Teton County/Jackson Recreation Center

So that all may play

BY BRIELLE SCHAEFFER

A CIRCLE OF silver-haired women bob in a lap pool during water aerobics while a ski bum hoards the jets in the nearby hot tub, soothing his muscles after a morning on the slopes. Towheaded two-year-olds pedal on pastel-colored tricycles in the gym where soccer enthusiasts play indoor tournaments. Twenty-somethings race through the doors to make it on time to a ski fitness class while, in a communal conference room, a nonprofit board takes up court.

Welcome to the Teton County/Jackson Recreation Center. Last year, 34,000 people used the facility on East Gill Avenue. Some 2,400 people bought an annual membership and 160 purchased ten-visit punch cards. Residents use the center most heavily in the winter; year-round, valley visitors make up nearly half of the center’s users. On rainy and stormy days, the center gets close to capacity. “It’s well used and well loved,” says Steve Ashworth, Teton County/Jackson Parks & Recreation director. “We’re lucky we have it in a community our size.”

BUILT IN 1994, the rec center was one of the first projects in the county funded by a special 1 percent sales tax. “Basically, a citizen action group got together and did a feasibility study with the parks and rec board,” Ashworth says. “They got it on the ballot, and it passed quite overwhelmingly.”

Since then, the rec center has evolved with locals and also with locals’ help. The entryway has become a makeshift lounge—complete with couches and a foosball table—for parents and kids to hang out. An adjacent room doubles as a meeting space and a spot for cake eating and present-opening at pool birthday parties. “It’s really a multipurpose room,” Ashworth says. “We could use ten more of those, and I guarantee you they’d be full.” In the aquatic area, metal stingrays that hang from the ceiling between and above the various pools were designed, fabricated, and donated by Jackson sculptor Ben Roth. Julia Hibbert Wolf painted a mural of sea life—manatees and fish—on the walls pro bono.

The publicly funded center has a low barrier to entry. Membership and punch cards are priced affordably. Fitness classes are about one-third the cost of classes at private gyms and studios. “It’s a resource that folks who are really into it really love it,” Ashworth says.

THE CENTER’S SKI fitness classes are one of the biggest attractions in the winter with some seventy-five people taking advantage of the inexpensive rates to get in shape for the ski season. Rec center front desk clerk Ben Arlotta has taken the ski fitness classes himself and says they make a world of difference. Without them, he wouldn’t get his ski legs until well into January. “With ski fitness, I’m able to hit the first powder day all day long,” he says.

Indoor soccer is also a hit in the winter, especially among Jackson’s sizable Latino population, Arlotta says. “We’ll have upwards of forty-five or fifty people in the gym.” There’s also indoor volleyball, basketball, and pickleball. Leagues and open gym times accommodate each interest.

The sauna, steam room, and hot tub in the aquatic center are always packed in the wintertime. “I’ve seen upwards of twenty-five people trying to use the hot tub at the same time,” Arlotta says. (It’s sized to perhaps accommodate ten people comfortably.) Early morning lap swimmers get their workouts in in the twenty-five-yard lap pool. Others use the pool to practice their kayak rolls. Rendezvous River Sports leaves boats there for people to use throughout the season. Tykes with floaties splash around in the other pools or fly down the winding water slide. “You see so many different types of people here,” Arlotta says. “We’re creating human soup.”