Search Results for &amp

Breezy Johnson Look for this local ski racer at the Beijing Olympics.  // As told by breezy johnson Last winter, Victor-based speed skier Breezy Johnson, who grew up ski racing with the Jackson Hole Ski & Snowboard Club (JHSSC), had what can only be called an epic World Cup season. She placed third in four consecutive World Cup downhill races—at Val d’Isère (two races), St. Anton, and Crans-Montana. Johnson was only the fourth American woman to do this (the other three are Lindsey Vonn, Julia Mancuso, and Picabo Street, who all happen to also be Olympic gold medalists). Johnson, who turns…

Tim McLaurin Dancing daily on the Town Square for smiles. // By Melissa Thomasma If you drove past Jackson’s Town Square sometime during the past year, there’s a good chance you saw Tim McLaurin. Brandishing a sign that says, “Honk if My Dance Moves Make Your Day” McLaurin, who has Down syndrome, stationed himself on the southwest corner of the square, the busiest (and the one on which the town’s webcam is focused) on March 31, 2020 and started dancing. “That’s my favorite corner to dance because it’s the corner with the most people and cars,” he says. Wearing black Bose…

Nancy Leon When a downhill skiing injury sends you in a different direction. // By lila Edythe After tearing her ACL five turns from the bottom of the ABC Chutes in Granite Canyon just outside the boundary of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, Nancy Leon got even deeper into skiing. Fifty-eight at the time, Leon was a lifelong downhill skier who had dabbled in Nordic skiing. Post-ACL tear, Nordic skiing was a cruical part of her recovery. “My ACL was hanging on by a thread, and the doctor said I didn’t have to get it repaired. He recommended physical therapy instead,”…

Howdy Stranger // By Samantha Simma “HOWDY STRANGER YONDER IS JACKSON HOLE, THE LAST OF THE OLD WEST.” Signs bearing this have welcomed people to Jackson Hole since the mid-1930s. Local artist Grant “Tiny” Hagen partnered with local furniture craftsman Lester Lee to paint and carve three of these signs. (Lee modeled the signs’ cowboy silhouette on Harry Clissold, who was a Jackson town councilman and then Jackson’s mayor from 1934 to 1965.) To welcome people entering the valley from the west, a sign was erected at the top of Teton Pass. Travelers from the east found a sign on…

Read These // By jim mahaffie COLLECTED READINGSThe Grand Teton Reader  Edited by Robert W. Righter  The editor, a former professor of history at the University of Wyoming, chose 35 contributors covering geology, historic characters, settlement, and the park’s politically charged founding. Writers include naturalists, environmentalists, and diarists, with stories of mountain climbs, fishing and hunting, Native American legends, and more.  LOCAL SATIREI Can Ski Forever:A Modern-Day Jackson Hole Epic  By Andrew Munz In this collection of satirical skits, songs, and scenes from his popular shows in Jackson, local writer and actor Andrew Munz documents life in our ski town.…

// BY JIM MAHAFFIE TRUE STORYThe Martyrdom of Collins Catch the Bear Gerry Spence  Collins Catch the Bear was a Lakota Sioux wrongfully charged with the murder of a white man in the Black Hills of South Dakota in 1982. His trial lawyer was the author, a Wyoming native who established a practice in Jackson decades ago and, in 2009, was inducted into the American Trial Lawyers Hall of Fame. THE GUIDEBOOKJackson Hole Hikes: A Guide to Grand Teton National Park, Jedediah Smith, Teton & Gros Ventre Wilderness and Surrounding National Forest Land Rebecca Woods  “This is our go-to guide…

PHOTO BY KATHRYN ZIESIG // by Samantha Simma “When you call me that, smile!” adorned the front desk of the Virginian Lodge for years. It was an homage to the main protagonist of Owen Wister’s Western novel—and the proceeding television series—The Virginian, for which the hotel was named. It was serendipitous that the wife of the property’s developer and original owner, Glenn Napierskie, was named Virginia. Enthralled by its unparalleled hunting and fishing opportunities, Napierskie began visiting Jackson Hole from his hometown of San Diego, California, in the 1950s. (Two of his trophies—taxidermied big horn sheep—were displayed for years above…

PHOTO BY BRADLY J. BONER The Evolution of a Ski Bum // interview By Maggie Theodora The summer after he graduated with a degree in history from Davidson College, in his home state of North Carolina, Reed Finlay worked on a dude ranch in Montana. At the end of that season, many of his co-workers were moving to Colorado to work at ski areas. “I liked the idea of working at a ski area, but I thought Colorado was too cliché,” Finlay says. “I decided I wanted to go to Wyoming.” Finlay got a job as a liftie working the Apres Vous…

PETE LAWTON GREW up ski racing and training on Snow King Mountain. Fast-forward thirtyish years and Lawton is CEO of the Bank of Jackson Hole and skis the King during his lunch hour. “I always have skis in my car,” says Lawton, whose father, a high school principal, was one of the initial investors in Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. After pulling into the parking lot at the base of the Town Hill, he’ll put his ski jacket and pants over his work outfit, which is almost always a suit. “I’ll eat a sack lunch on the chairlift,” he says. Lawton,…

A short, scenic snowshoe or Nordic ski brings you to the Murie Ranch, a historic crucible of the conservation movement. By Lila Edythe NOT TO BE too woo-woo or anything, but I always feel the Murie Ranch—where Margaret Thomas “Mardy” Murie, often called the “Grandmother of the Conservation Movement,” lived for more than fifty years—before I see it. The ranch has a peacefulness and tranquility that is palpable. “There is a definite magic about the place,” says Dan McILhenny, who has lived in one of the ranch’s rustic cabins for six summers as a volunteer docent. “My wife and I feel it,…

Two hundred years after John Colter was the first white man to see Yellowstone and Jackson Hole, two friends retrace his route, find it’s still full of adventure, and make a movie about it.  By Dina Mishev. /. Images from Colter: A legacy of Adventure ONE OF THE early scouting trips that inspired Wilsonites Sawyer Thomas and Riis Wilbrecht to tackle the adventure that became the twenty-eight-minute film Colter: A Legacy of Adventure was a seven-day winter ski-camping trip in the Beartooth Mountains. “We managed to completely destroy ourselves on it,” Wilbrecht says. Rather than back off though, the pair doubled…

Fuel your Jackson Hole adventures with these locally made snacks. By Melissa Thomasma  //  Photography by bradly j. boner WE DON’T REALLY do humdrum in Jackson Hole. Our mountains are extraordinary, as is the snow that covers them. Accordingly, our adventures are extraordinary too, which means that when we’re out in the wild, boring snacks simply won’t do. Meet some of the local companies making snacks as exciting as the adventures—from snowmobile rides to hunting for untouched backcountry powder to snowshoeing along the base of the Tetons—they’re meant to fuel. PERSEPHONE BAKERYYour throwback after-school favorite is all grown up. The…

Don’t think that skiing all day means you can’t dance all night. By Samantha Simma MANY NIGHT CAPS in Jackson Hole cater to your sense of sound, with a range of genres presented by local musicians. Whether you’d like to twirl around the Silver Dollar’s downtown dance floor to bluegrass or dance to DJ tunes in Wilson, you can easily find a beat for your feet to follow. And while one of the Jackson music scene’s largest venues recently closed its curtain (RIP Pink Garter Theatre), this nighttime pastime will not go quietly. Times listed below are for when there…

A decade after its founding, Persephone Bakery has its own storefronts and two sister restaurants. BY DINA MISHEV IN 2011, LE Cordon Bleu–trained Kevin Cohane and his wife, Ali, founded Persephone Bakery—named for the Greek goddess of grain. They never imagined where they’d be a decade later: semi-finalists in the Outstanding Pastry Chef category of the 2020 James Beard Foundation Awards with four restaurants around Jackson Hole. “It has been the most wonderful and affirming surprise that the community responded to our little bakery in the way that it did,” Ali Cohane says. Here’s a look at the Cohanes’ three…