Jackson Hole Opens Up

On my second morning in Jackson Hole, I stood at the top of Rendezvous Mountain with my ski instructor, Echo Miller. It was 8:45. We had caught the first tram, with other early birds, to get a run in before the area officially opened for the day.
In front of us, an expanse of untracked snow dropped steeply toward a cat track. From there the mountain spread out in a series of ridges, gullies, bowls and chutes, dropping thousands of feet to its base. In the distance, Wyoming’s Snake River Valley stretched north toward the Gros Ventre Mountains, where the Sleeping Indian, distinctive granite outcropping named for its resemblance to an Indian Chief, was sharply silhouetted against the cloudless blue sky.
Behind us the light on the small warming hut, Corbet’s Cabin, flashed from red to green, giving the all clear.
‘Go ahead,” Echo said. “Jump on in.”
“Anywhere?”
“Anywhere.”
In that moment, faced with the tantalizing prospect of that massive, empty mountain literally at my feet, I felt like a kid who, after years of dutifully coloring inside the lines, had been given permission to, well, smudge a bit.
Pointing my skis down hill, I gave in to the forces of gravity and made big swooping turns through the soft, wind scoured snow. It was an exhilarating warm-up run that left me eager for more. I wasn’t used to skiing off designated trails, but with Echo’s encouragement and lots of helpful tips, I followed her lead as we explored some of Jackson Hole’s vast and varied terrain. We dipped into the trees of Bivouac Woods, plowed through powder on Cheyenne Bowl, and let our skis run on the splendid corduroy of Gros Ventre. By the time we met my husband for lunch at the Casper Restaurant, I was exhausted, hungry and content. As we sat down to large bowls of turkey chili in a room full of apparently equally ravenous Gore-Tex-clad-skiers, I couldn’t help but wonder why I had waited so long to come.
In truth, I knew the answer. For years I had avoided Jackson Hole because it sounded too tough. Most of the die-hard Jackson fans I’d met were either former World Cup or elite ski racers or ski-town residents who routinely logged hundred-day-plus seasons. I had assumed that I’d be way over my head. Don’t get me wrong: I love to ski, and I’m game for a challenge. But I’ve come to accept, more or less, the limitations imposed by aging joints. I don’t’ see any couloirs or cliff bands in my future. My perfect ski day is a nice mix of steeps and bumps tempered with groomed cruisers, followed by a deep tissue massage, a delicious meal and a beautiful room with a fireplace and dreamy Italian linens on the bed. Apparently I’m not the only one who feels this way. Over the past decade, there’s been a major shift in Jackson zeitgeist, and the resort has reached beyond its clientele of hard-core experts to lure adventurous folks who also have a healthy appreciation for serious après-ski coddling.
Since 1996, Jackson Hole’s owners have spent more than $60 million to upgrade the facilities and expand skier services. At the same time, a flurry of residential development has doubled the number of beds in Teton Village, at the base of the mountain, to 3,200. (Teton Village is twelve miles from the town of Jackson.) Presented with the promise of great skiing and luxury accommodations, I figured I should give the “new” Jackson a chance.
My timing was impeccable. When my husband and I arrived, in early February, the resort was in the middle of one of its best seasons in a decade. Already the snow at the top of the 10,450-foot Rendezvous Mountain was 400 inches deep. The prodigious snowfall means that skiers of varying abilities would be able to try out more of the area’s most difficult runs. “The snow is so forgiving, you can ski on steeper terrain that you might in another snow year,” said Echo soon after we met. The diminutive Wyoming native has lived and taught in Jackson Hole for more than ten years. Like all good instructors, she has a way of nudging students outside their comfort zone while somehow making them think it’s their idea. “You don’t have to be good to ski here,” she says. “But you have to be willing to push yourself. To enjoy this mountain you have to want to get better.”
Jackson’s Rendezvous and Après Vous Mountains-part of the forty-mile-long Teton Range, whose highest peak, the Grand Teton, reaches a 13,770 feet-rise abruptly from the Snake River Valley, with none of the softening edges that characterize many U.S. ranges. From a distance they look like on gigantic jagged piece of rock, all crumpled together, and it seems an unlikely spot on which to build a ski resort. But late founder Paul McCollister, a onetime advertising exec, didn’t set out to develop any old ski resort when he arrived in the region, in the late 1950’s. A true visionary, he dreamed of creating a ski experience different from what Americans were used to. And when the tram opened, in 1966, no one in this country had seen anything like it. Spanning the face of Rendezvous Mountain, it gave skiers access to a whopping 4,139 feet of vertical terrain, the longest lift-served continuous vertical in the United States. (After forty years of service, the tram was closed this past October. In August the owners announced that a $25 million 100-passenger tram would open in December 2008. In the meantime skiers can reach Rendezvous Bowl by means of the new East Ridge chair lift.) Given that it had the best lift-served expert skiing, the lightest, deepest powder (snow average 450 inches a year) and an outstanding ski school headed by Austrian Olympic gold medalist Pepi Stiegler, the resort was known as a skier’s mountain from the get-go.
In 1992, a financially strapped McCollister sold his mountain to the Kemmerer family of Wyoming, who still own it. Four years later, the forest service approved the Kemmerers’ master plan, which called for major improvements. The landscape was further transformed in 1998, when Adrian Zecha opened his first U.S. property, the magnificent Amangani, which sits on a butte overlooking the valley about eleven miles from the ski mountain. In 2003, the Four Seasons followed suit, selecting Jackson Hole as the site of its first mountain resort, a 151-room slope-side stunner.
As we found during out stay, despite all the new luxuries, Jackson is still at heart a casual, unpretentious spot. Even celebrities and bigwigs keep a low profile here. Part of this has to do with its location, northwest of the Bridger-Teton National Forest, just sixty miles south of Yellowstone. The scenery is staggeringly beautiful, and because 97 percent of the land is under Federal management, it’s likely it will stay that way.
But most important, in a world of micromanaged ski resorts, Jackson Hole takes a hands-off approach. Half the trails are left ungroomed, and it’s the only resort in the United States to open the gates to its backcountry (with guides), giving people access to an additional 3,000 acres of terrain. The ski patrol does avalanche control every day.
During our stay, we set aside a couple hours one afternoon to wander around the town of Jackson, with its boardwalk-edged streets and antler arches over the square, a funny mix of high end real estate offices, art galleries, gift shops selling Western themed kitsch, sleek restaurants and espresso shops. We even poked our heads into the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar and sat on saddle-topped barstools alongside cowboys in tight jeans and wide-brimmed hats. But at the end of the day, we were happy to get back to the mountain.
On out last day in Jackson Hole, I found myself skiing alone. It was late, and the light was flattening out. I was at the top of the Sublette Chair, at the base of Rendezvous Bowl, having spent the afternoon dropping in and out of chutes and trees, playing in the bumps a bit, then relaxing on groomed runs. Glancing around, I spied a couple of guys with camel backs strapped to their chests, helmets on their heads, and gloves with a bit of duct tape around their thumbs. I had the feeling that if anyone could find the prime north-facing snow—which tends to be drier and lighter—at this time of day, it would be an instructor or a local. Judging by their gear, I’d found my guys.
Keeping a discreet distance between us, I followed them as they headed down the hill under the chair, then peeled off toward the trees to the right, where the trail dropped steeply and the snow sure enough, had the soft, forgiving consistency of cream cheese. Eventually they outskiied me, and as I watched them disappear from view I thought about a conversation I’d had with Echo earlier in the week. “If the mountain hits you just right, it grabs you and never lets you go,” she said. It was true. I was hooked. On this visit I’d skied way out of my comfort zone on more than one occasion. In the process I’d made a startling discovery, something I’d lost sight of in recent years: skiing is pure, unadulterated fun. Especially when you go outside the lines.


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