were coming off the interstate just to look at it,” he says. “We had forty people come and stand in one room. We’d get all my friends and town kids with shovels.”

Now he does it at a grown-up level, complete with tools specifically designed for building snow caves, like an overhead digging shovel.

The crew puts the sculptures together in a quick span of three days, sometimes, when weather permits, before Christmas.

The snowmakers at JHMR start the project by blowing a huge pile of snow in the area. People call it the “snowmaking whale.” It gets a hard shell, but the inside is gooey and soft. D’Arge’s crew moves the gooey snow around, and then starts carving it. Every year they do something different. One year they used computer drawings to help. Last winter, D’Arge’s 10-year-old daughter, Alena, came up with the idea of a snow forest. They also build overhead bridges and archways.

(By last winter’s end, these had morphed to look like the collapsed Coliseum.)

Kids precariously crossed drawbridges, and parents? Parents pulled in closer to the fire.

At night, the Village Commons gets even cooler. Last winter, there was a temporary snow/ice sculpture by Jackson

Hole Public Art staffer and local king of whimsy and fun Bland Hoke Jr.: The Beacon. The Beacon is difficult to describe but we’ll try: It was a 10-foot-tall, 32-foot-in-diameter enclosure of ice bubbles, each with glowing LED lights inside. (Hoke made bricks of ice, then drilled a hole into each brick. Insert science about water expanding as it freezes, and you get tiny explosions. “Each one is like its own tiny universe,” Hoke says.

Can’t picture it? Search #thebeaconjh. It was highly Instagrammable.

So ultimately, the Village Commons works like this: The kids get hot chocolate; you get beer. In a remarkable thirtyminute interlude in your vacation, no one is whining, no one is cold. No one is hungry, no one is bored. No one is mad at their sibling. Instead, you are all in a glowing, snow fairy-land together. JH

NUTS & BOLTS:

The Village Commons is open 24 hours a day, every day. There is no entrance fee.

Skate rentals are $7 per time. BYO skates and skate for free. Even if you don’t ski, the Village Commons is worth the trip from town to Teton Village.

Some parents, and we are not naming names, have gone to the Commons with children and created a mini-co-op for the afternoon. “You ‘watch’ the kids for twenty minutes and I’ll shop, then we switch.” Be brave. We are all in this together.

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GETTING OUT

Ski to Eat

At these spots, the Nordic skiing is as good as the lunch menu.

BY LILA EDYTHE

IF YOU GET lunch at Snake River Brewing, it will be one of the best lunches you’ve ever had at a brewpub, especially if you go for the Brussels Caesar followed by the Thai peanut pasta. And then there’s Picnic, the edgy sister-café to adorable Persephone Bakery. Picnic’s lunch menu changes, but might include the “T-Day Sub,” a baguette stuffed with turkey meatloaf, Utah Valley cheddar, balsamic red onions, Sriracha-spiked cranberry ketchup, spinach, and horseradish; it’s dessert menu is pretty constant and includes the valley’s best brownie and cookies. Go ahead and have lunch at both of these places, and then, when you have more time and are looking for a lunch experience, head to Turpin Meadow Ranch, Brooks Lake Lodge, or Dornan’s where the food is fabulous, and the Nordic skiing is even more so.

Skiing from Togwotee Pass to Brooks Lake Lodge for lunch is a roughly 10-mile round trip.

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PRICE CHAMBERS

You can enjoy breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the main lodge at Turpin Meadow Ranch.

JONATHAN CROSBY

BUFFALO VALLEY’S TURPIN Meadow Ranch is exactly a one-hour drive from downtown Jackson, but feels a world away. The ranch, which was totally remodeled in 2013, originally opened in 1932 as a gas station and rest stop at the base of the western side of the first road over Togwotee Pass. The highway over Togwotee Pass has long since been replaced and rerouted, but the original road does still exist (it begins climbing up the pass directly behind the main lodge). In the winter though, it’s not plowed past the lodge, so the ranch’s cozy main cabin is literally the end of the road.

A small ski shop at the ranch rents all the gear you need, whether you’re a classic or skate skier. Geared up, explore the ranch’s 25 kilometers of trails, all of which are groomed daily. Jackson locals Hans and Nancy Johnstone, who both

the ground every once in a while to enjoy the Tetons rising in the distance without falling.

As gorgeous as the views and the ski trails here are, it’s lunch and hanging out in the main lodge that are the highlights at Turpin Meadow. The menu changes daily, but could include curried carrot and coconut soup, beef chili, a veggie focaccia sandwich, or bison and beef meatloaf. Post lunch, don’t hurry back to town.

Instead, stay and play a few games of table shuffleboard in front of the lodge’s riverrock fireplace. Day ski passes are $15, lunch starts at $7, 24505 Buffalo Valley Rd., Moran, turpinmeadowranch.com

BROOKS LAKE LODGE, in the shadow of 11,516-foot-tall Pinnacle Butte in the Shoshone National Forest, was built over six months in the winter of 1922. At one point it was the biggest hunting/guest ranch in the country. The lodge was expanded AS GORGEOUS AS THE VIEWS AND THE SKI TRAILS HERE ARE, (in the original style) in the IT’S LUNCH AND HANGING OUT IN THE MAIN LODGE THAT ARE 1980s. In winter, the only THE HIGHLIGHTS AT TURPIN MEADOW. way to get there is via snowcoach, snowmobile, or crosscountry skis. Even though it’s competed in the biathlon in the a longish ski to get there—5 miles each Albertville Olympics (1992) in France, way, and uphill on the way in—Brooks designed Turpin Meadow’s trail system Lake’s lunch, available to nonguests, is with the goal of appealing to all levels. worth the effort.

They succeeded. The flat 3-kilometer From the parking area on U.S. Summer Homes Loop is mellow enough Highway 26, you’ll share a wide, that even first-timers can look up from groomed road with both snowmobilers WINTER 2019 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE

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LEFT: If you plan your ski in GTNP for a late Monday afternoon, you can hit Dornan’s famous open mic, the Hootenanny, after.

and passenger vans fitted with tracks instead of wheels. The climb up to the lodge is gradual. If you start to feel the altitude, think about the three fireplaces waiting for you at the lodge, all of which are kept roaring all winter long, and a dessert menu with deep fried chocolate chip cookie dough balls and Fireball apple pie. (There’s real food, too, like hamburgers, a duck spinach salad, a sloppy joe, beef and pork chili, and chicken sandwiches.)

If you’ve got energy left after skiing in, you can access hundreds of miles of trails from Brooks Lake Lodge, including the famous Continental Divide Trail. These are groomed a couple of times a week, and are primarily used by snowmobilers, but because the trail system is so expansive, there’s enough room for everyone to play. If you’re feeling adventurous, you don’t need to limit yourself to groomed trails—the Shoshone 108

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JONATHAN CROSBY

RIGHT: Brooks Lake Lodge provides a nice spot to warm up for skiers and snowmobilers in the Shoshone National Forest.

National Forest is 2.4 million acres and Brooks Lake Lodge is smack in the middle of it. No ski pass required, lunch entrees start at $7, 458 Brooks Lake Rd., Dubois, brookslake.com THERE’S NO MORE classic ski-eat combo than Grand Teton National Park’s (GTNP) Inner Park Loop Road and Dornan’s.

The former is an 11-mile stretch of road at the base of the Tetons that in winter is closed to cars and groomed for classic and skate skiing a couple of times a week. The latter started as a small homestead, added a restaurant in the 1940s, and has grown to also include a deli and wine shop. (There are other amenities here like retail shops and cabins, but they are only open in summer.) Dornan’s is just outside the Moose entrance to GTNP, and the restaurant is a cozy, woody space where two walls of windows frame the Tetons. (FYI, in the attached wine

JONATHAN CROSBY

In Grand Teton National Park, 11 miles of the Inner Park Loop Road are groomed for Nordic skiing twice a week.

shop you can get some of Mary Kate Buckley’s Urlari wines, which are mentioned in a profile of her on pg. 34, at Dornan’s.)

The skiing doesn’t start at Dornan’s, but about 4 miles up the road, at the Bradley-Taggart Lakes Trailhead. Here you’ll find a large parking lot with a vault toilet, and unless we’ve gotten so much snow that it’s buried, a metal gate across the road.

From the trailhead, you can follow the groomed road for as long as you’d like and then turn around, or explore smaller trails that aren’t groomed but are made by other users after each snowstorm. The easiest of these will take you to Taggart Lake, about 1.5 miles from the parking lot. If you’re up for a little bit of climbing, head for Bradley Lake, which is over a several-hundred-foot ridge to the north of Taggart. You can get to Jenny Lake via the groomed road or a smaller, user-made trail. The latter will be about 1 mile shorter than the former (about 5 miles instead

of 6). Both options are flat. If you take the groomed road to its end, you’ll find yourself near Signal Mountain Lodge. Don’t look for lunch here though, it’s closed in the winter. But that’s fine because you want to eat at Dornan’s.

Dornan’s menu is heavy with pizza, pasta, and salads. The different pizzas are named after different Teton peaks. There’s the Mt. Moran (roasted-garlic cream sauce, chicken, spinach, Roma tomatoes, and toasted pine nuts), the Thor Peak (marinara, Italian sausage, pepperoni, Canadian bacon, and caramelized onions), and the Static Peak (BBQ sauce, chicken, smoked Gouda, and red onions), among others. It’s hard to go wrong with the artichoke dip appetizer (artichokes baked with Asiago cheese and served with pita bread). There is no fee to ski, but entrance to GTNP is $10, lunch starts at $9, 12170 Dornans Rd., Moose, dornans.com JH WINTER 2019 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE

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BODY & SOUL

The Whole You

Valley doctors and therapists integrate alternative therapies with traditional Western medical treatments to help you feel your best.

JENNA SCHOENFELD

BY JOOHEE MUROMCEW

Although its effects are unproven in modern scientific studies, acupuncture is a substantial part of traditional Chinese medicine and has been practiced since about 600 B.C. It involves the insertion of very thin needles through the skin at strategic points on the body. Today it is most commonly used to treat pain and increasingly is being used for overall wellness, including stress management.

“I DON’T CALL it alternative medicine,” says Francine Bartlett. “Alternative means ‘instead of,’ and this is really integrative medicine and complementary care.” Bartlett is the founder of Medicine Wheel Wellness, the two-story heart of Jackson’s wellness community, located on Pearl Avenue downtown.

I thought I knew my way around integrative medicine until I sat down with Bartlett, and she schooled me on the “medicine wheel,” which wholly integrates mental, spiritual, emotional, and physical health. Our family moved here from Marin County, birthplace of many well-deserved wellness stereotypes. The kids did yoga in preschool and we drank kale juice out of mason jars before those pricey juice companies 110

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Francine Bartlett opened Medicine Wheel Wellness in 2015.

CLEARLY, MUCH OF

made it look cool and an open mind. My THE WORK OF taste like lemonade. chronic sinus infections FORWARD-THINKING Medicinal pot dispensadid eventually subside ries? So last century. with Dr. Mark’s guidPRACTITIONERS IS Also, my primary ance. Nevertheless, havPERSUADING THEIR doctor here in the Valley ing been brought up to PATIENTS TO is Mark Menolascino, expect the immediate KEEP AN OPEN MIND. who is technically an inbenefits of antibiotics ternist, but highly reand pain relievers, ultigarded in the medical mately, it required a lot community for his holistic command of of trust to commit to new practices and Western and integrative practices. I used slowly see meaningful improvement in to suffer from chronic sinus infections my health overall. and exhausted the faculties of many allergists, ear-nose-throat specialists, and PERHAPS THE MOST well-known of the family doctors, most of whom resigned integrative practices, acupuncture is still to recommending plastic surgery to cor- a mystery to most. An acupuncturist studrect a flawed nasal passage. To be honest, ies the body’s meridians like a map, and this was the kind of “procedure” I would can decipher where the inner chi is imbalhave preferred to hold off on until, one anced. This is particularly useful to relieve day in the far future, I could very dis- pain and stress. Becky Hawkins is the creetly combine it with something less owner of East Meets West Healthcare, and medically prescribed (I’m talking about a trusted practitioner of acupuncture and a facelift, people). Dr. Mark, as many of its relative, dry needling, for many in the his patients know him, instead took me Jackson area. Rob Hollis, owner of the through an exhaustive and thorough di- Frost and Frost2 Salons, swears by agnostic check-up, one that included not Hawkins’ method for relieving his chronic only allergy testing, but also food sensi- foot pain. Previous to Hawkins, Hollis tivities. He recommended reducing dairy “mostly just lived with the pain, and lots of and whole eggs from my diet. He also Advil, which I wanted to get away from.” recommended lymphatic drainage massage, which I’d always considered weird MANY LOCALS ALSO swear by cupand mysterious because my friend said ping to relieve pain. Medicine Wheel’s they massage your armpits, and brush Bartlett explains that cupping is simply your skin with a dry bristle brush, which lifting the tissue away from its trauma, just sounded abrasive. Clearly, much of thereby increasing blood flow. A temthe work of forward-thinking practitio- pered glass cup is heated, then inverted ners is persuading their patients to keep directly on the skin, drawing blood to WINTER 2019 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE

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spoon—across the skin, again increasing blood flow. The effects can be immediate and of tremendous relief, though both treatments can leave medieval-looking bruising and redness.

Bio Mats can be used for relaxation, stress relief, and even pain management.

the surface. Cristy Liaw Gabel, an administrator at St. John’s Medical Center, relies on cupping to release muscle tension. “Since I work in an office where I type for eight to ten hours a day, my upper body and neck get really tight. I’ve tried regular massage to help release the tension, but I can’t handle too hard of

pressure. With cupping, the therapist was able to release the deep tissue tightness and give some relief instantly. I’ve also had scraping that helps me release sinus pressure.” The “scraping” Liaw Gabel is referring to is Gua Sha, a Chinese practice similar to cupping that calls for scraping a hard-edged instrument—like a ceramic

A BIO MAT treatment at Medicine Wheel greatly appealed to me, mostly because Bartlett gently warned that it could cause deep relaxation resulting in a nap. The Bio Mat combines far-infrared light and negative ion technology in an amethystfilled mat. Basically, it is a very heavy, heated amethyst-filled mat that a patient lies upon, for 20 to 60 minutes. A mildly heated Bio Mat (94 to 104 degrees Fahrenheit) can relieve stress or just provide relaxation. Higher temperatures of 133 degrees and above can address muscle and joint pain, and encourage circulation.

The highest temperature settings, above 149 degrees, can treat pain from conditions like arthritis or an athletic injury with its extremely penetrating sauna-like heat.

ACCORDING TO DR. Menolascino, hyperbaric therapy is not new, having been invented in 1662, but it still has a very new-agey vibe. At Menolascino’s of-

Photographer: Scott Peterson

PRESCOTT MUIR ARCHITECTS JACKSON HOLE 112

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THERE ARE SO many practices and methods that make up the perpetually evolving world of integrative practices.

Bartlett, who first came to the area in 2005, and opened Medicine Wheel in 2015, considers herself a lifelong student of wellness as well as a provider of many services. Medicine Wheel is home to a community of independent providers including acupuncturists, physical therapists, biofeedback therapists, and even crystal singing bowl healers. Bartlett emphasizes that the first visit to Medicine Wheel is about “putting the wheel to-

BRADLY J. BONER

fice, however, the sleek black chamber looks more space-age and advanced.

Oxygen is filtered and compressed into the chamber, allowing the patient’s body to receive 30 percent more oxygen. It is the equivalent to being 11 feet below sea level, though is completely comfortable enough that patients can fall asleep or even read a book. Patients usually come in for sixty minutes sessions, five to ten sessions in a series. Menolascino’s welcoming office in Wilson is the rare practice that offers the hyperbaric chamber outside a hospital or large medical center.

Dr. Mark Menolascino talks wellness with Jackson Hole Middle School students.

gether for holistic therapy” and includes a tour of the entire facility and a tutorial on “the wheel.” Treating chronic pain or a nagging sports injury often requires an understanding of emotional underpinnings. The emotional trauma from a mountain bike accident can far outlive

fractures and breaks. “We want to know what’s going on with them as a human being. We work with Western care practitioners all the time, but it’s just incomplete on its own. It’s just one piece of the pie. We just don’t want to miss the whole person who needs care.” JH

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NIGHTLIFE EER

Choose Your Own

Happy Hour Adventure

BY WHITNEY ROYSTER ILLUSTRATION BY TAYLOR-ANN SMITH

B

Did you ski today?

YES

Can you still feel your feet?

Are you over the age of 30?

R BEE

YES

NO

MAYBE

R BEE

R

BEE

BEE

Do you know at what elevation deer turn into elk?

Is this vacation costing more than expected?

Does the phrase “Schralp the Gnar” mean anything to you?

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DEPENDS WHO’S ASKING

WHAT?

R

R

BEE

Whatever.

Do you like beer?

Will there be dancing?

YES

NO YES

NO

Million Dollar Cowboy Bar

Are you single?

NO

YES

BEE

YES

EW

R

LIAR

YES

NO

Mangy Moose

JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE WINTER 2019

Old Yellowstone Garage

Roadhouse Brewery

NO

The Rose

- Saveur - Cooking Light - Forbes

BEAUTIFULLY

Remodeled CLUBHOUSE Country Club Public Welcome 16 km of Groomed XC Skiing Year-Round Tennis Exceptional Dining Weddings & Events Arnold Palmer Signature Course

The Pines Restaurant Lunch • Happy Hour • Dinner 1/2 Priced Drinks • 4-6pm Wednesday - Saturday Thursdays - Live Music & Ladies Night 3450 Clubhouse Drive Between Teton Village & Jackson on the Village Road www.tetonpines.com • (307)733.1005x1 WINTER 2019 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE

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DINING

BRADLY J. BONER

For the Love of Meatballs

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ITALIANS SPEAK WITH their hands and cook with their hearts. They’ll invite you into their kitchens to watch them cook and feed you until you feel like a stuffed pig. Italians might be the most generous cooks around, until it comes to their recipes. My family sneaks in an ingredient (or two) when you turn your back so you can never make it as tasty as theirs. As a Fustanio and a Cavalcanti I know this trick well. My uncle adds a pinch of sugar and my stepfather a pat of butter to finish off the family ragout, another word for marinara sauce. I learned to improvise in the kitchen thanks to them.

chain of restaurants called The Meatball Shop with six locations. Jackson may be a little behind big-city trends, but our valley still has a lot of love here for the homestyle meatball.

“My family isn’t as crazy with the whole meatball thing,” says Paul Cucchiarelli, the newest meatball chef in town at Hand Fire Pizza. Still, he says, “I don’t know if I can share the full recipe.”

Once we get talking, he pretty much dishes the ingredients of his “meat bawl” pizza, a name that stuck after he and his business partner made fun of the way he pronounced meatball with his New England accent.

“It starts with my recipe of sauce.

Organic tomatoes out of California, crushed tomatoes, onions, garlic, Italian herbs, and sugar at the end to balance out the acidity,” he says. “The meatballs have spicy red pepper flakes, sweet honey herb ricotta, and, of course mozzarella cheese and asiago. It is a nice balanced pizza, salty, sweet, and spicy. All the beef is 100% Hereford Ranch.”

Cucchiarelli, who often grabs a bag of beef on his way to work, lives on the Hereford Ranch and rents space for Hand Fire Pizza in the old Teton Theater, an iconic Town Square art deco building owned by the Gills, the same family who owns and runs the Hereford Ranch. He formerly had restaurants in New York City and Maui and when he met his wife, who lived in Salt Lake City, they moved to Jackson Hole together. With a little

This staple is anything but simple, and it’s enjoying a resurgence in popularity.

BY JULIE FUSTANIO KLING

BELOW Paul Cucchiarelli making a “meat bawl” pie at Hand Fire Pizza.

RYAN DORGAN

LEFT Beef and pork meatball with fresh, house-made mozzarella and marinara sauce at Bin22.

Meatballs, like marinara sauce, are sacred in my house. There are a million different ways to make them and when they have the right meat blend, spices, and juiciness, each bite unlocks a journey down memory lane for me to a family dinner, where there were sometimes arguments about whose meatballs were best.

It is no wonder meatballs are gaining traction in cities—New York has a

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more probing he tells me he uses organic breadcrumbs and fennel, one of my favorite spices in my stepfather’s recipe.

On Tuesdays, Cucchiarelli donates a portion of every pizza to a nonprofit in the community. Also on Tuesdays, Creekside Market & Deli’s sandwich special is a meatball sub.

“EVERY TIME I GO BACK AND VISIT MY FAMILY, THE FIRST MEAL IS MEATBALLS AND SAUSAGE ON ZITI. THAT IS ALWAYS THE TRADITION. THEY CAN BECOME VERY FANCY AND FANTASTIC BUT I GREW UP AS SIMPLE AS IT CAN GET.” – NICK BOCHICCHIO, OWNER CREEKSIDE DELI

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Nick Bochicchio’s Creekside Market pork meatballs are seared before they are baked.

“When you overcook meatballs, you are rendering out all the fat,” says Nick Phillips, the owner of Sweet Cheeks Meats, a butcher shop where you can buy several different iterations of meatballs to cook on your own. “The meat will be dry and firm. If there is too much fat in the meatball it will fall apart.”

Phillips sometimes makes his meatballs out of a mixture of lamb and beef and sometimes he makes them using only beef. He also makes a Moroccan-inspired lamb merguez meatball using Sweet Cheeks’ homemade harissa spice blend.

“Gluten helps hold them together, forming a bond inside,” he says. Unlike town’s other meatballs, Phillips’ are cooked in a smoker. He tells his customers not to turn their backs on them when they reheat them in the oven.

“OBVIOUSLY THEY ARE comfort food,” Bochicchio says of meatballs. “I eat them all the time. If I’m hungry I’ll grab a couple of meatballs at the deli and a toothpick and snack on them. Every time I go back and visit my family, the first meal is meatballs and sausage on ziti. That is always the tradition. They can become very fancy and fantastic but I grew up as simple as it can get.” And that is what he is teaching his sons, nine and five. “When they come to work with me I have them put on the gloves and make them by hand.”

These images of the Bochicchio family remind me of a similar tradition in

BRADLY J. BONER

I BELIEVED THE owner of Creekside, Nick Bochicchio, when he told me his mother shared his grandmother’s recipe.

This was believable because he is the only son of an Italian family from Connecticut. My father was the only boy in his family and he was spoiled rotten.

Bochicchio’s secret, which he shares without hesitation and has published before, is “oodles of Parmesan and parsley and homemade breadcrumbs.”

Bochicchio grew up learning the recipe in his mom’s kitchen and his first job was at a deli like his before he became the chef at Snake River Brewing. In 2006 he bought his own deli, Creekside. At home he sometimes mixes beef with pork and makes them larger than the one-ounce portion he makes for deli sandwiches. At Creekside he sticks to pork only because he says pork has a lot more moisture than beef. He sears each meatball before he bakes it, another important step in my family’s recipe, which calls for ground beef, pork, and veal.

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my family—Papa pasta. As you might guess, it was served with meatballs. When he was alive, Papa would dish up the rigs (rigatoni) one plate at a time, schmearing a ladle of sauce on the bottom and pouring two more on top of one or two gigantic meatballs. We called his servings “dogchoking portions.” He would tell us to eat it while it was hot, wipe the sweat from his brow and be the last one to sit down, often still wearing his marinara-stained white apron. The photos of Papa teaching his grandchildren to make meatballs are some of my most precious memories of him.

I’ll never eat Papa’s pasta and meatballs again, so whenever meatballs are on the

“THERE’S A BIG RESURGENCE OF WANTING GOOD DOWN-HOME FOOD. MEATBALLS TASTE LIKE YOUR YOUTH.”

RYAN DORGAN

– NICK PHILLIPS

BRADLY J. BONER

Nick Phillips’s Scott Lane butcher shop, Sweet Cheeks Meats, sells several different types of take-home meatballs.

At Bin22, executive chef Luis Hernandez makes Italian-inspired meatballs, but grew up eating his mom’s Mexican meatballs.

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menu at restaurants like Local Restaurant & Bar, Calico Restaurant and Bar, Il Villaggio Osteria, and Bin22, I order them.

During the busy season, Bin22 sells more than sixty meatballs topped with fresh mozzarella from Vermont per night.

Bin22’s recipe, as with most great Italian recipes, is simple: ground beef, pork, egg, milk, homemade breadcrumbs made with Persephone bread, fresh parsley, fresh oregano, garlic, salt, and pepper.

“I think the secret is we do it fresh,” says Bin22 chef Luis Hernandez. “They stay soft, tasty, and really good to eat.” The meatball of Hernandez’s youth came from his mom who lives in Mexico City. It has hard-boiled eggs, rice, and cilantro and is just as dear to him as the memories of meatballs of my youth are to me.

For Phillips, his first meatballs were the fist-sized balls at Sbarro in his local mall.

His current recipe is borrowed from a culinary school he trained at in Las Vegas. But he knows a lot about Italian cuisine because he married into an Italian family.

Nora Phillips, his wife, works right next to him at the butcher shop and makes all of the sauces including Carmen’s gravy, her grandfather’s marinara sauce that she learned to make as a Catholic schoolgirl in Chicago. “There’s a big resurgence of wanting good down-home food,” says Nick Phillips. “Meatballs taste like your youth.

They make you remember being a kid.” JH

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Best of

ART SCENE

RYAN DORGAN

JH

Grammy-nominated artist Brandi Carlile performs at the Center for the Arts.

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More than Meets the Eye Visual arts get most of the attention in Jackson Hole’s art scene, but the valley has a strong performing arts scene, too.

BY ISA JONES

STROLLING AROUND DOWNTOWN Jackson, it’s difficult to count the number of art galleries you see. Also, does the café showing work by a local painter or photographer count? Then 2 miles north of downtown, we’ve got the National Museum of Wildlife Art, which has a permanent collection of more than 4,000 works and has been recognized as the National Museum of Wildlife Art of the United States by an Act of Congress.

Painters whose work hangs in museums across the country, like Kathryn Mapes Turner, Jim Wilcox, and Bill Sawczuk, live in Jackson Hole. If Jackson Hole’s art scene is a tree, it is undoubtedly these artists and the valley’s many galleries that are its roots. But there are an increasing number of branches: Jackson Hole’s performing arts offerings are expanding.

The valley is home to three theater companies, the Grand Teton Music Festival, youth musicals, Wyoming’s only professional contemporary dance company, and even an improv comedy troupe.

Here you can watch the Metropolitan

Opera streamed live in HD or watch the film of a London stage production.

Playwrights, dancers, actors, and singers live here, and all of them love to share their art. “Pretty much everywhere you go offers multiple performance arts options, from dance to music to theater,” says Macey Mott, a founder of local theater group Riot Act, Inc. “Jackson’s performing arts community is incredible given the size of our community,” says Anne Bradley, marketing director for the Center for the Arts, a 78,000-square-foot space in downtown Jackson with a 500-seat theater and office space that is home to many of the valley’s arts organizations. “From the smaller volunteer-run organizations to those with full-time staff, the organizations focused on the performing arts continue to deliver high-caliber performances in our community and beyond.”

For a full calendar of all arts and culture events, go to the nonprofit Center of Wonder’s website, Dailywonder.org.

(During an average week, this calendar includes about 80 events.)

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PRICE CHAMBERS

RYAN DORGAN

THE CENTER FOR THE ARTS JUST TWO BLOCKS from the Town Square stands the beating heart of performing arts in Jackson. Opened twelve years ago with the intention to provide office, performance, and gallery space for arts-related nonprofits, the Center for the Arts has grown to become the biggest art hub in the valley. Within its 78,000-square-foot space are the offices of about twenty art and performance groups and also the Center Theater.

Touring musicians like Brandi Carlile, Shovels and Rope, and Rufus Wainwright have performed in the latter. This theater also serves as a rehearsal space and screens both operas and plays from international locales, some live, others filmed.

Every winter, the Center Theater presents National Theatre Live, a selection of various filmed plays from the National Theatre of Great Britain. Past plays include Frankenstein, One Man, Two Guvnors, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. “We began screening National Theatre Live to appeal to theater buffs who might not be able to travel to see these performances live,” Bradley says. “National Theatre Live brings performances to our small town.”

You can also catch The Met: Live in HD at the Center Theater. (These are presented in partnership with the Grand Teton Music Festival.) Past Live in HD performances include Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma, Mozart’s The Magic Flute, and 128

JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE WINTER 2019

Tosca, the melodramatic masterpiece by Giacomo Puccini.

OFF SQUARE THEATRE COMPANY WHETHER YOU LOVE musicals, Shakespeare, or something contemporary and experimental, Off Square, which was founded in 1998, has you covered. “Off Square offers the whole of our community the chance to experience professional theatre through live performances all year,” says stage manger Nanci Turner Steveson.

“JACKSON’S PERFORMING ARTS COMMUNITY IS INCREDIBLE GIVEN THE SIZE OF OUR COMMUNITY,” – ANNE BRADLEY, MARKETING DIRECTOR FOR THE CENTER FOR THE ARTS

Year-round Off Square does staged readings like Marjorie Prime and Cost of Living. It also presents an annual youth musical (in February) and, every July, does Thin Air Shakespeare. “Professional theatre is more than just entertainment; it provides a venue for initiating conversations about issues that impact us all,” Steveson says. “It brings history to the present; offers us new ideas, experiences, and viewpoints and multilayered cultural opportunities.” In addition to using local

talent, the company brings in national actors, directors, and creatives to infuse the valley with outside knowledge and skill.

Off Square’s annual youth musical— last year it was Beauty and the Beast Jr.; prior years it was James and The Giant Peach, Jr. and Mary Poppins—is always one of the most anticipated and popular performances of the year. The show always includes a large cast, with an equally large age range (six to sixteen) singing, dancing, and acting their young hearts out. After a month of rehearsals, the show feels more like a night on Broadway than a youth community musical.

RIOT ACT, INC. “IT IS IMPORTANT to Riot Act to provide high-quality performances utilizing local talent,” says Mott. “We also try to produce productions that are artistic and challenging—emotionally, creatively, intellectually, and/or physically.” This could be a full production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet at Walk Festival Hall in Teton Village or a smaller production of the emotional The Normal Heart, or the comedic (and iconic) Rumors. In 2019—its 16th season—Riot Act is tackling the timeless musical Chicago (performances in March) and the romantic comedy Fat Pig (performances in May). The latter was written

by American playwright Neil LaBute and premiered Off-Broadway in 2004. In 2005, it won the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway

BRADLY J. BONER

RUGILE KALADYTE

RYAN DORGAN

ABOVE, left to right: Director Deborah Supowit jots down notes during a Riot Act rehearsal; Jon Christensen and Chris Staron and the other members of Laff Staff perform at the Black Box Theater at the Center for the Arts; the 78,000-square-foot Center is the hub of the Valley’s art scene; an Off Square Theatre Company outdoor performance of a Shakespeare play; professional tap dancer, actor, and choreographer Savion Glover leads a tap dancing class at Dancers’ Workshop.

Play. It premiered in London in 2008.

“Riot Act focuses on full productions often dealing with a hot topic,” Mott says.

“For example, The Normal Heart deals with the beginning of the AIDS epidemic within the NYC gay community.”

LAFF STAFF TAKING OVER THE Center for the Arts’ intimate Black Box Theater every winter season with hijinks and hilarity, Laff Staff has made up skits on the fly and kept Jacksonites giggling for over a decade now. These masters of the comedic arts “rehearse,” but like most improv shows, audience participation isn’t suggested, it’s mandatory, and makes every show different. The only constant is laughter. (It helps that two of the troupe members are twins who can mine each other’s minds for the best one-liners and punch lines.)

The topics vary from universal to hy-

JACKSON COMMUNITY THEATER Founded in the 1970s, the Actors Co-Op is today known as Jackson Community Theater. “Arts and culture preserves our heritage and gives us a medium for artistic expression, it provides an escape to others,” current member Jill Callaway says. Community Theater stages performances by and for locals. Its 2017 performance of Dixie Swim Club not only told the story of lifelong friends, but featured thespians that have worked together year after year in Jackson. As an audience member, “Be prepared to just know that you’re going to have a good time,” member Lisa Sprague says.

perlocal, and you never know what direction a show, or even one joke, will take.

Beware: These shows, which are held twice a weekend during the winter and spring months, provide cheap, solid entertainment. Buy tickets in advance or get there early.

DANCERS’ WORKSHOP DANCERS’ WORKSHOP OFFERS ongoing and one-off public dance classes for all ages and in all types of dance, from ballet to tap and salsa. Around Halloween, they even do a Thriller workshop in which they teach participants the dance from—yes—Michael Jackson’s Thriller music video.

Dancers’ Workshop also brings in resident dance companies and guest artists and is home to Contemporary Dance Wyoming, the state’s only professional dance company. Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane

Company, David Dorfman Dance, and Savion Glover, among others, have performed in Jackson thanks to Dancers’ Workshop.

As impressive as these guest artists are, Dancers’ Workshop most popular production is its annual student winter show.

Last December it was Alice, based on Alice in Wonderland. Students have also done The Nutcracker and Wizard of Oz. “Alice literally blew me away,” says Noa Staryk, the founder/owner of Nest boutique and the mother of exactly none of the kids and young adults in the production. “The choreography, the dancing, the costumes, and set design—all perfection. It was a visual feast and I was so inspired by the level of artistic production. Walking out of that performance, my heart swelled with pride in this place and the people who live here. It was a community production in a league of its own.” JH WINTER 2019 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE

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HINES GOLDSMITHS

Best of

JH

GALLERIES

WHETHER YOU’RE PASSIONATE about plein-air, a serious collector of Western paintings by contemporary or deceased masters, or a casual art fan searching for a keepsake to remind you of your time spent here, in Jackson Hole you have the opportunity to enjoy art in its multitude of forms. Over the past two decades, Jackson Hole has grown to become one of the most heralded art centers of the West, popping off the tongues of aficionados alongside the likes of Santa Fe, Palo Alto, and Scottsdale. Begin by visiting some of the galleries highlighted here that show the diversity of art available in the valley, from traditional wildlife and Western art

80 Center Street (307) 733-5599 hines-gold.com

to contemporary paintings and sculptures.

RARE GALLERY OF JACKSON HOLE

RARE Gallery, a collector’s destination! At 6,100 square feet, one of Jackson Hole’s largest and most acclaimed galleries, we represent nationally and internationally collected artists.

Featuring museum exhibited artists in mediums of painting, sculpture, photography, glass, 3 dimensional art, and designer jewelry. RARE Gallery was named Mountain Living Magazine’s “Hot Shop in Jackson Hole.” Our Curator is available for private gallery or in home consultations.

60 East Broadway (307) 733-8726 raregalleryjacksonhole.com 130

JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE WINTER 2019

Jackson’s original Fine Jewelry Store and exclusive designers of the Teton Jewelry Collection since 1970. Our collection features Teton pendants, charms, rings and earrings ranging in size and price range with our stunning Diamond pave and Gemstone inlay pieces being the highlight. In our Jackson studio we also handcraft the Wyoming Bucking Bronco jewelry and extraordinary Elk Ivory jewelry. We have created Wyoming’s largest selection of unique gold and silver charms indicative of the area.

Our entire collection is also available in Sterling Silver. We also specialize in a dazzling selection of hand etched crystal and barware.

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF WILDLIFE ART

The National Museum of Wildlife Art, founded in 1987, is a world-class art museum holding more than 5,000 artworks representing wild animals from around the world. Featuring work by prominent artists such as Georgia O’Keeffe, Andy Warhol, Robert Kuhn, John James Audubon, and Carl Rungius, the Museum’s unsurpassed permanent collection chronicles the history of wildlife art, from 2500 B.C. to the present.

Boasting a museum shop, interactive children’s gallery, restaurant, and outdoor sculpture trail, the Museum is only two-and-a-half miles north of Jackson Town Square.

2820 Rungius Road (307) 733-5771 wildlifeart.org

THE LEGACY GALLERY

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 the North West corner of the square and caters to the beginning collector and to the art connoisseur. Legacy Gallery is proud to be celebrating its 30th Anniversary and has another location in Scottsdale, Arizona.

75 N Cache (307) 733-2353 legacygallery.com

GALLERY WILD

Jackson Hole’s newest fine art gallery showcasing the Art of Wild. Founded by wildlife painter Carrie Wild, Gallery Wild showcases works by various contemporary artists inspired by wildlife, conservation and wide open spaces.

OCTOBER 20, 2018 – MAY 5, 2019 Thomas D. Mangelsen, Gentle Giant—detail, 2003, Fujiflex Crystal Archive Print Framed 50 x 70 inches.

40 South Glenwood (307)-203-2322 gallerywild.com

WEST LIVES ON TRADITIONAL & CONTEMPORARY GALLERIES

Since 1998 clients have been discovering an extraordinary collection of original western art at the WEST LIVES ON GALLERIES. Both galleries have an impressive collection of fine art reflecting the rich heritage of the American West. Featuring Western, wildlife and landscape art in original oils, acrylics, watercolors, and bronze. We represent over 100 national and regional artists. Our knowledgeable staff will work with you to locate that special piece for your home or office.

55 & 75 North Glenwood 307-734-2888 westliveson.com

JACKSON HOLE...

EXPERIENCE OUR LIFESTYLE.

A dedicated Realtor for the past thirty years and Jackson Hole resident since 1976 sharing my knowledge and history of the valley is paramount to helping clients achieve their real estate goals. I have built my professional reputation on personalized service and it would be a privilege to offer you the ultimate choices in buying and selling real estate in Jackson Hole, Teton Village, Wilson, Star Valley, Pinedale and Dubois, WY.

NANCY MARTINO

Associate Broker, CRS,GRI

nancymartino@jhrea.com | 307.690.1022 80 W. Broadway WINTER 2019 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE

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Best of

JH

AS THE HOLE DEEPENS

Nonskiers Anonymous

BY TIM SANDLIN ILLUSTRATIONS BY BIRGITTA SIF

ROGER RAMSEY RECENTLY introduced me to a secret society that meets deep in the bowels of the Center for the Arts, so far underground even the folks who run the Center don’t know it exists.

“The Center doesn’t have a basement,” I said.

“That’s what the Nonprofit Tribe thinks,” Roger said.

He took me to an elevator and stuck a tiny key like my sister used to use to lock her diary in the slot for emergency opening of stuck doors. I’ve found people hate being trapped in elevators. It’s a pet peeve. Then Roger punched the #3 knob twice and the fan switch off/on. Instead of rising, we went down.

I said, “That’s not likely.”

Roger said, “You ain’t seen the interesting part yet.”

The doors opened on a long hallway painted hospital bland that, far as I could surmise, ran under Cache Street. At the end we came to a green door with a key code box that played musical notes when you poked buttons. Roger punched in the opening to Also Sproch Zarathustra, quite loud.

Think 2001 loud.

A slot opened.

Roger said, “Swordfish.”

The door opened. We were greeted by an elderly woman in an electric wheelchair, Coast Guard camouflage, and Nike Air Jordans. She said, “You’re late, Pilgrim.”

Roger said, “I got stuck at Pilates,” which I knew was a total lie. He’d been in Pearl Street Bagels all afternoon working Snapchat.

We crossed an empty way and went through another door—this one Coke-can red—into a room where twenty or so people sat on those cheap fold132

JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE WINTER 2019

ing chairs you usually find in a church annex. Each chair had IDS in white lipstick on the back.

Roger got me a cup of rancid instant coffee. They had artificial creamer in what looked like a tennis ball tube. The flakes floated like dandruff on an oil slick. It tasted okay.

A man in a Century 21 gold blazer with a comb-over that could have bedded down a guinea pig stood at the podium. He gripped the podium with both hands.

“Hello, my name is Gordo Gallafalusia and,” he paused, “I am not a skier.”

A gasp flitted across the room, even though I discovered later that’s how all their talks began.

Gordo was so earnest it hurt my eyes to look at him.

“I was born in Jackson Hole. All my life I have lived with the shame. I simply do not enjoy sliding down. I must have been born with this flaw.”

The audience nodded and a woman with a beehive under a bike helmet sang, “Amen.”

Gordo was on a roll. “He tried to hide it, but I saw the disappointment in my father’s eyes. I have lost countless summertime companions come the first snow. My wife left me for a halfpipe obsessive.”

The crowd sighed in support. The Amen lady would have married him on the spot.

He held his arms out like Jesus in a Nazarene painting. “Now, I have found this place and you sheltering, protective friends. I feel safe here, for the first time. I have worth. Dignity. I am proud to belong to IDS.” As the crowd broke into cheers, I leaned toward Roger.

“What?”

He said, “I Don’t Ski.” The next few speakers talked along the same

lines. A woman drywall installer had to stop work and homeschool her kids because of the relentless bullying at school.

“You mama don’t do bumps. Nonnie nonnie poo poo.”

This brought back memories of my own daughter who came home in tears because she was the only child in first grade who hadn’t jumped off the top of the tram.

“I’m never going outside in winter again,” she sobbed into my shoulder. “I’m joining the chess club.”

“Wow, it’s like discovering the extended family I never knew I’d lost,” I mumbled to Roger.

“I knew this would be your sanctuary.”

Then they had a seminar in Keeping Your Secret.

The leader gave a typical skier line and we had to come up with the response that wouldn’t cause ostracization.

“Shred the gnar.”

“Send it!” we all shouted except for a front-row Rastafarian who yelled “Sick.”

“The Crags is death cookies and rot.”

“Mashed potatoes on the Headwall!”

“The bomber ripped down bulletproof where a gaper had pulled a yard sale. The bomber caught an edge on a trust fund

bunny and cartwheeled into eternity.”

The crowd was momentarily stumped. A famous poet said, “Oh.” An artist said, “Woke.”

This irritated the leader no end. “Wyoming has a law against anybody over fourteen saying, ‘Woke.’ You say ‘Woke’ at the office and your co-workers will kick you off the Secret Santa list for life.”

I knew the answer. I stood up and shouted, “Eat chowder, S.P.O.R.E!” “That is correct,” Century 21 man said. “You can never go wrong with ‘Eat chowder.’ ” As the meeting broke up and we lined up at the buffet table to load our compostable paper plates with Teenie Weinies and Velveeta-filled celery sticks arranged around a gravy boat full of ranch dressing, Roger said, “How did you know about the ‘Eat chowder’?”

I poured myself an NPR giveaway mug of kombucha. “That’s what my wife says when I leave the toilet lid up at night.”

“Eat chowder, S.P.O.R.E?” “I’m not sure what S.P.O.R.E means. I’m afraid to ask.” JH WINTER 2019 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE

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JACKSON

JUST A FEW THINGS TO DO IN

JACKSON HOLE

n Shop Stio’s latest clothing lines (p. 43).

n Have a cocktail made with Wyoming Whiskey (p. 44).

n Walk the Sculpture Trail at the National Museum

n Check out TGR’s interactive retail shop (p. 45).

of Wildlife Art.

n Get a cut at Teton Barbershop (p. 18). n Go for a Nordic ski or fat bike ride up Cache Creek

(p. 24).

n Hit the coffee shop that best matches your

personality (p. 22).

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JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE WINTER 2019

n Take a sleigh ride on the National Elk Refuge (p. 56). n Catch a Laff Staff performance (p. 129). n Order meatballs at Hand Fire Pizza (p. 116). n Try cupping at Medicine Wheel Wellness (p. 110).

TETON VILLAGE n Visit the new Sweetwater Station. n Eat fondue at the Alpenhof (p. 122). n Look for a true skid in the tram

line (p. 76).

n Aprés-ski at the Mangy Moose

(p. 86).

GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK n Go for a ranger-led snowshoe tour. n Enjoy lunch or dinner at Dornan’s

(p. 106).

n Nordic ski or snowshoe at the

base of the Tetons (p. 24).

WILSON

FURTHER AFIELD

n Fat bike or ski up Old Pass Road.

n Go Nordic skiing (or just grab

n Catch the Stagecoach Band at the

Stagecoach Bar.

lunch) at Turpin Meadow Ranch (p. 106).

n Soak in Granite Hot Springs (p. 36). n Ski to Brooks Lake Lodge (p. 106).

n Ice skate in the Village Commons

(p. 102).

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Best of

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

Winter 2018-19 Area code 307 unless noted

ONGOING JACKSON HOLE MOUNTAIN RESORT’S 2,500acre, 4,139 vertical feet of terrain is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily through April 7 with an aerial tram, two gondolas, and eleven other lifts. The Mountain Sports School offers ski, snowboard, telemark, and adaptive lessons for all ages and abilities. 1-888-DEEP-SNO (733-2292), jacksonhole.com JACKSON HOLE MOOSE HOCKEY team plays against other clubs across the country.

Home games start at 7:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. Snow King Center, moose.pucksystems2.com GRAND TARGHEE RESORT, on the west side 136

JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE WINTER 2019

of Teton Pass, is open through April 14 (conditions permitting). Take advantage of short lift lines on all five lifts, 2,602 acres of terrain, and a 2,270-foot vertical drop.

Open daily from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., 353-2300, grandtarghee.com

SNOW KING MOUNTAIN is Jackson’s locals’ hill—and was the first ski resort in the state—with four hundred acres of terrain and a 1,571-foot vertical drop. With three chairlifts and thirty-two named runs, the King is open daily from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Saturday, and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday from December 1 to March 25. 734-3194, snowkingmountain.com WAPITI WATCH. Sleigh rides onto the National Elk Refuge—and into the middle of the

BRADLY J. BONER

JH

Jackson Hole Moose hockey players celebrate a goal during a win over the Bozeman Stingers.

Moose home games are at 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays.

elk herd—depart the Jackson Hole & Greater Yellowstone Visitor Center (532 N. Cache) daily December 15 through April 6 (except Christmas) from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Reservations for groups of twenty or more are required; reservations for smaller groups are not necessary but can be made by calling 733-0277. fws.gov/nationalelkrefuge NATIONAL MUSEUM OF WILDLIFE ART takes an expansive view of wildlife art with pieces in its 4,000-plus-item permanent collection from Albert Bierstadt to Pablo Picasso. Open Tuesday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., 733-5771, wildlifeart.org COWBOY COASTER is the first Alpine Coaster in the state, with individual carts (to hold one or two people) that climb nearly four

hundred feet before winding and looping their way down two-thirds of a mile back to the base. Open Monday through Friday from 2 to 7 p.m., Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., $21, snowkingmountain.com

DECEMBER 7-8: LAFF STAFF brings zany, original improv comedy to Jackson. 8 p.m., Center for the Arts, The Black Box, $10, 733-4900, jhcenterforthearts.org 8: HOLIDAY ART BAZAAR showcases local artists in time for the holiday season. 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., The Lodge at Jackson Hole Conference Center, $5 suggested donation, 733-6379, artassociation.org

13: The Girl of the Golden West – The Met: Live in HD is presented by Grand Teton Music Festival live from the Metropolitan Opera.

7 p.m., Jackson Hole Twin Cinema, $12-$20, 733-3050, gtmf.org 17: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time recorded live at the National Theatre. This critically acclaimed production directed by Marianne Elliot (Angels in America, War Horse) has astonished audiences around the world and has received seven Olivier and five Tony Awards.

7 p.m., Center for the Arts Center Theater, $15-$20, 733-4900, jhcenterforthearts.org 31: GONDI GALA is a New Year’s Eve celebration atop the Bridger Gondola. Celebrate the year and dance your resolutions in with live music. 9 p.m. to 1 a.m., Rendezvous Lodge, $75, 739-2686, jacksonhole.com

31: TORCHLIGHT PARADE AND FIREWORKS start with skiers carrying torches descending Apres Vous. Fireworks follow. 6 p.m., Teton Village, free, 739-2686, jacksonhole.com

JANUARY 10: La Traviata – The Met: Live in HD is presented

by Grand Teton Music Festival live from the Metropolitan Opera 7 p.m., Jackson Hole Twin Cinema, $12-$20, 733-3050, gtmf.org 14: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof recorded live at the National Theatre. Tennessee Williams’ twentieth-century masterpiece is popular with all ages. 7 p.m., Center for the Arts Center Theater, $15-$20, 733-4900, jhcenterforthearts.org 26: DOWN UNDER THE TRAM: AUSTRALIA DAY celebration with free beer and giveaways.

Teton Village Commons, 739-2686, jacksonhole.com

AMBER BAESLER

7-9: DANCERS’ WORKSHOP PRESENTS Fairest of Them All, a production based on the classic fairytale Snow White. Center for the

Arts Center Theater, $13-$28, 733-4900, jhcenterforthearts.org

Jackson’s Town Square hosts the start of the annual Pedigree Stage Stop Sled Dog Race.

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25: PEDIGREE STAGE STOP SLED DOG RACE begins in Jackson with a ceremonial twomile leg starting at the Town Square. 5 to 8 p.m., 733-3316, wyomingstagestop.org

FEBRUARY 6-7: SPECIAL OLYMPICS Wyoming at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. 235-3062, sowy.org 8-9: LAFF STAFF brings zany, original improv comedy to Jackson. 8 p.m., Center for the Arts, The Black Box, $10, 733-4900, jhcenterforthearts.org 14: Adriana Lecouvreur – The Met: Live in HD is presented by Grand Teton Music Festival live from the Metropolitan Opera. 7 p.m., $12$20, Jackson Hole Twin Cinema, 733-4900, gtmf.org 10-16: KINGS AND QUEENS OF CORBET’S. Skiers compete to see who can ski Jackson Hole Mountain Resort’s most iconic run with the most style. Teton Village, 739-2686, jacksonhole.com 16: 27TH ANNUAL MOOSE CHASE NORDIC SKI RACE includes a 30k, 15k, 5k, 3k, and, for kids, a free 1/2k. Trail Creek Nordic Center, 733-6433, jhskiclub.org 23: BLACKTAIL GALA is an evening filled with wildlife art, delicious wines and food, and the excitement of voting on artwork for acquisition by the National Museum of Wildlife Art. 5:30 to 9 p.m., 733-5771, wildlifeart.org 25: King Lear presented live from the National Theatre. See Ian McKellen’s extraordinarily moving portrayal of King Lear in this classic Shakespeare play. 7 p.m., Center for the Arts Center Theater, $15-$20, 733-4900, jhcenterforthearts.org 28-MARCH 2: 2ND ANNUAL JH FOOD & WINE FESTIVAL brings guest chef Richard Blais together with Teton Village’s culinary community, renowned winemakers, and cocktail and beer experts for four events at venues around Teton Village. Teton Village, tickets start at $150, jhfoodandwine.org 138

JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE WINTER 2019

AMBER BAESLER

Revelers crowd the Town Square for the Mavericks’ performance during last winter’s Rendezvous Festival. The Town Square concert drew more than 6,000 people, while Saturday’s concert at Teton Village had between 8,000 and 9,000 attendees.

MARCH 1-3: DICK’S DITCH CLASSIC BANKED SLALOM tests racers’ ability to descend a challenging run as fast as they can. JHMR, jacksonhole.com 9: FISH CREEK EXCAVATION’S 37TH ANNUAL TOWN DOWNHILL is one of spring’s most popular events, both for racers and spectators. Snow King Mountain, 733-6433, jhskiclub.org

21-24: 43RD ANNUAL WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP SNOWMOBILE HILL CLIMB. Snow King Mountain, $20, 734-3194, snowdevils.org 23: KAREN OATEY POLE PEDAL PADDLE consists of four events: alpine skiing, Nordic skiing, biking, and kayaking. Teton Village to the Snake River Canyon, 733-6433, jhskiclub.org

APRIL

14: Carmen – The Met: Live in HD is presented

by Grand Teton Music Festival live from the Metropolitan Opera. 7 p.m., Jackson Hole Twin Cinema, $12-$20, 733-3050, gtmf.org

7: JACKSON HOLE MOUNTAIN RESORT CLOSING DAY. Celebrate the end of the winter season dressed in your best (or goofiest) ski and snowboard gear. 739-2686, jacksonhole.com

15-16: LAFF STAFF brings zany, original improv comedy to Jackson. 8 p.m., Center for the Arts, The Black Box, $10, 733-4900, jhcenterforthearts.org

11: The Daughter of the Regiment – The Met: Live in HD is presented by Grand Teton Music Festival live from the Metropolitan Opera.

7 p.m., Jackson Hole Twin Cinema, $12-$20, 733-3050, gtmf.org

14-17: RENDEZVOUS FESTIVAL is a series of free live concerts at the base of JHMR and on the Town Square. jacksonhole.com 9:

MARMOT COOMBS CLASSIC honors legendary local skier Doug Coombs with a full day of events. 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., JHMR, free, 733-2292, jacksonhole.com

MAY 3-4: LAFF STAFF brings zany, original improv comedy to Jackson. 8 p.m., Center for the Arts, The Black Box, $10, 733-4900, jhcenterforthearts.org

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