MOUNTAINMOUNTAIN COUNTRY COUNTRY 2008 Traveler’s Guide to Grand Teton & Yellowstone Vacation Adventures Boating • Hiking • Climbing Biking • Rodeo • Fishing Mountain Towns National Parks Area Map Wildlife 1988 Yellowstone Fires! 20 Years After FREE Jewelry Originals 32 YEARS OF INSIRATION AT 6,000 FT. Gaslight Alley • Downtown Jackson Hole • 125 N.Cache www.DanShelley.com • [email protected] • 307.733.2259 ALL DESIGNS COPYRIGHTED Jackson Hole’s Best Real Estate Opportunities Hotel Terra Jackson Hole 20 Winger Circle, Teton Springs, Idaho Ski in/ski out property in Teton Village. Combining supreme Recently completed 4 bedroom, 4.5 bathroom home with nearly luxury and environmental sustainability, Hotel Terra is a 72- 4,000 sq. ft. of living space and a 3 car garage. This home has amaz- room, slope side eco-boutique hotel, offering two restaurants, ing views from every window of either the golf course or the Teton the Jackson Hole Tree house ski/snowboard rental shop and Range. Take advantage of all the amenities this four season resort “Chill” rooftop spa and hot tub. Phase II scheduled opening in community has to offer including club house, restaurants, tennis, 2009. Pricing from $1,395,000 to $2,600,000. pools, golf and skiing. Offered at $1,350,000 307.733.4159 800.543.6328 are qu S n Hwy 22 w o T S Albertson’s ou 89 Hwy th P ark Loop Smith’s H We’re a Jackson o High School Rd b a Hole MUST-SEE! c k Try free samples "UFFALO%LK in our factory 3TEAK0ACK store on Hwy 89 100% Natural .ATURAL at Smith’s Plaza. MADE IN JACKSON HOLE "UFFALO&ILET .ATURAL 4RAPPER 3TYLE "UFFALO*ERKY .ATURAL www.buybuffalomeat.com call 800.543.6328 for a free catalog 4 MOUNTAIN COUNTRY 2008 Explore On the Cover: Cameron Garnick surveys the mountains around Ross Lake in the Wind River Range. Cow- MOUNTAIN COUNTRY boy, outdoorsman, showman, actor, hunter, father, Cameron Garnick passed away last fall while guiding a hunter in the mountains he loved so much. His legacy lives on at the family’s Triangle C Dude Ranch and the Jackson Hole Playhouse. Contents page photos, clockwise from top left: Hiking in the Tetons; grizzly bear in the wild; bronc busting at the rodeo; white-water rafting on the Snake; Aaron Neville performs at Targhee; a cutthroat trout on the line. Publishers Bob Woodall & Wade McKoy dba Focus Productions, Inc. Editors Mike Calabrese, Wade McKoy, Bob Woodall Photo Editor Eric Rohr Art Director Janet Melvin Advertising Sales Jackson Hole & Pinedale NATURE RECREATION Kyli Fox, 307-733-6995 8 America’s National Parks 18 Hiking West Yellowstone Janet Melvin, 406-556-8655 12 Splender and Hope: the GYE 22 Biking Cody & Dubois Bob Woodall, 307-733-6995 14 1988 Yellowstone Fires: 20 Yrs. After 25 Community Pathways 26 Rafting the Snake River Copyright 2008 by Focus Produc- 60 Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center tions, Inc., P.O. Box 1930, Jackson, 67 National Bighorn Sheep Center 28 Kayaking Pioneers Wyoming, 83001. All rights re- served. No part of this publication 30 Regional Boating Information may be reproduced in any form TOWNS 32 Fishing without written permission from the publishers. 46 Jackson 36 Climbing 50 Teton Village Mountain Country is a free visi- 40 Skateboarding tor’s guide published annually in 55 Victor & Driggs 42 Rodeos May and distributed all summer at hundreds of locations 58 West Yellowstone 44 Horseback Riding throughout Jackson Hole, Cody, 61 Pinedale and other regional communities, 48 Snow King Resort and at information centers 64 Cody 50 Jackson Hole Resort throughout the region. To receive 67 Dubois a copy in the mail, send $5 to 55 Grand Targhee Resort Mountain Country, P.O. Box 1930, Jackson, Wyoming 83001. MAPS & MUSEUMS Our Web site, focusproduc- tions.com, displays this magazine DIRECTORIES 63 Museum of the Mountain Man as well as the Jackson Hole Dining 68 Business Directory 66 Buffalo Bill Historical Center Guide and our winter traveler’s guide, the Jackson Hole Skier. Cover Photo — Bob Woodall (3,4); Henry Holdsworth (2) McKoy (1,5,6); Bob Woodall Photos, clockwise this page — Wade 70 Greater Yellowstone Map CUSTOM JEWELRY BY JETER CASE In the log cabin next to Teton Theatre just off the town square 132 N. Cache Jackson Hole, Wyoming 307-733-5933 www.jcjewelers.com 800-358-5715 N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N LOCATED ON N N THE NORTH SIDE OF THE TOWN SQUARE JACKSON, WYOMING jhclothiers.com N N 307-733-7211 N N N N N N N N N N N N N N www.focusproductions. com 2008 MOUNTAIN COUNTRY 7 Clockwise from top left: The Sleeping Indian (Sheep Mountain) on the horizon; a pelican glides across the water; swans land among the flock; a grizzly bear forages for roots; a yellow warbler sings nature’s song Facing page: The Tetons on a foggy morning, from left: the Middle, the Grand, and Teewinot 8 MOUNTAIN COUNTRY 2008 America’s National Parks Conserved unimpaired for the enjoyment of this and future generations by Bert Raynes Photos by Henry Holdsworth—Wild by Nature Gallery he first action by a nation to set Land destined never to be exploited try, and the first in the world. It’s some- Taside some publicly held land to satisfy for the benefit of the few, but held in times said that the national park idea is man’s inner needs and emotions—those public ownership to benefit all! Thus the “best idea the United States of Amer- needs and feelings you can satisfy if you began an entirely new public-land pol- ica ever had.” But even great original will let Yellowstone’s quiet off-road icy, coming when this nation was at risk concepts often must be refined, im- treasures do so—came during America’s and largely still unexplored and un- proved, and administered. Unforeseen savage Civil War. In 1864 Congress known. Coming at a time of war, these obstacles must be overcome. granted the Yosemite Valley to the State far-seeing and far-reaching actions to Perhaps the first challenge in Yellow- of California, with this explicit proviso: preserve were, indeed, remarkable. stone National Park was poaching. For “…that the premises shall be held for Just eight years later, in 1872, Con- in addition to the geysers, the hot public use, resort, and recreation; shall gress authorized Yellowstone National springs, the falls, the forests and lakes, be held inalienable for all times.” Park, the first national park in the coun- and the yellow stone itself, were ample Nature is dynamic. The park is always changing... It responds to fires, droughts, climate change, and to varying views on how best to manage facilities and its animals and fish. Need I mention political pressures? Them too. numbers of large animals, both prey and Moose calves stick together, certain predator. It very soon became apparent that their mother is market-hunting slaughter had to be prohib- nearby. ited, and was in 1883. By 1894, protection A mountain lion for large game animals within Yellowstone mother and cub in was legislated, even as the then-new idea the lair. of range management was emerging. And in 1903 President Theodore Roosevelt rec- ognized that the killing off of predators— in this instance mountain lions—has a deleterious effect upon their prey (elk and deer) and ordered it stopped. (Wolves, however, were exterminated in the park and were, in 1995, reintroduced, restoring that essential component of wild creatures belonging there.) Eventually, in 1916, Congress established the National Park Service, whose purpose and management philosophy are worth being re- minded of: “The Service thus established shall pro- mote and regulate the use of Federal areas known as parks, monuments, and restorations hereinafter specified by such means and measures as conform to the fundamental pur- pose of said parks, monuments and reserva- tions, which purpose is to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.” As you visit Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park, the six national forests, wildlife refuges, and the private lands surrounding it, comprising what has become known as the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), you will experience today’s snapshot. Nature is dynamic. The park is always chang- ing, albeit within those directives. It responds to fires, droughts, climate change, and to varying views on how best to manage facili- ties and its animals and fish. Need I mention political pressures? Them too. Today, thanks largely to the wisdom and foresight of all those who established the parks and the National Park System and those who have administered it through a learning process since 1872, there remains a place set 10 MOUNTAIN COUNTRY 2008 apart for man and for the beasts. Opportunity elk, coyote to ground squirrel, bald eagle to Come Explore the World of the for you, and habitat for them. Your chance to trout—some 60 animal species and a possible Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep see herds of bison in scenes reminiscent of bird list of over 300 species. Not to mention what early denizens and then explorers wit- insects and allied species, from butterflies to nessed in the 1800s. spiders, moths to What Lewis and mosquitoes. And Clarke documented, ticks. Wildlife going although they never about their lives came closer than pretty much as they about 100 miles of have done for thou- what is now Yellow- sands of years.