Jackson’s Blazing New Trails

Wyoming’s wide-open spaces just got wider.

In October, Jackson Hole Mountain Resort announced that skiers and snowboarders would henceforth have unlimited access to the vast, mountainous back country that surrounds the resort.

Although similar “open gate” policies exist at many ski areas in national forests in the West, Jackson Hole resort officials have been reluctant to open their boundaries for one reason, spelled out on a sign near the entrance to the aerial tram: “This mountain is like nothing you’ve ever skied before.”

Jackson Hole is gargantuan: 2,500 acres of bowls, canyons, cliffs, wide-open slopes and narrow slots spread across a mountain rising 4,139 feet from the valley floor. The back-country terrain, which includes the entire Teton Range and Grand Teton National Park, is even more awesome. It’s sprawling, steep and utterly wild.

And, in my experience, frustratingly enticing. Two years ago, soon after I moved to this remote corner of Wyoming from crowded Summit County, Colo., four seasoned locals introduced me to the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort back country, ushering me into a world of unpeopled slopes, untracked snow and unsurpassed scenery. It was an epiphany.

Last year I logged more than 70 days of back-country skiing in the Jackson Hole area, which is about 60 more than I should have. I’m supposed to be pursuing a career as a freelance writer and photographer; instead, all last winter I found myself driving to the mountains whenever I woke to fresh snow.

I suppose if I were really career-minded, I wouldn’t have moved to Jackson, where skiing is less sport than way of life and often less way of life than religion. The skiers who live here and the out-of-towners who come for their ski vacations revel in Jackson Hole’s reputation as a mammoth ski area. Now, with the new boundary policy, Jackson becomes, in effect, even bigger. Skiers who have never ventured into the back country will need proper guidance to explore this newly opened, expert terrain. But the resort has taken steps to provide just that.

In the past, the resort opened its boundaries only when the ski patrol judged avalanche danger as low. This way, the resort hoped to prevent serious accidents in the back country. On the days the resort declared the back country open, it could have been liable for skiers buried in avalanches the patrol didn’t anticipate. Furthermore, some skiers questioned whether the resort had a right to control public access to a national forest.

“Because of the uniqueness of Jackson and the high avalanche danger out of bounds, we managed our boundaries differently,” says Jerry Blann, resort president. “Now we’re coming more in concert with what’s happening in every other national forest across the country.”

The resort is letting skiers decide. On any day of the season, it’s their choice whether to pass through one of six access gates scattered across the resort’s boundary and head into the wild beyond. The resort will not patrol the back country, do any avalanche control outside its boundaries or be liable for back-country accidents. Skiers will be responsible for themselves. They must be well versed in back-country travel and carry the requisite back-country ski gear: avalanche beacons (small radio transmitters that emit a pulsing signal, which pinpoints a skier’s location if he’s buried in a slide), shovels and extra food and clothing.

It might seem that the Jackson Hole resort is washing its hands of the back country. Instead, the resort knows an opportunity when it sees one. Thanks to ski magazines such as Couloir, Powder and Backcountry, and thanks to the new breed of ski films shot in the most remote and rugged mountains in the world, back-country skiing is hot. Moving around the back country is also easier, thanks to light randonnee bindings, common in Europe but fairly new to this country, which allow skiers to disengage the heels of their boots, just as on cross-country skis, to move across flat or uphill terrain, then lock down their heels to ski downhill. With these developments, the new boundary policy and its stunning backyard, Jackson is primed to push back-country skiing into the mainstream.

Along the way, the resort might also regain some of its neglected European flavor. When Paul McCollister, founder of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, came to western Wyoming in 1965, he took one look at the spiky, towering Tetons and saw the Alps. At the southern boundary of Grand Teton National Park, he created Teton Village, a faux-Tirolean village at the base of 10,450-foot Rendezvous Peak, which, though not one of the highest summits in the Tetons, is an awesome mountain nonetheless. He also hired Austrian Olympian Pepi Steigler (who still skis daily at Jackson Hole) as his ski school director, built a European-style tram to the top of Rendezvous and established the Alpine Guides to show skiers around the immense and sometimes confusing resort.

Some of the architecture is more western now than European, but the resort is taking a step back to Zermatt, so to speak, by doubling the number of alpine guides from five to 10. Several of these new guides are crack mountaineers from local climbing guide services. All have had advanced avalanche, rescue and first-aid training and are fully qualified to lead wannabe back-country adventurers beyond the ski area’s bounds, a la guide services in the French, Swiss and Italian Alps.

This is how it will work: After signing up with the Alpine Ski and Snowboard Guide Service at the Ski School, skiers will be interviewed by ski school employees about their skiing abilities (which should be at level 8 or above, according to the Professional Ski Instructors of America’s 1-to-10 rating system) and what kind of experience they want: a summit climb, deep powder skiing, a lengthy tour across several canyons or perhaps a guided tour inbounds. Then they’re matched with a guide, who ushers them onto the aerial tram.

This tram ride, by the way, is one important benefit to hiring a guide because guides are allowed to take guests on the 8:36 a.m. tram, a half-hour before the non-guided public is allowed on. On fresh snow days, this allows skiers first tracks in the high, expansive Rendezvous Bowl. There is no more exhilarating skiing, as long as you can ignore, while boarding the tram, the indignant howls of non-guided skiers who have been waiting in line since 6 or 7 a.m.

Before clients venture out of bounds, guides teach them a few skills vital to back-country travel. “We’ll show them how to use an avalanche transceiver, how to avoid avalanches, what to do if they’re caught in a slide, basic back-country skills,” explains chief guide Laurie Davis Shepard. “We’ll also teach people to stay together and keep an eye on each other.”

Which won’t be difficult. Once you’re beyond the ski area boundaries, you and your companions will probably be alone. There will be nobody else to keep an eye on. That’s the joy of back-country skiing.

Depending on whom you accompany into the back country, you might find yourself with more freedom than you reckoned on.

Two years ago, soon after I moved to Jackson Hole, I was invited by locals to try the resort’s back country. Although I’m comfortable on all the ski terrain inbounds, I knew nothing of the terrain out of bounds and leaped at the chance to go off-piste with Bill Maloney, Tony Brooks, Stuart Sugarman and Bob Henderson, who, though they weren’t guides, knew their stuff. All in their 50s or older, they put this 30-year-old whippersnapper through his paces.

On a blustery March morning, we got off the tram at Rendezvous’ summit, clicked into our skis and headed east along the mountain’s crest. Passing an orange “open” sign, we skied down to a broad saddle, Grand Teton National Park’s Granite Canyon dropping to the north and Rock Springs Canyon to the south. Removing our skis, we lashed them to our backpacks and began ascending the snowy ridge of 10,753-foot Cody Peak, the cliff-striped promontory in the background of many famous Jackson Hole photos. The climb was steep and, in a few spots where the ridge narrowed to a mere foot or two, dicey. But with deliberate steps and pole plants, we avoided pitching off the ridge, which would have resulted in a long, terrifying, though probably harmless slide to the flatter snow below.

The ridge soon relented and widened. Amid swirling clouds we trudged to the edge of Four Shadows, a wide couloir, or chute, that drops steeply from Cody’s shoulder to a broad, snowy bowl.

Talk about freedom. Not only did I have an unobstructed view of the spiky Grand, Middle and South Tetons to the north and the valley floor far below, but I was also faced with an apparent free fall. Skiing Four Shadows would require dropping several feet from the edge of the chute into its steep, shadowed belly, then making a quick hop turn, which would allow me to point my skis in the opposite direction without slipping too far downhill. This way I could keep from sliding into an adjacent, even narrower chute called, menacingly, No Shadows.

Like any good leader, Maloney sensed his companions’ anxiety and, with utmost calm, slid into the chute, made his hop turn and sliced deft turns the rest of the way down. The rest of us soon followed and found that the skiing wasn’t nearly as treacherous as it looked from the top. In fact, it was easy. The soft, chunky snow slowed my skis on each turn, and I could effortlessly ski in control, despite the steep pitch.

Regrouping at the bottom of the couloir, our faces plastered with snow and grins, we traversed the broad bowl in Cody’s shadow, hiked over a saddle into the next canyon to the south, then gradually worked our way down, leaving the wide-open, treeless expanses for glades of pine and aspen. Along the way, we skied everything from light powder to challenging crud to buttery “corn” (snow that had frozen hard overnight, then melted just a bit in the sun, providing fast, fun skiing). Before we arrived on the valley floor, Maloney again took control, whipping out a cell phone and calling for a taxi to chauffeur us back to Teton Village. I could definitely learn a thing or two from these veterans.

A tour into Jackson’s back country need not be as hair-raising. The resort’s guides will lead customers on run after run of moderately angled, untracked powder. Or for an even mellower alternative, guides lead cross-country tours of the rolling mountains near Teton Pass, about 10 miles south of the resort. They also guide cross-country excursions across the valley floor in Grand Teton National Park. On one such tour, skiers can kick and glide right across frozen Bradley Lake with the Grand Teton looming practically overhead.

It’s impossible, by the way, to stumble into the back country by accident. Thickets of intimidating signs will be erected at each of the six back-country access gates. Still, given the hazards and given that the back country lacks certain amenities--namely, lifts--you might wonder how many skiers will choose to venture off-piste. I plan to be out there as often as snow conditions and my career-related conscience allow.

As for my fellow locals and our winter visitors, keep in mind, this is Jackson Hole. It might not be quite the cowboy town it once was, but Jackson still attracts a certain breed of settler and skier. For this breed, the West can never be too wild. Or too wide.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

GUIDEBOOK

The Whole Story on Jackson

Getting there: United and Delta serve Jackson; round trips begin at $302.

Where to stay: The Amangani, telephone (877) 734-7333, is Jackson’s newest, most upscale resort. Rates: $500-$700 per night, single or double. Also consider: Wort Hotel, (800) 322-2727, $161-$485; Best Western Resort Hotel, (800) 445-4655, $129-$259; Alpine House Bed and Breakfast, (800) 753-1421, $95; Bentwood Bed and Breakfast, (307) 739-1411, $145-$285; and Wildflower Inn, (307) 733-4710, $140-$280.

Where to eat: For contemporary American cuisine, Restaurant Terroir, (307) 739-2500. For fresh fish, free-range meats and organic produce, Snake River Grill, (307) 733-0557. For pizza and pasta, the Calico, (307) 733-2460. For breakfast, Jedediah’s House of Sourdough, (307) 733-5671. For bagels, Pearl Street Bagels, (307) 739- 1218.

For more information: Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, (888) DEEP SNOW, Internet https://www.jacksonhole.com.