Teton Valley Magazine - Summer 2016

14TOP TO BOTTOM 26BACK WHEN 34TRAIL TALK 56OUT BELOW 60FIELD NOTES 64LOCAL FLAVORS 72EXPOSURE

SUMMER 2016

COMPLIMENTARY COPY

Mountain Time

BUSY WITH BEES BIG ADVENTURE GONE FISSION SUMMER 2014

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We know Teton Valley

Golf VIsTa esTaTes Custom home features Brazilian Cherry floors, tongueand-groove wood, vaulted ceilings, granite counters and a complete appliance package. Spacious master suite with fireplace and dual closets. Master bath has electric radiant heated floor and heated jetted tub. Upstairs loft is perfect for a home office. $360,000 R15-269

Modern HoMe WITH PanoraMIc VIeWs Spacious home on 10 acres with views of the valley, river, Teton and Big Hole Ranges. Close to Driggs and 1 mile west of the Teton River. Separate apartment is small and efficient. Enjoy a large deck and sun-filled, walk-out basement. Tastefully designed interior and maintenancefree exterior so you can concentrate on work and recreation. $416,000 R15-422

fox creek HoMe creeksIde PassIVe solar HoMe Nice, passive solar home on Fox Creek. The creek runs through the property. Dead-end road ensures quiet and solitude. 10 acres of wildflowers and sagebrush. The home sits on 4 acres with 6 acres already split off. Horses allowed. $420,000 R16-908

This 2,664 sq ft, 5-bed, 3-bath home has a finished basement, large family room, granite counter tops and an oversized garage. With a fenced backyard and beautiful views, this comfortable home offers a great location and plenty of elbow room. $299,000 R16-414

VIeWs, WIlloWs and creek Full Teton views, seasonal water and willows. Great 1.6-acre home site with reasonable CCR’s and HOA Fees. Set close enough to Driggs for shopping, schools, library and far enough away for quiet.

Small creek traverses the property on the western portion. Great location for access to Grand Targhee Resort for winter and summer fun. $65,000 L15-2389

BROKER Ken Dunn ASSOCIATE BROKERS Julie Robinson Erica Tremblay Kent Wagener SALES ASSOCIATES Ann Goodell Matt Hail Nell Hanson Kathy Kilgallon Dondy Neuman Mark Northcott Cricket Romanzi Glenn Vitucci

189 NORTH MAIN DRIGGS IDAHO 83422

208.354.9955 sagerg.com 4

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TeTon VIeWs and GreaT locaTIon nesTled In THe fooTHIlls of fox creek Located in the foothills above Fox Creek, this 4,000 +/- sq ft, 4-bedroom, 5-bathroom home features a mother-in-law suite, large master bedroom and treed hillside setting. With south-facing views of the valley, the home offers abundant natural light, Big Hole Mountain views, and a three-car garage for storage. $425,000

SUMMER 2014

Enjoy the full Grand Teton views from this 2.02-acre lot in Saddlehorn Ranch.

Conveniently located with easy access to Grand Targhee Resort. Enjoy a 15 minute drive to the Teton River and a 5 minute drive to downtown Driggs. With plenty of elbow room and CCR’s to protect your investment. $55,000 L15-2920

LLC

Frame, Post and Log Construction and Remodeling

Moyer Builders has a strong reputation for guiding our customers through the building process with respect, thoroughness, and quality construction. We are committed to serving our customers responsively and responsibly to assure that their expectations are exceeded in all aspects of their home construction experience.

40 Years’ Experience in all Types of Construction • Plan Designing Available • Remodeling and Additions • New Home Construction • New Frame, Post, Log and Contemporary Construction

Moyer Builders LLC. 10125 Rammell Mt. Rd.

Tetonia, Idaho 83452

208-456-2385

moyerbuildersllc.com moyerbuilders@silverstar.com Idaho Contractor Registration: RCE-60 Licensed Resident Contractor Class C Town of Jackson, Wyoming

SUMMER 2016

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2 bdrm, 1 bath character home with loads of potenCustom 3 bdrm home overlooking beautiful Swan tial in downtown Victor with Neighborhood Mixed Valley. 3.86 acres and loaded with quality charm.

Use Zoning with a 2nd very usable lot ready for your See for yourself at $435,000. home or business. Hard to beat all this potential for only $359,000.

58 Acres within walking distance to Driggs Beautifully designed Teton Springs home offers 3 bdrms, 5 baths, reclaimed barnwood siding and top of the line amenities throughout.

Fishable pond and golf views $1,299,000

yet a World away with live water, lovely meadows and mountain views.

Fully fenced and recently reduced to $745,000

5 bdrm, 4 bath, 3-car garage Teton Springs custom home boasts it ALL. Quality craftsmanship and style are found in every corner of this exquisite home.

You don’t want to compromise, then look no further Lovely & well kept$1,049,000.

3 bdrm, 3 bath in Spoon Creek Acres w/Grand view! 2 river rock fireplaces, spacious main floor master, oversized 2 car garage, convenient location West of Victor. $399,000

Properties that are a World Apart ...

Text: T205861 to 81035

Text: T205862 to 81035

Text: T205863 to 81035

Service That is World-Class

SERVING Buyers and Sellers in IDAHO and WYOMING

Two convenient locations!

Victor—TETON SPRINGS Driggs— 40 EAST LITTLE AVE

208.787.8000 Toll Free 866.445.3328 www.allseasonresortrealty.com

Homesites 2

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Condo/Hotel SUMMER 2016

Fractional Ownership Opportunities

Variety of Homes

Richard & Claire generously present

PHOTO: J.SELKOWITZ/SELKOPHOTO

Teton Valley, Idaho

I LOVE Thursday nights in Victor!

teton valley FOUNDATION

Victor City Park Victor, Idaho THURSDAYS

2016 Lineup:

Thursday, June 30

Thursday, July 28

June 23 - August 11 6pm - 10pm

Ethan Tucker

John Wayne’s World

Free fun for ALL ages

Thursday, June 23

Thursday, July 21

Screen Door Porch

Talia Keys Gemini Mind

Band of Heathens Kris Lager Band

Shook Twins

Cure For The Common

Thursday, July 7

Thursday, August 4

Wyatt Lowe and the Mayhem Kings

John Craigie

Cha-Wa

James McMurtry

Thursday, July 14

Thursday, August 11

Canyon Kids

The Brian Maw Band

Todo Mundo

Monophonics

Teton Valley Foundation is a donor and sponsor supported non-profit organization. TVF works to make the good life in Teton Valley even better by providing cultural, recreational, and educational programs and facilities that boost the local economy and make our community a better place to live and to visit. Our programs include Music on Main, Kotler Ice Arena, the Great Snow Fest, and Oktoberfest.

SUMMER 2016 PO Box 50, Victor, ID 83455 | (208) 201-5356 | www.tetonvalleyfoundation.org

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BEST

Little HORSE HOUSE in Idaho

Talk to our professionals and See our website at thebrokenspur.com

535 Moraine Court Located 1.5 miles north of downtown Driggs, Idaho, on the “Western Side” of the road 4

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208-354-3389

Accept

THE CHALLENGE 9th Annual Tin Cup Challenge 07.16.16 | Driggs City Center | tincupchallenge.org

Brought to you by Community Foundation of Teton Valley

PO Box 1523 | 175 North Main Street | Driggs, ID 83422 SUMMER 2016 magazine 5 cftetonvalley.org | 208.354.0230

INTRODUCING OUR NEW WEBSITE!

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NEW SEARCH FEATURES, COMMUNITY PAGES, SUBDIVISION MAPS & MUCH MORE

SCAN THE QR CODE TO GET STARTED WITH YOUR SEARCH

“Local Brokerage, National Results”

BRAND NEW WEBSITE, SAME GREAT TEAM!

MARK

JULIE

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MANDY

TAYSON

SAM

DON

208-354-2439 • 253 S Main St. Driggs, ID, 83422 WWW.TVRMANAGEMENT.COM 6 magazine SUMMER 2016

WWW.300MAINDRIGGS.COM

WWW.TVRRANCHES.COM

WWW.CEDERHOMES.COM

contents

SUMMER 2016

8 Editor’s Note 12 Contributors

top to bottom

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30 Ways to Play | Pizza Elevated | Mountain Men Cheers to Charity | National Park Service at 100

our neighbors

22 all in a day’s work

26 back when

30 growing things

34 trail talk

The Daily Grind The Country Cousins

44

The Business of Bees

Local Rock

Big Adventure in the Basin with Bees 30 Busy

features

38 Mountain Guides 44 Local Rock

46 Khumbu Climbing Center

52 Everyone Has a Story

PHOTOS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: JAMYE CHRISMAN (2), COURTESY OF TRIXIE NELSON BEARD, CHRIS RADCLIFFE, JAMYE CHRISMAN (2)

compass

56 out below

60 field notes

64 local flavors

points

Gone Fission Vegetarian Turned Hunter?

Writers 52 Hometown

Seoul Food

directories

Seoul Food

13 66 69 71

71

64

Advertiser Directory Dining Guide Lodging Guide Church Directory School Directory

exposure 72 Ride On! Cousins 26 Country

on the cover We got his back! Ty Mack practicing his moves on a wall of rock in Darby Canyon.

Photo by Jamye Chrisman.

Ogre Adventure Race 34 Teton

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editor’s note

Targhee Village Golf Course

Q: What do honey bees, skateboard parks, mountain guides, and the Idaho National Laboratory all have in common?

A: They’re the subjects of stories in this edition of Teton Valley Magazine.

It’s a disparate range of topics, no doubt, but regular readers won’t be surprised. They know the magazine always presents a cornucopia of content. It’s what we strive for in planning and preparing each issue: gathering a collection of tales that celebrate the unique past, personalities, outdoor opportunities, and so much more of this amazing place we call home—whether it’s home the year around, home just part of the year, or still your dream home.

The Spud Drive-In Theatre

Alta, Wyoming 307-353-8577

Your Home Base for Ski great powder on both sides Relaxation or Adventure of the Tetons...for less bucks!

On the road to Grand Targhee Satellite - WiFi 10 minutesTelevision to Grand Targhee New Jacuzzi Kitchenettes HBO – WiFi Hand-crafted Fire Ring Hot Tub – Kitchenettes Picnic Grounds Welcoming Reunions and Groups Welcoming Reunions or Groups Affordable Rates and Specials Affordable Rates and Specials

(866) (866)687 6871522 1522

www.tetonvalleycabins.com www.tetonvalleycabins.com 8

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We’re also pleased to welcome four first-time contributors in this issue. You can read about them on page 12.

In addition to the topics mentioned above, by perusing the following pages you’ll learn about our editorial assistant Kate Hull’s experience last summer at a hunting clinic conducted specifically for women. The self-professed former city girl and vegetarian is now thinking of taking up bow hunting. You’ll also read about the “Dixie Doodlers,” aka the “Country Cousins,” a local singing group during the 1950s and 1960s made up of sisters Trixie and Dixie Nelson, along with a changing cast of backup characters; valley authors who found their ways with words later in life; and a pair of adventure racers who have achieved success at the national level and now give back to the sport by organizing their own event in this area.

In the realm of cuisine, you’ll be introduced to 1) the “Seoul food” dished up at a Korean restaurant north of Driggs and 2) the new Tatanka Tavern. Sitting at all of three stories high, Tatanka might be considered Driggs’ answer to San Francisco’s Top of the Mark. Well, maybe that’s a stretch of a few stories, but we’d be willing to bet that the wood-fired artisan pizzas served there rival any pies you’ll find flipped and plated in the City by the Bay. Speaking of, chances are a visit here this summer, whether in person or vicariously via this magazine, will have some of you non-residents paraphrasing Tony Bennett: “I left my heart … in Teton Valley.”

Enjoy!

IT’S A

JOINT EFFORT

Most things are better with partners. Even joint replacement. Success requires a team of doctors, nurses, and other professionals working jointly with patients and families.

At St. John’s Peak Joint Replacement, we pride ourselves on our patient education program and personalized care. The results? Our patients have earlier mobility and leave the hospital sooner, so they can get back to doing the things they love.

www.tetonhospital.org/joints / 307. 739. 6199

SUMMER 2016

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SUMMER 2016

publisher

Nancy McCullough-McCoy

nancy@powdermountainpress.com

editor in chief

Michael McCoy

mac@powdermountainpress.com

art director

Sage Hibberd

LINN CANYON RANCH A Classic Taste of the West

Trail rides • Pack TriPs sunseT dinner rides wiTh GourmeT dininG PrivaTe ParTies • lodGinG

graphics@powdermountainpress.com

photographer

Jamye Chrisman jamye@jamyechrismanphotography.com

marketing + sales representative Nancy McCullough-McCoy

nancy@powdermountainpress.com

marketing + sales assistant Joan Mosher

info@powdermountainpress.com

editorial assistant Kate Hull

(208) 787-5466 • 1300 E 6000 S, Victor, ID 83455 linnranch@silverstar.com • www.linncanyonranch.com

SHOP WITH US • OPEN DAILY 9-7

Organic Produce Local Raw Milk Beer & Wine Fresh Eggs Artisan Bread Pet Foods Nutritional Supplements Gifts • Grab & Go

NATURAL GROCER

36 S. MAIN, DRIGGS, ID 208.354.2307 • JUICE BAR HOURS 9-2 10

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kate@powdermountainpress.com

contributors

Jeannette Boner Lukas Boone Joyce Driggs Edlefsen Cory Hatch Erin Jensen Molly Loomis Ty Mack J. Scott McGee Christina Shepherd McGuire Mel Paradis Winner of 1st place in the Magazine–General Excellence category, Idaho Press Club’s Best of 2014 and 2015

Teton Valley Magazine is published twice yearly by Powder Mountain Press, Inc. 18 N Main #305 | PO Box 1167 | Driggs ID 83422 (208)354-3466 TetonValleyMagazine.com

©2016 by Powder Mountain Press, Inc. No part of this magazine may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher. Editorial comments, ideas, and submissions are welcomed. The publisher will not be responsible for the return of unsolicited photos, articles, or other materials unless accompanied by a SASE. Printed in the U.S.A. Volume 20, No. 1

Doctors Toenjes, Brizzee & Orme P.A. COSMETIC & FAMILY DENTISTRY 305 East 5th North • St. Anthony • 624-3757 204 Main Street • Ashton • 652-7868

tbodental.com

Highest Quality Dentistry A Lifetime of Value for All Your Dental Needs • Cerec - Same Day Crowns • Cosmetic Dentistry • Zoom In-Office Whitening • Veneers, Lumineers, and Crowns & Bridges • Implants • Professional Hygiene Cleaning • Dentures & Partials • Emergency Care • Smile enhancement consultations and second opinions at no charge

Dr. John Toenjes, D.D.S. Se habla espanol

Dr. Gabe Brizzee, D.D.S.

Dr. Drostan Orme, D.D.S..

SUMMER 2016

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contributors

A self-confirmed “chowderhead” with a western soul, Christina Shepherd McGuire (The Daily Grind, page 22) shares her Tetonia home with a husband, two children, a dog, a cat, and seven chickens. Christina strives to balance the craziness of family life with moments of slow living and, as editor of Teton Family Magazine, inspires others to do the same. When she’s not in the garden or hanging out with local farmers—milking a goat or gaining inspiration for the next best read—you might find Christina deep in on some singletrack with a flat tire. Catch up with her at christinashepherdmcguire.com.

Writer and photographer Joyce Driggs Edlefsen (The Country Cousins, page 26) lives in St. Anthony with her husband and cat. Retired after more than thirty years at the Rexburg Standard Journal as an editor, writer, and photographer, she freelances for magazines, newspapers, and online services. Joyce grew up in Teton Valley, where she picked huckleberries with Grandma Driggs, fished with her dad on the river, and hiked the Tetons with her mom. She volunteers at the Teton Valley Museum and writes a weekly history column for the Teton Valley News.

Cory Hatch (Big Adventure in the Basin, page 34) spent his youth feeding earthworms to anthills and instigating snowball fights in the foothills around Steamboat Springs, Colorado. After a stint on the East Coast, he eventually found his way back to the Rocky Mountains where he adopted a dog, met his future wife, and settled down in Victor. When he’s not mountain biking or backcountry skiing, Cory spends his time writing about science and trying to play Tom Petty songs on the ukulele with his four-year-old daughter.

Molly Loomis (Khumbu Climbing Center, page 46) is a longtime contributor to Teton Valley Magazine and other local publications. More of her stories about mountains around the world can be found at mollyloomis.com Molly is also the founder and director of the Andy Tyson Memorial Fund, a nonprofit dedicated to helping outdoor leaders in developing countries through expeditions and trainings. This summer the ATMF’s first grant recipient, Mingma Fura Sherpa, the Khumbu Climbing Center’s only female instructor, will travel to attend a series of trainings with internationally recognized institutions such as the National Outdoor Leadership School and Grand Teton National Park. Learn more at andytysonmemorialfund.org

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PHOTO: TOP, KISA KOENIG

After years working in river conservation, Ty Mack (Local Rock, page 44) now provides crusty artisan bread to the Teton region as an owner of 460 Bread. He also serves on the board of directors of both Teton Valley Trails and Pathways and the Teton Rock Gym. Ty is an accomplished rock and ice climber, known for his first ascent of one of the most difficult traditional climbs in the country, The Almighty (5.14b R) in Teton Canyon. He lives in Victor with his wife and two sons.

advertiser directory 460 Bread 70 All Season Resort Realty 2 Alliance Title 36 America’s Bicycle Route 51 Anytime Fitness/Spin Cave 31 Barrels & Bins Community Market 10 Broken Spur 4 Chandler Insurance 27 Chircop & Colyer 28 Community Foundation of Teton Valley 5 Corner Drug 65 Dining In Catering, Inc 51 Driggs Digs Plein Air 65 Drs. Toenjes, Brizzee & Orme, P.A. 11 Elevate Salon 50 Fall River Propane 31 Fall River Rural Electric Co-Op 11 Family Safety Network 37 Festive Living 28 Fitzgerald’s Bicycles 28 GPC Architects 50 Graham Faupel & Associates [Jenn Dawes] 37 Grand Targhee Resort BC Grand Targhee Resort Property Management 29 Grand Valley Lodging 58 Guchiebird’s 23 Habitat 59 High Peaks Physical Therapy 63 Kisa Koenig Photography 50 Linn Canyon Ranch 10 McDonald’s® of Jackson Hole 70 MD Nursery & Landscaping, Inc. 17, 19 Moyer Builders 1 Powder Mountain Press 62 Sage Realty Group IFC Salon Blaq 36 Seoul Restaurant 63 St. John’s Medical Center 9, 25 Sue’s Roos 24 SYNAPSE 50 Targhee Village Golf Course 8 Tatanka Tavern 59 Teton School District 401 62 Teton County Title 62 Teton Therapeutic Massage 50 Teton Valley Bible Church 29 Teton Valley Cabins 8 Teton Valley Foundation 3 Teton Valley Health Care 20, 21 Teton Valley Lodge IBC Teton Valley Magazine 68 Teton Valley Realty 6 Teton Valley Trails & Pathways 13 The Driggs Stovehouse 13 The Rusty Nail 25 Trading Places 58 Trail Creek Pet Center 58 Valley Lumber & Rental 33 Victor Emporium 33 Victor Valley Market 27 Western Design Conference 32 Yöstmark Mountain Equipment 24

LOAD LIGHT LIVE VOYAGEUR GRAND WOOD INSERT AUTOMATIC COMBUSTION CONTROL COMPLETE BURNS & LOW EMISSIONS EASIER TO LOAD, START & MAINTAIN THE HEAT

quadrafire.com Authorized dealer for Gas Stoves • Wood Stoves • Pellet Stoves Fireplaces • Installations • Chimney Sweep 208.354.8027 • stoveman@silverstar.com 720 N. Hwy 33 • Driggs, Idaho 83422 SUMMER 2016

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Stroll downtown Driggs with a freshly brewed cup of joe from Cicero’s Bistro and Bakery Mountain bike the South Horseshoe trails in the Big Hole Range Sit outside and tuck into a warm muffin at Pendl’s Bakery & Café Start your day by getting a beard trim or new ’do at Salon Blaq in Driggs Gaze down on Teton Valley from a high-flying hot-air ballon Hit the South Fork with one of our many pro fly-fishing guides Spoil a good walk (as Mark Twain would say) by golfing at one of our three public courses Find your center aboard a stand-up paddleboard on the Teton River Ride to the rhythm in an early-bird cycling class at Spin Cave Visit Habitat in Driggs to pick up your “High Altitude Provisions”

*

Visit our Dining section for more bodacious breakfast ideas

PHOTOS: JAMYE CHRISMAN; BIKERS, CODY DOWNARD

Ways to Play

Midday

top to bottom

Morning

30

01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10

Evening 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Dine outside at Forage, savoring Idaho-style hummus and a Hanger Steak Salad Learn about the local flora on a guided nature hike with Grand Targhee Resort’s naturalist Explore the unique home décor offered at The Rusty Nail in Driggs Show your stuff at the Fifth Street Skate Park by grabbing some big air or folfing nine holes Tackle the 9-mile Table Mountain Trail in the Tetons Pack a lunch of Victor Valley Market’s fresh deli sandwiches, then head to the national parks Cool off with a huckleberry shake from the Victor Emporium or a lime freeze at Corner Drug Melt your worries and heal your worn body with a massage at Teton Springs’ Stillwaters Spa Groove on a smoothie from Barrels & Bins Community Market Grab an appetizer or early dinner on the deck at Grand Targhee’s Trap Bar & Grill

*

Turn to our Dining section for additional lunch possibilities

21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Munch on the spicy enchiladas or tamales at Agave in Driggs Pull up a lawn chair or spread a blanket at Thursday’s Music on Main in Victor Watch the sun dip behind the Big Holes while chowing down at Victor’s West Side Yard Share a special dinner with family or friends at Linn Canyon Ranch Hoot and holler for the cowboys and cowgirls at the Friday evening Teton Valley Rodeo Spice things up with a bowl of Gang Karee yellow curry and an order of sake at Teton Thai Hang with the locals at the Royal Wolf, where “snow sagas and fish tales are told nightly” Cozy up under the stars at the Spud Drive-In or opt for an indoor flick at Pierre’s Playhouse Munch on some mahi fish tacos or smoked chicken at Victor’s Big Hole BBQ Bite into a king-sized burger at the Brakeman American Grill in Victor

*

Turn to our Dining section for more dinner suggestions SUMMER 2016

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Pizza Elevated

top to bottom

Horseplay

Dining

Wood-Fired Artisan Pizza, Elevated

On the third floor of Main Street’s Colter Building, Tatanka Tavern keeps the pizzas baking and the microbrews flowing late into the night. The artisan-style pizza joint opened this past winter, filling a niche in Teton Valley by combining woodfired pizzas and appetizers with a lounge atmosphere perfect for a family night out, an evening with friends, or a place to just kick back and watch the game.

Ride Year-Round

Teton Valley unveiled its first public indoor pavilion last summer, thanks to ongoing efforts from the Teton County Fair Board, the Teton Valley Arena Committee, 4-H, and Teton County. Located at the Teton County Fairgrounds north of Driggs, the pavilion allows equestrian enthusiasts to saddle up and enjoy riding regardless of the season or the weather.

A plan that’s been in the making since 2005, the completion of the indoor pavilion is part of a more comprehensive project aimed at upgrading the fairground facilities in general. But for now, riders can enjoy a free enclosed space that shelters both rider and horse from the elements, and offers indoor lighting for night riding.

The pavilion is open from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. seven days a week.

Co-owners Kelly Williams and Evan Larson met while working two stories below at the outdoor/lifestyle shop Habitat, where Evan tuned skis and bikes and Kelly still works as the back-of-the-house manager.

“I wanted to open a restaurant in the valley that has a warm atmosphere and is an inviting place to hang out,” says Kelly. “I also wanted to serve food late and provide people with fun options of entertainment, from vinyl nights to trivia contests.”

Order up a Fungus Amongus, Piggy Smalls, or Sweet Virginia—a few of the local favorites, Kelly says—with a cold glass of your favorite brew. In summer, you can enjoy the cool night air on the outdoor deck. Now open 12:00 p.m. to midnight. tatankatavern.com 16

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PHOTOS:

Kelly’s vision has been realized. Inside, reclaimed wood lines the bar, rustic light fixtures hang from the ceiling, copper pennies cover the bar top, and a vibrant buffalo mural by artist Marinna Holmstead greets patrons. Equal parts lounge, restaurant, and bar, Tatanka spices up the weeknights with things like karaoke and oldie tunes.

Events the Past Honoring

Beautiful Landscapes Start Here

Mountain Man Rendezvous A time-honored tradition throughout the Rocky Mountain West, mountain man rendezvous celebrate the early nineteenth-century gatherings of fur trappers and traders to sell furs and hides and replenish supplies. Each summer in Victor, the tradition is upheld with family-friendly activities honoring the valley’s heritage.

The City of Victor hosts three days of events on August 18, 19, and 20 during the Teton Valley Mountain Man Rendezvous, showcasing the lifeways of American Indians, early cowboys, and mountain men. The weekend features heritage stories at the Mountain Man Camp, wagon rides, period arts and crafts, music, food, and more.

The event takes place on the southeast side of Victor at the intersection of Highway 33 and Baseline Road. victorcityidaho.com.

Cheers to Charity

LANDSCAPING & DESIGN ROCK & PAVERS WATER FEATURES MAINTENANCE IRRIGATION

Order a pint of your favorite craft beer and toast to a good cause! Grand Teton Brewing will again host Nonprofit Pint Nights, benefitting select groups— PHOTOS: JAMYE CHRISMAN; PAVILLION, STAFF

from Mountain Bike the Tetons to the Teton Valley Ski Education Foundation. Thirty percent of proceeds (excluding keg sales) go toward the evening’s nonprofit beneficiaries. Stop by Mondays and Wednes-

208.354.8816 • 2389 S. Hwy 33 • Driggs, ID

www.mdlandscapinginc.com

days from June 20 through July 13 (except Fourth of July week, when the event takes place Tuesday and

Nonprofit

Wednesday) from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. grandteton brewing.com/Events.htm SUMMER 2016

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Shopping

top to bottom

Ten Years of Style

Whether you’re looking to add a sofa and coffee table, brighten up your guest room, or completely redesign your home’s look and feel, Festive Living is ready to help you take on the challenge.

Owner and interior designer Hayden Jones opened Festive Living ten years ago this summer, determined to see clients’ design ambitions come to fruition. “We don’t want you to walk in the door of a house and say ‘Festive Living did that,’” Hayden says. “We want to have a huge variety of styles and looks we can accomplish.”

From traditionally Western motifs to mountain modern and contemporary, Festive Living’s breadth of design specialties keep projects fun and fresh.

“I love working with people that are coming from all different parts of the country and exploring their different tastes,” she adds.

Hayden and her team are excited to welcome in the next ten years of showcasing Teton Valley’s style. This summer, they plan to expand the design center by diving more heavily into samples of fabrics, hardware, and more, in order to help clients realize their visions.

National Parks

A Century of Service Happy 100th birthday, National Park Service!

August 25 kicks off the second century of the Park Service’s role in providing stewardship for America’s most celebrated landscapes.

So, take a moment to stop and thank a park employee and say, “Happy Hundredth!” And consider picking up a copy of the book 59 Illustrated National Parks, the source for the two iconic poster images pictured above. nps.gov/subjects/centennial

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PHOTOS, FROM LEFT: JAMYE CHRISMAN; POSTERS, COURTESY OF ANDERSON DESIGN GROUP; CODY DOWNARD

Explore the downtown Victor store to find inspiration for your home, or peruse the ample retail options like kitchen gadgets, comforters, artwork, and bath towels. festive-living.com

Recreating Grand Targhee Resort

Downhill Mecca Grand Targhee Resort may be best known as a winter skiing and snowboarding destination, but come summertime another variety of gravity hog takes to the slopes. Downhill biking opportunities and participation have both been growing at the resort, now with eight downhill trails encompassing 11 miles.

All the Pleasures of Home and Garden

SEASONAL HOME & GARDEN DÉCOR INDOOR & OUTDOOR FURNITURE UNIQUE GIFTS FULL SERVICE FLORIST GREENHOUSE & GARDEN CENTER

Last summer, trail-building guru Harlan Hottenstein and his team completed Rock Garden, an advanced trail with two miles of rocky terrain and a dozen jumps and features. Descending 1,809 vertical feet, it’s Targhee’s steepest trail. The resort has also added new features and jumps on the lower portion of the flow trail Bullwinkle, perfect for intermediate riders.

The addition of these trails continues to amplify Grand Targhee Resort’s status as a premier mountain biking destination. The resort was named by MTBParks.com as the No. 1 Bike Park in the Northwest in 2013 and the No. 2 Bike Park in the Northwest in 2014. It also boasts the notable distinction of claiming an IMBA Epic Loop. The International Mountain Bicycling Association defines “Epic Trails” as those offering demanding adventures in a natural setting with a distance of no less than 20 miles, at least 80 percent of it in singletrack.

208.354.8816 • 2389 S. Hwy 33 • Driggs, ID

www.mdlandscapinginc.com Open 9-6 Mon-Sat

Last summer, the resort also added new cross-country trails like Action Jackson, a 3.5-mile route dishing up stunning views. It’s a lasting memory to the late AJ Linnell, a popular local mountain bike racer and ski guide. grandtarghee.com.

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Teton Valley Health Care offers a range of services from primary care to specialty services right here in Teton Valley.

There’s no need to travel an hour or more to see a cardiologist, a neurologist, or a pain management specialist, for example.

To learn more visit tvhcare.org/services PRIMARY CARE (FAMILY PRACTICE) Our providers, including Drs. Chad Horrocks and Nathan Levanger, can help you make important choices that impact your health and the health of your loved ones.

TELEMEDICINE Teton Valley Health Care is proud to partner with the University of Utah Health Services to offer Telestroke, Teleburn and Teleacute care from our facility in Driggs.

MULTIPLE SPECIALTY SERVICES From neurology and pain management to dermatology, cardiology, occupational therapy and nutrition counseling, we offer more than 18 specialites featuring visiting specialists from surrounding areas at our newly renovated Specialty Clinic.

Rural healthcare, redefined. tvhcare.org SUMMER 2016

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our neighbors

All in a Day’s Work

MARK GODDARD TEST RIDES THE DRIGGS SKATE PARK

The Daily Grind Mark Goddard has carved a career in skateboarding

BY CHRISTINA SHEPHERD MCGUIRE

22

magazine SUMMER 2016

M

ark Goddard loves big ollies. “The ollie is the basis of most every skateboarding trick,” says the California-raised skater.

This fundamental trick, where the rider with his board leaps into the air, was Mark’s gateway into skateboarding.

“I saw a friend ollie over this bush that was eighteen inches tall,” he recalls of his teenage years. “I had only heard of people being able to ollie that high. I wanted to do it!”

Now in his forties, he admits that his ollie is not quite as high as it was in his twenties, but it still provides that same feeling for him, one he’s melded a life around. Today, Mark travels the country building skateparks for Spohn Ranch Skateparks, a company whose works range from the largest concrete park in North America to small-town setups.

PHOTO: JAMYE CHRISMAN

THE LOCAL SCENE No doubt. Skateboarding in the Rockies is tough, hence the lack of an actual “scene.” Limited to about six or eight months of outdoor skating, regional diehards travel during the winter just to get their fix on (unless, of course, the jones can be fulfilled by snowboarding). Then, at the first sign of the spring thaw, a small posse of Teton Valley skaters emerges, armed with shovels and the will to session the Driggs park.

Among the mix you’ll find Mark—snow blower in tow—if he’s not off shaping a concrete skate element in some alternate locale.

He recalls the early days when the only skate spot in town was Big Daddy’s (Scott Degrave’s) ramp on First Street in Driggs. The year was 1996. And the setup—a battered all-wooden halfpipe with a steel flat bottom—was all they had. Mark remembers his sessions consisting mostly of axel stalls and rock ’n’ rolls (basic halfpipe maneuvers), since most of his high-level skills were

perfected on the street. And when he wasn’t at Degrave’s, you’d see him in the Larsen Trailer in Driggs loading his car with self-made skate ramps, a fifteenfoot long rail, and a manual pad. He’d drive them to the Gemstone Subdivision (coincidentally adjacent to where the skatepark now sits), set them up street-course style, skate, and then load everything up and drive back home.

Some considered it too much effort for little reward. But to Mark, it was part of a routine that he fit in around work and skating the LDS Church and the Bank of Commerce parking lots.

Fast forward a decade, and the Fifth Street Skate Park in Driggs, constructed in phases from 2002 to 2005, became Mark’s favorite. The first organizational efforts began in 1997, then fizzled, and commenced again in 1999 when the Teton Valley Skate Club was formed.

Thanks to significant contributions from businesses and individual donors, a 13,000-square-foot park was built for a little over $100,000, or about $8 a square foot (the national average is $35). Mark donated 400 hours of labor to build the community park, working with a core group of regional skaters.

“I’m certainly proud to have been a big part of a successful effort to build a park with minimal funding,” he says.

This summer he hopes to register the park as a beneficiary for the Tin Cup Challenge, and use donations to add concrete elements to the park’s interior.

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A carpenter by trade, he fell into skatepark building in 2008, and now visits interesting places like Norway and New York City, where he meets new people and often gets to see the sights of his temporary place of residence. Sometimes his wife, Erika Goddard, owner of Elevate Salon in Driggs, takes time off

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to accompany him on his trips. Other times, he goes it solo, often working in four-week stints so that he can come back home in between.

“I could work 365 days a year,” Mark says. “I say ‘no’ to more work than I say ‘yes’ to.” And while it’s easy to romanticize a life on the road, he can assure you he’s not on vacation. “I’m generally working sixty-five hours a week, with one day off to do laundry and go out and skate,” he says.

But what buys Mark time at home is his business of building and marketing custom pop-top shocks for Volkswagen camper vans—a hobby that became a lucrative side job. He sells Jack Bombay Pop Top Shocks to customers in the U.S., Europe, Mexico, and Japan. A labor of love, for sure, in the last seven years, he has sold a total of 2,220 kits through VW forums and his own web page. And every once in awhile, he will still fit a local carpentry gig into his work mix, but skatepark building still trumps all.

A PARK’S STORY “It’s really satisfying, building public space,” Mark says, comparing the process to a story in a book. He explains that the average time from a park’s conceptualization until it actually gets built is about seven years. There’s the design phase, of course, but community parks also require fundraising efforts and donors. “It’s a ton of effort by so many people to make it happen,” he says.

Once that story is finished, the next one tells the tale of the skatepark’s life.

“Being a carpenter, you can build a nice home and there might be four or so people that enjoy it, and then it gets sold. When you build a skate park out of concrete, there might be a million people that enjoy it,” Mark says, adding that he gets a funny feeling walking away from a park after he’s built it. “You are walking away from what will be a significant part of a lot of kids’ lives. But as the guy that built it, I’ll never get to know those stories.”

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As someone who believes, as he says, “The skateboard is the technological pinnacle of human achievement, with the space shuttle coming in a distant second,” Mark Goddard has surely carved out his own story, one that deeply integrates him into various communities, including his own. And while seasoned skaters feel that modern skateboarding—with its televised X Games comps and big city scenes—has lost its intimacy, it’s nice to know that backstage connections are still being formed. “I see a forty-year-old skater and I get excited,” Mark says, when asked about the bonds he’s made. “If you’re still skating at forty, you’re probably going to keep going until you can’t walk.”

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our neighbors

Back When

DIXIE NELSON, LEFT, AND TRIXIE NELSON (HERE WITH GENE SORG, CENTER) WERE KNOWN AS THE DIXIE DOODLERS AND LATER AS THE COUNTRY COUSINS. THEY PERFORMED THEIR BRAND OF WESTERN MUSIC THROUGHOUT TETON VALLEY AND BEYOND.

The Country Cousins

Making music ‘for the joy of it’

BY JOYCE DRIGGS EDLEFSEN

26

magazine SUMMER 2016

N

owadays Dixie Nelson Hansen and Trixie Nelson Beard might be a YouTube sensation. But long before the Internet, back in the 1950s and ’60s when they were the Dixie Doodlers—and later the core of the Country Cousins—those Teton Valley sisters were arguably the most famous singers in the area.

They became a local sensation by word of mouth, as they performed at many dances and church events. But they also reached a broader audience.

They made a record, and they performed live on television. They were naturals.

PHOTO: COURTESY OF TRIXIE NELSON BEARD

“Dixie got so scared she quit singing,” Trixie recalled.

Trixie Nelson Beard, the younger sister, said music came to them from both sides of the family. “Both of my parents, Ariel and Marie Nelson, were very good singers,” she said in a history prepared for the Teton Valley Museum.

“They both also played the harmonica.”

Her parents loved listening to oldtime country music on the radio. Younger sister Deanna and two brothers, Irvin and David, also were musical. “We’d get in the car, and we would all be singing before we got far,” Trixie said.

They favored good old Western tunes, such as “Waltz of the Wind” (Hank Williams), “Cool Water” (Sons of the Pioneers), “Padre” (Marty Robbins), “That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine” (Gene Autry), and “Slowly I’m Falling in Love with You” (Webb Pierce).

Trixie remembered performing at a Christmas program when she and Dixie were in the first and second grades. “Dixie got so scared she quit singing,” she said. But that fear was short-lived.

In 1950 their dad bought them each a guitar. Dixie was fourteen and in the eighth grade, Trixie a year younger. Dixie had a Gibson, remembered Trixie,

while she had a Harmony. “We learned to play without much help, except for some lessons on chording from my dad’s friend Al Herrera,” who had a band at the time. As it turned out, Trixie was better at picking out the melody, while Dixie played the chords.

“It turned out cool,” Trixie said. “We were never able to take music lessons of any sort and we never learned how to read notes. We had a talent for listening to a song and then being able to pick up our guitars and play it by ear.”

Their dad was so proud he took them, the Dixie Doodlers, to cut a record. Carl Ripplinger, who lived in Driggs, had a recording machine, and he recorded Trixie and Dixie singing Webb Pierce’s “It’s Been So Long.” Trixie still has the now-scratchy record. “I had no idea at the time it would become a memento for me,” she said. “It was pretty awesome what we did. It really popped.”

Before they knew it, the Dixie Doodlers added a member, their uncle Gene Sorg, who played the fiddle by ear.

“We were hot,” Trixie said. The addition of the fiddle to the mix made their developing sound more original and made them more in demand for performances. “Man, did we have fun. It was unique at that time to have such young kids that were able to play guitar and fiddle.” The sisters’ dad chauffeured them to their many gigs.

The group gained a piano player when cousin Jeanine Beard, who also played by ear, joined up. After she married and left the group another relative, Gloria Beard, took her place at the keyboard. “We were busy playing at least twice a week and every weekend,” Trixie said. And it was all without pay. Performances were “for the joy of it,” she said, though she recalled the practices being even more fun.

The group changed its name to Country Cousins, which, Trixie said, sounded more professional, and they performed at places like a dance hall in Swan Valley called the Wagon Wheel

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and in Jackson at the Elks Lodge. They also played in talent contests, and it was at one of these that local radio personality Leo Hyam heard them perform.

Hyam, who had a radio program called “Hyam and Eggs,” was at the show to track down local talent for a live television program on the Idaho Falls channel KID (now KIDK).

The Country Cousins got an invitation, and they accepted.

“In the early spring of 1954, Dixie, Gene, Gloria, and I appeared in the studio of KID-TV, performing ‘Your Cheatin’ Heart’ by Hank Williams,” said Trixie, who remembers being very frightened in front of the cameras. “But right after our performance we received a phone call in the studio to perform again.”

PHOTOS: COURTESY OF TRIXIE NELSON BEARD

FALLS.

THE COUNTRY COUSINS REGROUPED TO PERFORM AT A HOEDOWN ON DECEMBER 6, 1983, IN ALTA, WYOMING. ON STAGE WERE LEONA HILL BEARD, LEFT, DOUG BIRD, TRIXIE BEARD, AND ERVIN CHRISTENSEN. VOCAL HELP CAME FROM THEIR SEATED FRIENDS.

Much later she and her family asked people at KID if they had videos of the performance, but they didn’t. So that memory is in the same mental file as the many performances at Farm Bureau contests and banquets, countless dances, and even a performance at a whitefish-seining event on the Teton River.

Now, more than sixty years after that television appearance, it’s likely the only time one may hear Trixie singing is at a funeral, or maybe humming along to a CD or a song on the radio while volunteering at the Teton Valley Museum in Driggs.

“I hardly ever pick up a guitar anymore,” she said.

As for Dixie, she is widowed and living in Boise.

SUMMER 2016

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our neighbors

Growing Things

The Business of Bees Teton Valley one of the ‘greatest places on the face of the planet’ for making honey

BY MEL PARADIS

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magazine SUMMER 2016

T

eton Valley is abuzz with bees. You may have noticed large stacks of hives piled up in certain farm fields. Perhaps you purchased some local raw honey via Facebook or at one of the local farmers’ markets. Maybe you read Christina Shepherd McGuire’s article on backyard beekeeping in the spring edition of Teton Family Magazine.

Little wonder. Demand for local honey is at an all-time high and Teton Valley is a great place to raise bees. These are facts that have not escaped commercial beekeepers, both large and small.

A few years ago, Scott Hansen thought it would be fun to have a few bee hives on his family’s property near Darby Canyon. At the end of the first summer, he realized the twelve gallons of honey he harvested was way more than they needed. In order to recoup a small fraction of the startup costs (approximately $425 per hive), Scott’s wife took to a Facebook garage sale site and posted honey for sale. In less than twelve hours, all seventy-two twelve-ounce bottles were sold. “I had no idea there was that much desire for local honey,” said Scott. The following year, the Hansens upped their investment from three hives to seventeen, and came up with a name for their business: Bear Naked Honey Farm.

While honey is the initial push for Bear Naked, it is not the end game. Beekeepers have four ways of getting bees.

They can 1) purchase a package of bees that they “pour” into a hive; 2) buy a nucleus colony, which is a mini-hive with a queen and bees in all stages of development; 3) split an existing hive in two, leaving the queen in one, while the split raises a new queen; or 4) catch a swarm.

The problem with most of these options for Teton Valley beekeepers is the queens are often ones raised or overwintered in southern states. “I want to raise and sell honey bees and queens,” Scott said. “My goal is to raise ‘hardy bees for harder weather.’”

While they are a few years out from selling locally raised nucleus colonies, Bear Naked Honey Farm currently sells raw and unfiltered honey and may be adding lip balm and honeycomb to their offerings.

If seventeen colonies sounds like a lot, consider the fourteen thousand colonies Cox Honey Farms has across the state. In the summer, Teton Valley is home to approximately twelve hundred of them. Based in Shelley, Cox Honey has been bringing bees to Teton Valley

If seventeen colonies sounds like a lot, consider the fourteen thousand colonies Cox Honey Farms has across the state. for at least fifty years. “My grandfather set up many of these locations,” said Brent Cox, one of the company owners.

While Bear Naked Honey Farm’s bees spend their entire year in Teton Valley, Cox Honey’s bees travel quite a bit. All Cox bees spend the late fall and early part of winter in potato cellars.

Come January, the bees are loaded onto refrigerated trucks for the long journey to the San Joaquin Valley in California where they are used to pollinate crops, mainly almonds. “We found that reefer units set to forty degrees keep the bees in cold stasis,” said Adam French, Cox Honey’s chief financial officer. “We don’t want to stress out our bees.”

Why put the bees through interstate travel at all? Big money. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, pollination fees brought in more than $660 million in 2012, while honey revenue was less than half that. With two colonies needed per acre for more than one million acres of almond groves, that is a whole bunch of bees. After the pollinating season is over in March, the bees are treated for mites (see sidebar SUMMER 2016

magazine 31

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The Varroa mite has caused the destruction of many bee colonies since its introduction to the U.S. in the late 1980s. It is a parasite, originally from Russia, that sucks the blood of honey bees, leaving them deformed and unable to fly. Once the mites take hold of a colony, the bee population plummets and the colony dies. Mites spread when clean bees come into contact with infected bees.

Most beekeepers understand that the Varroa is here to stay, and thus must treat hives each year to enhance colony survival. Cox Honey Farms treats their hives after the almond harvest in California and again in the fall after the honey is collected. They use an acaricide (a pesticide used against the arachnid subclass Acari) called Apivar that paralyzes mites, causing them to starve. Bear Naked Honey Farm prefers the organic method of vaporizing oxalic acid to coat the hive, which causes

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mites to suffocate. Neither of the treatments has shown to have negative effects on bees or to leave residue in the honey.

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“Mitigating the Mite Problem”), placed back in refrigerated trucks, and delivered to fields in the Snake River Valley.

The bees are then brought up to Teton Valley at the end of April to feed off the abundant supply of dandelions.

“Interesting thing about Teton Basin,” said Brent, “it is one of only two places [Star Valley being the other] where we have the amount of dandelions needed to get our bees strong.”

“Once the hives are bubbling with bees,” added Adam, “we take the colony and split it to make two out of one.”

They do this to make up for colony losses. Finally, in July, the alfalfa and clover flowers begin blooming and honey extractor boxes, known as “supers,” are placed atop the colonies.

Cox Honey Farms, like most large commercial bee outfits, sells clover honey, with its light color and mild flavor. Cox begins harvesting honey supers in August and continues as late as October. With an average of twenty-five to thirty pounds of honey per colony, Teton Valley produces more than 25,000 pounds of honey for Cox each summer.

“Teton Basin is one of the greatest places on the face of the planet and one of the main places for making our honey,” said Brent. “It is one of the reasons our honey tastes so good.”

Next time you come across a honey bee in the valley, take a moment to consider this: If you buy your honey from one of the small local honey producers, or purchase a Cox product—their honey is available at Broulim’s in Driggs—that sweet nectar the bee is sucking up just might end up in your tea or dessert.

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our neighbors

Trail Growing Things Talk JASON POPILSKY AND ABBY BROUGHTON’S ADVENTURE RACING ACTIVITIES TAKE THEM TO WILD PLACES BOTH CLOSE TO HOME AND FAR FROM TETON VALLEY.

Big Adventure in (and above) the Basin

BY CORY HATCH

34

magazine SUMMER 2016

Teton Ogre organizers are ‘invested in the process’

I PHOTOS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: CHRIS RADCLIFFE (2), ALEXANDRE SOCCI/GREEN PIXEL, ABBY BROUGHTON, AMY HATCH, CHRIS RADCLIFFE

TOP: JASON POPILSKY (FRONT RIGHT) AND FELLOW TEAM TECNU MEMBERS (ALONG WITH CAIMAN IN THE FOREGROUND!) ON THE PACKRAFTING LEG OF THE 2015 ADVENTURE RACING WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS IN BRAZIL. BOTTOM: A CHECKPOINT MARKER LETS 2014 TETON OGRE ADVENTURE RACERS KNOW THEY’RE HEADING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION.

t’s July 2015 and I’m hike-abiking straight up a two track to the top of Garns, a 9,000foot mountain in the Big Hole Range. The steep swath of dirt is crisscrossed with two-footdeep ruts. It’s difficult to walk, much less ride a mountain bike.

Up the trail, my wife, Amy, is shouting helpful things like, “You’re doing great, honey!” and “You’ve got this!”

“Can we stop talking?” I ask her.

Morale is low. Garns is the second mountain in a row up which I’ve had to carry my bike. The first time we got lost—no blame there. But this second hike-a-bike has an architect, a villain for my animus: Jason Popilsky.

This is the second summer Jason and his partner/teammate Abby Broughton have hosted the Teton Ogre Adventure Race. Adventure racing typically involves some combination of running, mountain biking, and paddling. Race directors provide a map and coordinates, and racers must plot checkpoints and find their way to the finish line.

After two years, I’ve learned that the normally mild-mannered Jason has a perverse intelligence when it comes to designing race courses. This Garns hike bears his fingerprints. There’s no question it was his idea. Two or three hours from now, Jason will hand me a cold beer and we’ll be friends again— but right now, he’s kind of a jerk.

If you saw this unassuming pair on the street, you wouldn’t know they rank among the best adventure racers in the country. But since their first race just five years ago, the couple has amassed an impressive collection of first place trophies.

As part of Team Tecnu, Abby and Jason won the 2014 United States Adventure Racing Association (USARA) National Championship. Abby won again with the team in 2015, and Jason raced in the world championships with Tecnu in both 2014 and 2015. (It may tell you something about adventure racing that Tecnu is a specialized wash for poison

ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac.)

But the 2015 world championship race—a poorly planned, poorly executed suffer-fest in Brazil—was a turning point. Now, as the couple prepares for the 2016 Ogre, Abby and Jason say it’s time to make adventure racing fun again.

Abby’s resume as an elite athlete is impressive. She raced as a member of the U.S. National Rowing Team in 2006, 2009, 2010, and 2011. Jason, on the other hand, hadn’t raced competitively since his early teens, until the two started dating in 2010.

Abby found a flyer for a 12-hour adventure race in Missoula, Montana, and asked Jason if he wanted to try it. They won first place overall. “That is still one of my favorite days ever,” Abby says.

Despite their early success, adventure racing wasn’t always easy. That fall, they competed in their first 24-hour race in Bend, Oregon. “I ended up in tears,” Abby says. “We didn’t even finish. We got really, really cold and had to break out the space blankets. It was the classic situation of ‘That was awful, I’m never going to do it again,’ and then, a few months later, ‘When is the next one?’”

Part of the challenge was Abby’s inexperience on the bike. In 2014, Abby and Jason teamed up with Tecnu for a race in California. Two hours into the race, Abby flipped over the handlebars and broke her collar bone.

That’s when she decided to get coaching from pro mountain biker and Victor resident Amanda Carey. “Those kinds of people—very athletically talented people, but with no skills— they’re my favorite people to teach,” Amanda says of Abby.

Now, with some skills under her belt and her confidence restored, Abby is not only riding well, she’s winning mountain bike races. “It’s incredible because she never gives up,” Amanda says.

More recently, at the world championships in Brazil, Jason faced his own adventure racing demons. The SUMMER 2016

magazine 35

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magazine SUMMER 2016

And that’s not all. The course sent them through swamps infested with ticks, mosquitos, and a species of reptile similar to an alligator. Temperatures soared to 105 degrees.

“Everyone was constantly fighting heat exhaustion,” Jason says. “My whole system was down. Everything hurt, my muscles and organs, and I didn’t have any support. The whole flight home, I was worried about infections in my feet. I got off the plane and saw Abby and cried, I was so traumatized.”

PHOTOS: TOP, CHRIS RADCLIFFE; BOTTOM, ABBY BROUGHTON

“The whole flight home, I was worried about infections in my feet. I got off the plane and saw Abby and cried, I was so traumatized.”

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But rather than letting Brazil ruin his love for the sport, Jason says last year’s world championships motivated him to build a better Teton Ogre. “The race director really took a chance on that race, and it really failed for her,” he says. “I realized that, logistically, the planning has to be perfect. And there has to be an element of fun.”

That’s why Ogre racers keep coming back. Aaron Christensen and his team won first place honors in the 2014 and 2015 6.5-hour and 7-hour races. “It’s fun getting out and picking a course and getting to a point on the map,” he says.

Abby and Jason “come from a different mindset than most other extreme athletes,” Christensen continues.

“They’re more invested in the process.

They can break the big picture down to small chunks. I think that’s what makes them so good at what they do.”

The 2016 Teton Ogre Adventure Race takes place June 25 and 26 “somewhere in/near/around beautiful Teton Valley, Idaho.” The winning threeperson co-ed team in the 24-hour race gets a $400 scholarship and qualifies for the USARA National Championships in Georgia. Visit www.tetonogrear.com for more details.

This is a pristine, turnkey horse property with an adorable 3 bedroom, 2 bath home, 3.4 acres of beautifully fenced and maintained paddocks, a spacious barn and 360-degree mountain views.

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The opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed Against Women, U.S. Department of Justice.

The opinions, findings, conclusions, andin this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the view of the State of Idaho, the recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily Idaho State Police, or the U.S. Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women.

reflect the views of the Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women.

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Teton Valley Mountain Guides Ready to show you the way to the top When you look up at the Grand Teton in the early morning summer light, you’re ‘sharing a moment’ with hundreds of Teton Valley residents and visitors, who are regularly treated to this inspiring view. What you may not realize is that looking back from the summit on any given (fair weather) morning is a jubilant team of climbers and guides—celebrating their summit, snapping photos, taking in the view, snacking, and preparing for the long descent to the Exum hut and then the valley floor, some 7,000 feet below the top of the Grand.

Who are these guides who make it their profession to teach neophytes, and lead experience-chiseled climbers alike, in the ways of ascending the Teton peaks?

Do they have a dream job, or just one that’s lost some grandeur coming true? Let’s meet some Teton Valley mountain gurus who’ve made it their path to show others the way.

But first, a glimpse into the lifestyle of a guide. While some aspire to yearround guiding, others devote only their summers to the pursuit, taking up other endeavors in the fall, winter, and spring months. That’s when weather and conditions for climbing are much more challenging, keeping at bay the majority of potential climbing clients. Among winter “off-season” jobs, guides may choose to drive snow cats, patrol at ski resorts, teach skiing or avalanche courses, or even take up the pen. Teton Valley has become a winter roost for guides in search of safe haven with dependable snow, a typically stable snowpack, and an availability of quality work.

To get a better idea of what makes these guides tick, Teton Valley Magazine asked a few of the locals to carve a little time out from chasing powder last winter to share their histories and motivations.

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PHOTO: KEVIN STEELE / KEVSTEELE.COM

BY J. SCOTT M CGEE

“I’ve had guests on climbs that just did not properly prepare for the adventure but expected to get to the summit.”

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With a broad smile and a vise-like handshake, Christian Santelices leaves a first impression of confidence and competence. Ready to take the lighter side of everything other than safety, his easy demeanor and obvious clarity put climbers and fellow guides at ease. Christian got in to climbing during college thirty years ago, and he has logged twenty-seven guiding seasons to date.

“I was working for Patagonia in their retail store in Santa Barbara, California,” Christian says. “I initially climbed with friends from the shop, including photographer Kevin Steele and good friend Sean Ferrel. Once I transferred to UC Berkeley, I got a job at one of the early climbing gyms, CityROCK. There I had incredible mentors including cutting-edge Yosemite climbers and guides such as Peter Mayfield, Scott Cosgrove, Steve Schneider, and Hans Florine.

“What motivates me to guide is the satisfaction that my work changes people’s lives,” he adds. “My role as a guide is not just to take someone climbing but to invite them into another world and show them how to navigate it. In that process I’m able to make close connections with my guests and watch as they learn new skills that enhance their lives.”

Christian sums up some of his most difficult situations as “trying to manage expectations about someone’s capabilities. I’ve had guests on climbs that just did not properly prepare for the adventure but expected to get to the summit.

It’s sometimes a difficult lesson in understanding your limitations and the need to be honest about preparation. It’s a great metaphor for life.

“One of the most difficult things I find with guiding is finding time for my personal mountain pursuits.” Travel for work, he says, “leaves little time for me to put enough energy into my family and still have time to pursue my personal climbing and skiing.” About his goals, he is clear: “My number-one goal is to continue learning and improving my craft. I also really enjoy teaching guiding to the next generation and find great satisfaction doing that as a member of the National Instructor Team of the American Mountain Guides Association (AMGA).”

Christian says he aims to help clients approach goals with a mixture of challenging themselves, while being completely honest and humble about their abilities and experience.

PHOTO: KEVIN STEELE / KEVSTEELE.COM; OPPOSITE PAGE, GEORGIE STANLEY

Christian Santelices

“I try to figure out what clients want and need.”

Lynne Wolfe Lynne Wolfe started climbing in 1976, and first guided in 1988. She got into climbing when her parents sent her on a three-week trip to the mountains. “It pretty much blew my mind,” she says. “I wrote about my experience for my high school newspaper in an article I titled ‘On Belay!’”

After that, Lynne spent “a bunch of time” pursuing her newly discovered passions for climbing and the mountains.

Personal experience in climbing, mountaineering, and backcountry skiing is the foundation of guiding—having that base to draw on—and Lynne earned her stripes early, honing her craft on summer and winter courses for the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) and refining her mountain sense and avy savvy.

Now, Lynne puts others first when explaining what motivates her to climb. “I don’t climb that much for fun; it’s not what inspires me anymore. I have a bad knee, so when it comes to big routes it’s just not going to happen. Instead, I try to figure out what clients want and need.”

Beyond describing how she doesn’t climb or guide for herself anymore, Lynne says, “I want to make sure the clients have fun.” She also relates it to maturity: “Young guides can be much more ‘self-oriented’; older guides, it seems, are more externally client-centered in their motivations.”

As for tough tangles, Lynne espouses wisdom over valor.

“The hardest situations are when the mountain gives you one answer and the clients want something else … and hav-

ing to turn around” after weighing risk against reward.

“One time we got up to the Upper Saddle (five hundred feet shy of the Grand Teton’s summit) and waited there with a couple of other guides to see what the weather would do.

The storm intensified, and we made the call to turn back. It was on our way down, too late to reconsider, that the sky went bluebird. It was right after a string of lightning incidents, which had us all [acting] really conservative.” Even a seasoned guide can be wrong about the weather. With lightning, you can afford to be wrong—but only in one direction, down. She sums it up like this: “It’s about striking the balance between wisdom and desire.”

The guiding life isn’t necessarily easy, and it’s certainly not for everyone. “For me, I’ve always loved contract-based work,” Lynne says. “I like to do my work seasons with long stretches of something different in between.” She has distinguished herself as editor of The Avalanche Review, the periodical of the American Avalanche Association (AAA), and has taught courses for the AAA, Prescott College, Jackson Hole Mountain Guides, Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center, and other avalanche schools.

Listening to Lynne reflect on guiding, I realized it’s not something she just likes or chooses to pursue; it’s steeped into the marrow of her bones. Yet it’s as easy to imagine her laser pointing in the direction of an avalanche course, as leading a rock route or skinning up a ridge among the high peaks.

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“Working with new people and new challenges every day is a huge draw to the guiding profession.”

PHOTOS: AJ LINNELL; OPPOSITE PAGE, ALF RANDELL

Scott Palmer “My first day of climbing was at an indoor gym in Plymouth, New Hampshire,” says Scott Palmer. Early on he was taken under the wing of a guide named Jim Shimberg, who took him out on his first outdoor climbing trip. “We climbed at Rumney [New Hampshire]. Much later, I had the pleasure of running into Jim during my first season at Exum while he was ‘guest guiding.’ It was pretty cool to get to work alongside someone who first introduced me to climbing.

“I was a gym rat through most of high school,” Scott adds, “with the occasional trip to one of New Jersey’s fine top-roping crags.”

Following a brief hiatus for college and its priorities, “I really learned to climb outdoors here in Wydaho in the summer of 2007, placing gear at Badger Creek Boulders; [experiencing] my first trad [traditional] lead, a multi-pitch 5.7 in Teton Canyon]; and endless sport climbing on the limestone in Sinks Canyon [outside Lander, Wyoming].

“Prior to Exum, I worked fulltime for NOLS as a field instructor, beginning in 2008, working in the climbing, skiing, and mountaineering programs out of the Rocky Mountain Branch, Teton Valley Branch, and Southwest Branch.”

Racking up field days, Scott gained experience and bolstered his resume. “I started guiding for Exum in the summer of 2014. I have been lucky enough to guide both skiing and climbing the last two seasons.” Scott also guides for Driggsbased Yostmark Backcountry Tours in the winter months, leading ski tours on the west slope of the Tetons.

Scott shares Lynne Wolfe’s motivation of wishing to help others fulfill their mountain dreams. “I love being outside and sharing this amazing place with people from all over,” he says. “Working with new people and new challenges every day is a huge draw to the guiding profession.”

But challenge isn’t just for the clients.

“Sometimes people get in over their heads pretty quickly.

It is our job to see this happening before it gets out of con-

trol, but every once in a while something can sneak up on you. On the Upper Exum Ridge I had a guest who froze up and could not go up or down. The cloud ceiling was dropping and the air was getting heavy as we tried to get going.

For about five minutes—it felt like an eternity—the guest sat there on the ridge having a moment of personal crisis, and we could do very little about it. Eventually, we got the client to ‘come back’ and continue up so we could get down to the rappels and the Lower Saddle.

“There are so many variables in the mountains, but the human factor can be the most interesting/challenging one to deal with. Some days take a fair amount of patience and sensitivity.

“Guiding is a lifestyle and Teton Valley fits it perfectly,” Scott adds. “I love guiding because it allows me to support myself by doing things I feel very passionate about and share that passion with others. I love Teton Valley because of the great partners to go into the mountains with and the access to the mountains. Having world-class climbing and skiing in our backyards is a very important part of living in the Teton Valley, and worth any other ‘sacrifices’ we might have to make.”

And home provides respite. “After a hard trip on the Grand there is no better place to relax than the open space of Teton Valley. One of my favorite ways to recuperate after back-to-back days of guiding is drinking a beer on the Grand Teton Brewery lawn and eating grub from the food truck.

Music on Main is also a great way to chill after a hot summer day at Hidden Falls.”

As for what’s next, Scott seems content and on track to continue his professional development.

“I want to continue guiding in the Tetons for the foreseeable future,” he says. “I will continue to seek AMGA training and mentorship from other seasoned guides, and to guide new objectives in this amazing mountain range.”

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Local Rock There’s no need to mount an expedition to get your ‘verts’ in

BY TY MACK PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAMYE CHRISMAN

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The Tetons are a justifiably famous destination for mountaineering. Their jagged summits draw people from all over the world to test their skills at negotiating rock, snow, and ice. But while it has its rewards, mountaineering is mostly a pain in the neck. It takes a big chunk of time as well as lots of gear and logistics to reach the top of a major Teton peak.

As someone who has shivered in a down jacket on many a “summer” trip up the Grand, I assure you that the weather up there is generally crummy. Plus, it is dangerous (loose rock! lightning! vicious marmots!) and involves lots of uphill walking, which is hard work.

Luckily, the Tetons also have a wealth of much friendlier rock climbing options, with nearly a dozen venues for cragging and bouldering on three distinct types of rock. Cragging is day climbing on smaller cliffs using ropes and hardware for safety. Cragging can be further subdivided into “sport climbing” where permanent, pre-placed bolts are used for safety and convenience, and “traditional climbing” where the security comes from removable protection placed in natural weaknesses like cracks. Bouldering is climbing unroped on smaller rocks (car- to house-sized) with only a foam pad and spotter for safety.

You can think of cragging and bouldering as the better-looking, more-popular younger siblings of mountaineering. They offer enjoyable physical and mental challenges without the risk, commitment, exhaustion, and numb hands of mountaineering.

Teton Rock Gym Hands down, the Teton Rock Gym (TRG) is the best way for the inexperienced to break into the world of rock climbing. At the same time, the TRG serves as a high-powered training facility where a serious rock climber can build strength and skills, and extend their climbing season through our long Teton winters. The TRG is a nonprofit climbing facility, made possible by the generosity of the community, a ton of volunteer hours, and the vision and hard work of founder (and prolific Teton first ascensionist) Brady Johnston. Conveniently located in the Driggs City Center Building, the TRG is a full-service climbing gym, offering equipment rental, lessons, clinics, competitions, and even a youth climbing team.

Teton Canyon Teton Canyon is the premier destination for rock climbing in Teton Valley with the highest quality rock and the most routes, as previously explored paths up a cliff are called. Teton Canyon offers something for every climber, from small limestone boulders to cliffs of metamorphic rock nearly 300 feet in height. Just a few hundred yards past the trailhead at the head of Teton Canyon sits the Grand Wall, offering moderate multi-pitch traditional routes and challenging sport climbs. The Shady Wall, just across the beautiful stream corridor of Teton Creek (watch for wildlife!) from the campground, offers intriguing climbing and cool temperatures, even in the dog days of summer. And, for those willing to explore, Teton Canyon offers limitless bouldering on glacial erratics and jagged limestone blocks.

Darby Canyon Perhaps the best destination in Teton Valley for sport climbing, the streaked limestone cliffs of Darby Canyon are accessed from the south end of the Aspen Trail at the mouth of the canyon. The crag faces east, offering welcome afternoon shade and about two dozen different routes of moderate to intermediate difficulty. With a few overhanging exceptions, most Darby Canyon routes feature vertical climbing on small holds, requiring balance and footwork more than brute strength.

Badger Creek Boulders Way up at the north end of Teton Valley on a hillside above Badger Creek, this bouldering area offers stunning views of the Teton Range. While the sharp volcanic rock and steep overhangs can be tough on your fingers, the southerly aspect makes for good climbing conditions even on cold days.

Other Regional Rock If you want to travel a bit farther afield, and extend the length of your climbing season, then check out the Heise-area crags (South Park, Pointless Crag, Heise, and Paramount).

Climbing these fun crags can be combined with some fishing on the South Fork and/or a soak in Heise Hot Springs for a great day’s outing. Or, for something a little more adventurous, visit the incredible Rock Springs Buttress, located just south of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort at an elevation of almost 9,000 feet. This multi-pitch crag can be accessed by walking up from Teton Village or riding the big red Aerial Tram to the top of Rendezvous Mountain and then hiking down.

Additional Resources Much more information about the rock climbing in and around Teton Valley can be found in two guidebooks: Eastern Idaho Sweet Spots: Hiking, Biking, Skiing, Climbing, by Jerry Painter and Matt TeNgaio, and Rock Climbing Jackson Hole & Pinedale, Wyoming: The Authoritative Day Climber’s Guide to Western Wyoming, by Wesley Gooch. Several websites, including rockclimbing.com and mountainproject. com are also great sources of information about local climbing areas, including detailed descriptions of approaches and routes. Gear, beta (climber-slang for information), and the above-mentioned guidebooks can be found in Driggs at Yostmark Mountain Equipment and the Teton Rock Gym. SUMMER 2016

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FURA TSETEN SHERPA DODGES THE LOCAL TRAFFIC—A YAK TRAIN—WHILE WORKING A ROCK CLIMBING ROUTE ABOVE THE VILLAGE OF PHORTSE.

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Khumbu Climbing Center Guides training guides in faraway places

BY MOLLY LOOMIS PHOTOGRAPHY BY MOLLY LOOMIS AND ANDY TYSON

January, 2015 A grey elephant with curving tusks stands rooted to the jungle’s verdant floor. A lithe, golden monkey, atop the elephant, balances a snow-white rabbit between his head and the palm of his hand. A pheasant with fantastical curling feathers stretches, from the bunny’s back, for a tree bough above and its sweet, ripe fruit that’s just in reach.

It’s an odd grouping, but one that appears on the walls of tea houses and homes throughout Nepal’s Mount Everest region.

Sipping steaming milk laced with black tea, we listen as Lakpa Norbu Sherpa explains the sundry crew’s significance.

Like all teachings transferred orally over centuries, there are many versions. Lakpa’s iteration involves young, greedy monks failing to respect elders until their teacher, the Buddha, intervenes. A soap opera of a story follows involving an elephant, monkey, rabbit, and pheasant all trying to claim ownership of the same tree heavy with fruit, yet none can access the bounty on their own. But when each creature contributes its unique talent to the table and they work together, as a community, they are able to succeed.

The parallel is not lost on my husband, Andy, or on me.

We are in Nepal volunteering with the Khumbu Climbing Center [KCC], an initiative of the Alex Lowe Charitable Founda-

tion [ALCF]. In 1999, Lowe, along with David Bridges, perished in an avalanche on the Himalayan peak Shishapangma (elevation 8,013 meters, or 26,289 feet). Often quoted as saying, “The best climber is the one having the most fun,” Lowe somehow managed to have a damn good time while rising through the ranks of elite alpinism to a pinnacle as one of the world’s best alpine climbers.

Nepali mountain workers are the femurs, skull, and pelvis of in-country expeditions. To simply say “backbone” is not enough. Whether working as cook, porter, “climbing Sherpa,” or “icefall doctor” setting ropes and ladders through the infamous Khumbu Icefall or the formidable Lhotse Face, their role is integral to the success of any commercial expedition in Nepal, and most private expeditions as well. Yet, these men—women are expected to work in their family’s tea house during the climbing and trekking season—rarely receive the accolades, wages, training, equipment, or support of their Western counterparts. The discrepancy can, and often does, manifest in a significantly higher rate of accidents, injuries, and death than that seen among Western colleagues and climbers. The ALCF is working to change that paradigm through the annual KCC program by teaching Nepali workers mountain skills, ranging from basic climbing knowledge to advanced rescue techniques.

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FAR LEFT: ANDY TYSON ADDRESSES THE FINER POINTS OF ANCHOR BUILDING DURING THE KCC INSTRUCTOR WORKSHOP. LEFT: ANG SARKI SHERPA, MOTHER OF TETON VALLEY RESIDENT SANGE DORJE SHERPA, SERVES TEA TO MOLLY AND ANDY AT HER HOME IN KHUMJUNG.

P

ANG PASANG SHERPA USES NEWLY LEARNED TRICKS TO UNDO THE WORST OF ROPE TANGLES.

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ete Athans unhinges his lanky frame, nearly rising above the cloud of incense and juniper smoke filling the small temple. For the last hour a few of the KCC instructors who spent their childhoods in the local gompa (monastery) have rocked alongside the gompa’s abbot, chanting prayers for a safe climbing season as the abbot flicks chang (a local alcohol of fermented barley) with the tip of a peacock feather, sprinkling rice and ground barley while other KCC instructors ensure our tin mugs are never empty.

It is time to light the small yak butter candles cradled in brass cups on the alter. The honor of a blessing has fallen to Athans, KCC’s co-director (with Dr. Steve Mock) and a regular on the slopes of the region since the early eighties. Sixteen butter lamps wait to be lit, one for each of the Nepali workers killed in the massive avalanche that roared down Mount Everest’s slopes in 2014. Thirteen were KCC graduates, one of them an assistant instructor with the program. I won’t forget hearing the news—around midnight disjointed reports of a massive avalanche began cropping up on my news feed at home in Idaho. It was nightmarish. But for many of the men sitting beside me, including Andy, the avalanche wasn’t a distant tragedy shelved in the realm of nightmares. These butter lamps represented men whose bodies Andy, and so many of the others in the room, worked for hours to unearth from the debris.

Athans speaks to one of Buddhism’s fundamental tenants, that all is impermanent. He emphasizes that the best we can do is exactly that—our best with the short and unknown amount of time we each have left. Each instructor is then handed a candle and we, in turn, light the lamps. An impish little boy has wandered in and dances among us, making silly faces and tugging on the abbot’s ears, as we try focusing on our sober task. No one seems to mind—here, the sacred constantly mingles with the quotidian, like light existing with dark and solemnity holding hands with levity. I can’t help but wonder, or fear, that some day a candle will be lit on the alter for this little boy when he comes of age and starts working in the mountains.

FURA GYALJEN SHERPA AND FURA TEMA SHERPA TAKE A BREAK FROM PRACTICING TANDEM RAPPELLING.

T

he sixty-five students who have made their way to Phortse, a multi-day walk from the Lukla airstrip, gateway to the Khumbu, are divided into two groups. “Basic” students will learn knots, ice and rock climbing technique, anchor building, belaying, and rappelling, from a crew of talented Nepali instructors, many of whom grew up in the Khumbu region and are Sherpa. (Sherpa is an ethnic group, but the term is often mistakenly used to denote those hired to carry loads. “Porters,” those who carry loads, and local guides represent many of the region’s ethnicities.)

The smaller group of “Advanced” students are split into two groups—one for Andy and one for me. Danuru Sherpa, one of my “assistant instructors,” would never tell you that he has summited Everest sixteen times. Mingma Tenzing Sherpa, my other “assistant,” has summited “only” nine times, but has led the rope-fixing team up the dangerous Lhotse Face for several years running. Mingma’s father worked on Sir Edmond Hilary’s 1953 expedition, the first summit of Everest.

That these men are my “assistants” feels a farce. Danuru explains that the students always listen better to the Western instructors; “they think the foreigners know more than us.”

With anywhere from a half-hour to a two-hour walk to the practice crags, the days are packed as we work our way through the ambitious rescue curriculum that distinguishes the Basic students from the Advanced.

Unlike in prominent mountain ranges in more developed countries, there is no professional search-and-rescue team on Mount Everest, despite the high number of commercial expeditions. It’s a de facto system of relying on whomever is closest to the incident, with no formal skill standard.

This is where programs like KCC work to fill in the gaps.

Danuru says that before KCC it could take anywhere from two to three days to lower an injured or ill climber down the Lhotse Face, a 3,690-foot wall of glacial ice with an average slope of approximately 45 degrees, with multiple steps nearing vertical, and all starting at an altitude of approximately 22,400 feet. Now, using the rope skills learned through KCC, an efficient lower can be executed in just two to three hours.

This is significant not only for the patient being lowered, but also for rescuers, who are in a vulnerable and dangerous position exposed on the Lhotse Face. Knowing that many of my students will be heading to Everest in just a few months,

class takes on added meaning. How to quickly ascend out of a crevasse or rappel multiple rope lengths with a patient takes on a different level of meaning—these aren’t just cool hat tricks. These are skills that could save someone’s life.

To be sure, there are days when I’m not certain how much instruction gets lost in translation. Class comprises a static buzz of Sherpa, English, and Nepali, often translated to Hindi translated to Balti (the latter spoken by two young men from Pakistan’s Karakorum region, who work with Khurpa Care, a nonprofit dedicated to training and helping Pakistani highaltitude workers). But with repetition and under the watchful eyes of Mingma and Danuru, the concepts work their way in.

The day’s biggest challenge becomes less about learning the Munter-Mule Overhand knot and more about which teahouse we should order lunch from and whether to get shakpa or momos. These leisurely breaks when young girls, often one of the boys’ sisters or cousins, arrive with a basket of fresh chapatis and mugs of tea, become a highlight; talk shifts from my nagging reminders about safety zones to jokes and stories. These are not simply pious, tranquil, and ever-smiling young men, as so often romanticized in tales of the Himalaya. They may be those things, but they are other things as well—more than less like the men I know at home in Teton Valley, with egos, fears, worries, and mischievous senses of humor.

One moment, Ang Pasang Sherpa, who looks more like an accountant than an accomplished Everest guide, with his cropped hair and wire-rimmed glasses, tells a story of a German client who promised to pay for Ang Pasang’s daughter’s education if he got to Everest’s summit. The client ignored his own promise back at Base Camp despite a successful climb. The rest of the guys shake their heads; they’ve either heard stories or have had similar things happen to them. The next moment, Ang Pasang is rolling with laughter, telling a poop joke that involves Sir Edmond Hilary, Tenzing Norgay’s first experience with a flush toilet, and a ceiling fan. It gets the guys howling. It’s comforting to know that mountaineers the world over relish jokes about bodily functions.

Each evening, the students gather for a presentation on a variety of subjects—helicopter safety, Leave No Trace ethics, avalanche awareness, and so on. Robert Thomas, a geology professor at The University of Montana Western, has worked for several years developing KCC’s sound natural history curriculum. One

When the time comes to say goodbye, I fret like a mother hen over our three youngest students.

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of his evening talks centers on identifying mountain hazards like landslide and avalanche paths.

“If the gods get mad, then will they take out Phortse?” a student in his late thirties asks, referring to the Khumbu Valley farming village.

There’s an awkward silence as Thomas and the rest of the Western instructors absorb the question’s delicacy.

In spite of the Western appearance of so many of our Nepali friends, dressed in outdoor clothing like our own, fluent with Facebook, and accustomed to spending months at a time around Western clients, there are subtle differences easy to overlook. Many hold the fatalistic view that natural disasters, like landslides, floods, even the 2014 Everest avalanche, are the acts of angry gods and goddesses inhabiting the mountains.

Thomas tries to make a distinction between cultural beliefs and science.

“Well, if it doesn’t have to do with the gods, then why did we have a puja (prayer ceremony) today?” the student asks, referring to the hours spent earlier that morning beside a stack of climbing helmets, ropes, axes, and crampons bathing in juniper smoke, listening to the abbot chant, requesting the goddess Khumbila’s permission to climb on the cliffs surrounding her. The student has a point, and it’s debatable who is the teacher and who is being taught. I think of the parable’s four animals and the disparate strengths corralled by the four stone walls we gather inside of.

When the time comes to say goodbye, I fret like a mother hen over our three youngest students. They will someday fill the role that men like Danuru and Mingma Tenzing fill today.

If they make it. The dread over the Icefall’s future, with threats like climate change and increasing crowds, has been a nearly constant soundtrack to our course. Everest is dangerous and it is only getting more so. I fear that some day too soon the butter lamps will be lit for one or more of them.

BELOW: KHUMBU CLIMBING CENTER CO-DIRECTOR DR. STEVE MOCK LIGHTS A BUTTER LAMP IN HONOR OF THE 2014 KHUMBU ICEFALL AVALANCHE VICTIMS.

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Co-Authored By Teton Valley Magazine Editor Michael McCoy January 2016 On April 25, 2015, two and a half months after our time in the Khumbu, a severe earthquake triggered a massive avalanche on Everest. Eighteen people died. Structures throughout the Khumbu, including the gompa and the homes of Danuru, Mingma, and many of our students, were significantly damaged or destroyed. Come January, when KCC gathered again for the 2016 opening ceremony, thankfully there were no butter lamps for KCC victims of the earthquake or avalanche.

Instead, in the same spot where Andy Tyson stood a year prior and lit a lamp for victims of the 2014 Khumbu Icefall avalanche, a lamp was lit for him. Another was lit for Justin Griffin, like Andy, a KCC volunteer recently deceased (and whose sister, brother-inlaw, and nieces live in Teton Valley).

And a third, for Alex Lowe.

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Everyone Has a Story Teton Valley authors have plenty of words to share

PHOTO, OPPOSITE PAGE: COURTESY OF THOMAS L. WALSHPHOTOS: JAMYE CHRISMAN

BY ERIN JENSEN PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAMYE CHRISMAN

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SUMMER 2016

Books by the Profiled Authors

Tom Walsh

I

Thomas L. Walsh: Damnyankee: A WWII Story of

Tragedy and Survival off

the West of Ireland The Sons of Joseph McGuire

Earl Layser

f you love to read, you’ve probably wanted to be a writer at one time or another. That was my fondest dream as a teenager and probably still is, to tell the truth. Not everyone can be a full-time writer—unless you’re Stephen King or J.K. Rowling, it’s hard to make a living that way. But some turn to writing in their spare time and actually produce entire books, an accomplishment that always impresses me. Some might wait for retirement, while others keep their day jobs, taking years to write, rewrite, and polish until they have a finished product.

Our valley has its share of part-time writers. Familiar names to many of our readers, Tom Walsh and Earle Layser have been valley residents for years, though Tom recently left for the warmer clime of Utah.

“Everyone has a story,” said LeAnn Bednar during our interview. Barbara Boyle said, “Don’t wait to do something you love.” I’m inspired by Teton Valley’s writers, who haven’t let life prevent them from creating. Everyone has a story. What’s mine?

What’s yours?

Many of our local authors’ books can be found at Corner Drug in Driggs or online at Amazon.com.

LeAnn Bed

Earle F. Layser: Darkness Follows Light:

A Memoir of Love, Place, and Bereavement The Jackson Hole Settlement

Chronicles: The Lives and

Times of the First Settlers I Always Did Like Horses and

Women: Enoch Cal

Carrington’s Life Story Green Fire: Stories from the Wild

Kelly Coburn

Meredith Co Tom Wa Barbara Boyle Thomas L. Walsh Earl Lays Tom Davis Le

Thomas L. Walsh grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota, attending various Irish Catholic schools from kindergarten through college. After a stint with the U.S. Marine Corps and a thirty-five-year career with the 3M Company in Minnesota, he retired and moved with his wife to Driggs. Here, he returned to a love of writing first found in his university days. He started writing magazine articles and a column for the Idaho Falls Post Register, often irritating the conservative population of southeast Idaho with his left-leaning bent.

While on a visit to Ireland, Tom was inspired by the true story of an American military plane that crashed off the coast of neutral Ireland during World War II. He researched that incident, contacting and becoming friends with some who lived through it, and from that came his first book, Damnyankee: A WWII Story of Tragedy and Survival off the West of Ireland. His second book (published in 2014), The Sons of Joseph McGuire, is a novel that takes place in Belfast, Ireland, in the turbulent 1980s.

LeAnn Bednar: My Final Ride

Kelley Coburn: Watching Wolves The Trail to Table Mountain:

A Location Based Guide to 186

Plants Found in the

Teton/Yellowstone Region Meredith Allen Conner: Dead Vampires Don’t Date Bigfoots Don’t Do Mini Coopers Demons Don’t Always Tell the Truth Witches Don’t Back Down Tall, Dark and Furry (explicit) Fur, Fangs and All (explicit) The Wolven (explicit)

Kelly Co

Thomas L. Davis: The Keeper

Mere

Barbara Boyle: The Return of Thomas Gunn Timesnatched: Polestar Timesnatched: Southern Cross

Barbara Bo SUMMER 2016

Tom

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Earle F. Layser

Earle F. Layser of Alta is another local author who took up writing after early retirement to the valley. He and his late wife Pattie moved to Alta after Pattie sold her art gallery in Bozeman, Montana. Pattie, who had a background in literature and English, became a freelance writer and Earle followed suit. The couple wrote magazine and newspaper articles, traveling the world to report on conservation issues in Central America, Tanzania, Uganda, Madagascar, Zanzibar, Ecuador, Galápagos, Alaska, and the Alps, including regular contributions to this magazine on international travel.

Earle and Pattie also wrote about local conservation and history, which led to Earle’s first book, the delightfully titled I Always Did Like Horses and Women: Enoch Cal Carrington’s Life Story. His latest book is Darkness Follows Light: A Memoir of Love, Place, and Bereavement, about his relationship with Pattie, who died in 2013. In her memory, Earle endowed the Pattie Layser Writer-inResidence Program at the Murie Center in Grand Teton National Park.

LeAnn Bednar

Also a resident of Alta, LeAnn Bednar was a teller of great bedtime stories starring her six children. She started to write some of them down and also started an American Civil War novel, writing while the kids were at school and at night after they went to bed. Her first completed project took seven years and was a labor of love about her father, well-known Alta resident Chuck Christensen. About a year after his death in 2005, she started to write My Final Ride, the story of her dad’s journey on mules and horses on the Great Western Trail, which runs from Mexico to Canada. LeAnn effectively captures her dad’s voice in this retelling of his trip, which he started just as he’d finished chemotherapy treatments for the cancer that would eventually take his life. The book is written as a trail journal from her dad’s perspective, but the writing is LeAnn’s: She used her dad’s cryptic trail journal entries as well as newspaper articles, TV interviews, and interviews with people who went along on parts of the trail with him.

LeAnn has recently started working on a second book about her dad and the surprising story of how he revived whaling in a small Eskimo village in Alaska.

Kelley Coburn

Kelley Coburn, a pharmacist at Teton Valley Hospital, is from one of the old Teton Valley families. They started as sheepherders; later, Kelley’s dad, who likewise was a pharmacist, owned Corner Drug in Driggs. Kelley’s first book was a product of his love and knowledge of the outdoors. Inspired by a statement he read from a botanist that winter is the most dynamic time of year for plants, he decided to find out for himself and hiked up Table Rock every month for a year. He spent five years writing and illustrating The Trail to Table Mountain: A Location Based Guide to 186 Plants Found in the Teton/Yellowstone Region. It was a bestseller at Dark Horse Books, the popular Driggs bookstore that is no longer, in the summer of 2008, when it came out.

Kelley says he never thought he’d write a novel, but one day he was coming down the Madison River after watching wolves, and the thought crossed his mind, “What if wolves killed someone in Wyoming? How would people react?” It took him another five years to write his novel, Watching Wolves, a suspenseful story that incorporates the real-life controversy over wolf reintroduction in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem.

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Meredith Conner

Meredith Conner grew up and went to college in Minnesota, studied in China, and then lived in the Netherlands for a while before moving to Teton Valley. Before marriage and children, she was a group coordinator at Grand Targhee Resort and worked at a bank in Jackson. She also drove a dogsled in Dubois, Wyoming. She became a stay-at-home mom after her two daughters were born.

An avid reader of romance novels, it didn’t occur to Meredith to try writing them until she heard her husband say to a friend, “I don’t know why Meredith doesn’t write those books she reads.” A light went on. At home in Bates with two toddlers, she’d been feeling restless and wanted to do something for herself, something that didn’t involve potty training and naptime. She started writing, at first without telling anyone. She joined the Boise chapter of Romance Writers of America, and entered contests and sometimes won.

Meredith now has seven books available on Amazon. In spite of what the cartoony covers might suggest, her books are racy paranormal romances—very racy!

She says her daughters will be allowed to read them when they’re forty years old (they’re ten and twelve now), and Meredith’s father is not allowed to read them ever. She loves having something that is hers and enjoys the self-publishing aspect of it.

Tom Davis

Tom Davis, Teton County’s Building Official, worked in the shipyards of San Diego, as a logger on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in Oregon, and for many years as a building contractor. Inspired by his mother, an avid reader, and by excellent teachers at his central Illinois high school, Tom began reading classics as a teenager, then novels, and later non-fiction, including books about mountaineering, Arctic exploration, and history.

Tom says he thinks he always secretly wanted to be a writer, and eventually he gave it a try, writing in any spare moment he could find. His book, The Keeper, finished in 2011, is a technically accurate story about a boy, his dog, and catching a big steelhead trout. It’s written for younger readers but appeals to a general audience with its vivid, evocative prose.

Barbara Boyle

As an Air Force family, Barbara Boyle, her husband Nolan, and their eight children lived all the over the world, including Texas, Colorado, Virginia, Japan, Germany, and the Netherlands. In 1996, Nolan retired from the Air Force and the family moved to Teton Valley, which was returning home for Nolan.

Barbara grew up in Boise.

Barbara was a stay-at-home mom and enjoyed taking care of the family and volunteering in various positions in her church, but she had also always enjoyed writing. In her younger years, she worked as a detective’s secretary for campus security at BYU in Provo, Utah, sometimes going on stakeouts with the boss. She took an English class and wrote in a journal in essay form about her experiences. After moving to Teton Valley, when her younger children were in middle school, she returned to writing.

Barbara’s first book, The Return of Thomas Gunn, was inspired by a true story from her own family history. An ancestor who had joined the Mormon church went back to England to recover property and died on the voyage home.

Nobody knows what happened to him or the money he presumably recovered.

Her book is a speculative treatment of that family legend. She has also written the first two books in a young adult time-travel trilogy called Timesnatched: Pole Star and Southern Cross.

SUMMER 2016

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Out Below

Gone Fission Science fiction became fact at INL’s EBR-I

STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY JEANNETTE BONER

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Where we were headed, EBR-I, is the historic stage for the study and development of U.S. nuclear energy production—and, let’s be honest, probably part of the inspiration for half of the horror films produced in the 1950s.

We pulled into the parking lot of EBRI and, sure enough, it looked to me like it could pass as the set for an episode of The Twilight Zone. The enormous heat transfer reactors sitting just off of the parking lot were enough to make me wonder: “What the … Would I emerge a star of my own imaginary horror film, or a one-woman case study after growing a strange beard and third eye?”

To my surprise, quite a few cars and three RVs draped in kayaks and mountain bikes sat in the parking lot next to the unassuming yellow brick building, which appeared to be holding steady against the harsh desert climate. Most fascinating to me was learning that the interns—who spend their summers touring and guiding thousands of visitors from around the world through EBR-I—are actually positioned outside of the building to greet people in cars and vans as they pull up.

“Why?” I asked.

TOP: DON MILEY, THE EBR-I MUSEUM DIRECTOR, ENCOURAGES VISITORS TO TOUCH AND TURN ALL THE KNOBS AND DIALS AT THE FACILITY. BOTTOM: IT WAS ONE SMALL STEP FOR LIGHT BULBS, ONE GIANT LEAP FOR NUCLEAR ENERGY, WHEN SCIENTISTS FIRST LIT THE DARK REACTOR USING PLUTONIUM IN 1951.

More than a quarter of a million visitors from every state and dozens of foreign countries have come through EBR-I’s door since it opened for summer tours in 1975. At the

Nuclear Knowledge

“Y

ou guys building bombs out here?” I joked, as my tour guide regaled the extensive history of atomic energy and Idaho’s role on the nuclear global stage. I received a pretty serious “No,” before we returned to talking about the Idaho National Laboratory, or INL, one of three facilities of its kind in the U.S. run by the Department of Energy. This was important business for these scientists, and so, like a neophyte climber following an Exum guide up the Grand Teton, I kept my gaze steady on the horizon and checked the battery life on my phone— you know, just in case of an emergency.

Backing up, I have to admit that visiting a dormant nuclear reactor in the middle of Idaho’s Arco Desert didn’t rank high on my list of “must do’s.” Or even low on it.

But there I was, heading into the great unknown like a split atom screaming west past Arco (the first city in the country to be lit by atomic power) and through ancient lava flows swelling up around us as we dipped and turned over the Snake River Plain toward Idaho’s hidden secrets of nuclear fission.

The day’s excitement began bubbling up in the van. “It’s like going to Mecca,” said Don Miley, director of the Experimental Breeder Reactor No. 1 (EBR-I) Atomic Museum. Don oversees the guided-tours program for INL. I didn’t know exactly what he meant, but his obvious passion for the journey was contagious as we drove deeper into this remote part of the world.

And there it was, like a modern-day mirage of technology, rising out of the sagebrush and above the seemingly endless ribbon of road wrapping past thousands of years of history and prehistory: Native Americans, early trappers, pioneers, Mormon settlers, and now the INL and its nearly 10,000 visitors every summer.

INL straddles five Idaho counties in the heart of the Snake River Plain.

very least, it’s an incredible pit stop on the way to or from Craters of the Moon National Monument that explores Idaho’s historic contributions going well beyond potatoes and pristine wilderness. Public tours of the facility begin Memorial Day weekend. Located on the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory off U.S. Highway 20, the museum is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week through the Labor Day weekend.

Visitors can either tour the facility on their own or take a guided tour. Admission is free.

Over in the Office Annex there’s also an exhibit shining the spotlight on the achievements of EBR-II, the successor of EBR-I that operated from 1964 until 1994. To get a more complete idea of what all there is to see on a visit—or in lieu of a visit—go to inl.gov/

ebr and download the EBR-I Atomic Museum self-guided tour brochure. It highlights the fifteen points of interest/information included on a guided tour of the facility.

Because—and this is both very cool and so unbelievable all at once—so many people, upon seeing EBR-I, don’t want to enter the retired nuclear facility. Oh my God—I was going to grow a third eye after my tour! Was the place SUMMER 2016

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full of mad scientists, mummified and haunting the concrete halls? Would the Incredible Shrinking Woman greet me at the concession stand? (Please say yes.)

Instead, it was Jennifer Hernandez, an Idaho State University anthropology student, who was working as an intern at EBR-I. She shook my hand as we started toward the facility and, with a warm smile and just two bright eyes, said, “Visitors leave here with less fear and more understanding of nuclear energy.”

Jennifer was clearly bummed that she had “lost” a car full of live ones to nuclear trepidation just as I had pulled in—not the best first impression a journalist could receive, but we both soldiered on. “We’re usually successful in convincing people to get out of their cars and take the tour,” she continued.

“It’s so important to be able to share the scope of what we do at INL and learn from history. That’s what I love about museums—we can touch history and not just read about it.”

And, historically speaking, this was the birthplace of modern nuclear energy technology. EBR-I, completed in 1951, produced the world’s first usable quantity of electricity from nuclear power on December 20 of that year. As I walked through the front doors I couldn’t help but think of the men, and the handful of women, who had duked it out here in the middle of southeast Idaho, a spot lost somewhere in the desert between the Tetons and, yes, the Lost River Range, pioneering an unknown science that would lead to incredible discovery, modern-day triumphs, and, of course, all of the more troublesome history that was a byproduct of their discovery.

Operational until late in 1963, EBRI was decommissioned in 1964. It was a pretty big day when INL was dedicated as a Registered National Historic Landmark

by President Lyndon Johnson and Glenn Seaborg, then-chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, on August 25, 1966.

The tour itself was unlike any museum tour I’ve ever taken, a hands-on

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showcasing of actual pieces of equipment that once produced nuclear energy. It’s stripped of anything polished or glamorous (or radioactive), and one cannot help but be impressed by the importance of what happened here more than six decades ago—while contemplating the service and dedication it took from pioneering scientists to squeeze energy from the unseen.

There is a reason why EBR-I is included in John Graham-Cumming’s book The Geek Atlas: 128 Places Where Science and Technology Come Alive.

We pulled into the parking lot of EBR-I and, sure enough, it looked to me like it could pass as the set for an episode of The Twilight Zone.

The tour lasted about forty-five minutes and took me through three levels of the building, each staircase winding me tighter around EBR-I’s past and its place in the scientific world. I saw the first light bulb ever to be lit by plutonium and the Three Mile Island Nuclear Reactor (near and dear to this Pittsburgh girl’s heart—it’s the reactor that melted down just after I was born and was part of every Pennsylvania history lesson I received until high school graduation). I toured the reactor control room and was not discouraged from turning all the dials and spinning the knobs on the control panels. And there were more hands-on experiences, such as navigating remote-handling devices that were once used to move radioactive material, and now seem more like antique video games.

And did you know that the entire EBR-I facility is run on nuclear power?— of course!

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Field Notes

A Neophyte Goes to Hunting Camp

You can take the city out of the girl, after all

STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY KATE HULL

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Sprawled belly down in a field, earplugs firmly smashed in place and safety glasses in position, I took a deep breath, steadied my rifle, placed my finger on the trigger, took aim … and fired. I missed.

By quite a bit. And kept missing.

This was one of the first times I had ever shot a firearm. City life never felt farther away.

How did an Austin expat, former vegetarian, and hunting tenderfoot end up in St. Anthony, trying her luck with both archery gear and firearms? My editor’s sense of humor could be one simple answer, but I’m crediting it to a desire to expand my Idahoan horizons.

lations. Ten women ranging in age from twelve to the mid-sixties filled the seats.

Some were mother-daughter or grandmother-granddaughter pairs; a handful were solo newcomers like myself.

In her mid-twenties and a seasoned hunter education instructor, Lauren was approachable and made me feel like this activity foreign to me is one I could explore, eventually. She answered every question I came up with, no matter how rudimentary it may have sounded to her.

We delved into the basics of hunter education: the parts of a rifle and bow, local animals and their identifying

Soon, the bow was starting to feel as it should, like an extension of my arm.

Last August, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game hosted its inaugural women’s hunting clinic for eastern Idaho women of all ages. It was taught

by Lauren Lane, a senior conservation officer in St Anthony. The clinic gave women the opportunity to become certified in hunter education, and receive hands-on instruction with a group of their peers in an unintimidating environment.

As a female conservation officer, a first for Region 6, or the Upper Snake Region, Lauren hopes to continue offering opportunities for women interested in hunting. Since 2013, the number of female hunters in the United States has increased to 15 percent of the nearly 14 million hunters, up from 9 percent in 2006. Although the numbers are not drastic, the steady climb speaks to the ongoing efforts being made to reach this under-tapped population.

“It is a result of the interest increasing, and the understanding that the interest is increasing,” Lauren said.

The day began with classroom work.

Lauren went over hunter’s safety, responsibility, conservation, and rules and regu-

traits, sustainability efforts, field dressing, proper tagging, and much more.

The ethics that conscientious hunters and conservation officers—also known as game wardens—strive for struck me the most. “Hunting is part of a world that includes conservation,” Lauren said. “Hunters are our eyes. We depend on them to call in poaching incidents and violations. That’s half our calls, if not more.”

Conservation officers also rely on hunters to supply valuable information at game checkpoints, where animals are examined and documented for sex, size, age, possible diseases, and more. “It gives us a vast amount of information we wouldn’t have without hunters,” said Lauren, who oversees a roughly 1,600-square-mile—or more than a million-acre—expanse of diverse landscapes, ranging from high elevation sagebrush deserts and sand dunes to steep mountain peaks, dense pine forests, and rivers and streams.

After the class and exam, which we all passed with flying colors, we headed outside for the field-day portion of the clinic, which included gun

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handling, archery with life-size animal decoys, and shooting on a range with far-off targets.

I felt sure my novice’s nerves were apparent. The other attendees I watched seemed to pull back the bow or aim the rifle with such confidence and know-how; I was able to learn as much by observing these other women as I did from the instructor.

My time at the shooting range was a blur. At the archery field, however, I felt more comfortable. Lauren helped me decipher if I was right- or left-eye dominant, and how to properly hold the bow while pulling back the bowstring and arrow.

“The most important thing is to understand your bow, your accuracy, and what ranges you can shoot at,” Lauren said. “Like understanding what twenty yards versus forty yards looks like in the field. That makes a huge difference with a bow, versus a rifle.”

Soon, the bow was starting to feel as it should, like an extension of my arm. In stark contrast to the rifle, I felt an organic connection with the bow.

I appreciated the ability to see all of its parts in plain sight and understand their functions. The rifle had felt foreign and more complicated; its mechanical nature added a layer of uncertainty I couldn’t shake.

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I took aim and watched the arrow soar, hitting a white-tailed deer decoy in its midsection, striking what would be the lung area and allowing for a quick kill. Would this accuracy hold true out in the field on an actual hunt? I don’t know, but I began feeling as if I’d like to give it a try. The idea of stealthily walking through the woods and getting as close to an animal as possible sounded challenging and appealing. If I were fortunate enough to come face to face with an animal, and successfully make a kill, I sensed the end result would be a deeper association with nature and my food.

“You have to learn how to be quiet, learn the animal’s behavior, and learn about the wind and the weather,” Lauren said. “It is challenging, but that makes it very fun.”

In the end, it was a rewarding and exciting experience to begin feeling a connection to the art of hunting. I left with an open invitation from Lauren to explore archery even more with her—a kindness that made me feel welcome, the first step into a community I never thought I’d join.

Hopefully, this fall, after a few more days of practice, I can test my newfound archery skills on a hunt. And even if I have no luck bagging a deer, I know I’ll enjoy the quiet time amidst one of our beautiful Idaho landscapes.

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Local Flavors

Seoul Food Flavors fresh from Korea

BY LUKAS BOONE PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAMYE CHRISMAN 64

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U

sually the floor is not the first thing I notice when setting foot in a new restaurant. But the floor— along with the amazing aromas wafting my way— was indeed what grabbed my attention upon entering Seoul Restaurant north of Driggs. It’s covered in shiny wood planks in a variety of shades and grains. Here and there brass plates attached to the boards are etched with words like “Rustic White Oak/Natural Finish.”

“Odd,” I said to my lunch companion.

“This space was originally built out as a home design business,” she explained. “These were flooring samples.”

“Oh.” It’s a bright, colorful space with a high ceiling, big windows, and about a half dozen booths and an equal number of tables. The background twang emanating from 102.1 FM “River Country” seemed a bit incongruous, but this was Idaho and not Korea. The food could’ve fooled me, however.

We started with the Seafood Pancake, a tasty mix of grated potatoes and onion embedded with shrimp, squid, and scallops. We followed that up with a Bento Box each, mine Teriyaki Chicken and Teriyaki Beef for Nela. A cup of miso soup preceded a large platter overflowing with house salad, tempura vegetables, pot stickers, white rice, and the thinly sliced chicken or beef (or salmon or tofu). The Bento Box goes for $10.95 ($13.00 at dinnertime) and makes for a very large lunch. Splitting one might be advisable, unless you’re really hungry.

And be forewarned! If you go there for dinner (4:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.), the already bountiful entrées come with between five and seven Ban-Chan, or Korean side dishes of marinated vegetables.

Seoul also offers a huge selection of sushi. Happy Hour runs from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. every day, with specials on certain beers, wines, sushi rolls, and more. seoulrestaurantdriggs.com

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dining guide

Agave

310 North Main Street Driggs, ID 83422 208-354-2003 Open Daily 11am–10pm

From the owners of El Abuelito in Jackson comes Agave, Teton Valley’s very own family Mexican restaurant! Serving fajitas, burritos, and all of your Mexican favorites cooked to perfection seven days a week, with lunch specials from 11am to 3pm daily. Bienvenidos amigos, mi casa es su casa!

Barrels & Bins

36 South Main Street Driggs, ID 83422 208-354-2307 Open Daily 9am–7pm barrelsandbins.market Teton Valley’s source for all-natural and organic products including local and organic produce, meats, cheeses, and bulk food; 460 Bread baked fresh daily; beer and wine; nutritional supplements; health and beauty products; all natural pet foods; and much more! Juice & Smoothie Bar is open 9am to 2pm daily. Check in for sandwiches, salads, coffee, soup, as well as other various grab-and-go takeout options. [p. 10]

Broulim’s Food and Pharmacy 240 South Main Street Driggs, ID 83422 208-354-2350 Open Mon–Sat 7am–11pm broulims.com/driggs

Order sandwiches to go made from your choice of Columbus meats and cheeses and breakfast sandwiches and paninis made fresh daily.

There’s a full menu at the Pack Saddle Grill, with burgers and sandwiches, as well as hot baked or rotisserie chicken, take-and-bake pizza, and other meals to go. Check out our display of hand-cut specialty cheeses! Freshly prepared salads, our own Sushi Bar, and hot Asian food. Daily specials of smoked meats available. Inquire at the Deli for catering services.

Corner Drug

10 South Main Street Driggs, ID 83422 208-354-2334 Open Mon–Sat 9am–6:30pm driggspharmacy.com Located at the stoplight in historic downtown Driggs, the familyowned and -operated Corner Drug has been a local favorite for satisfying that ice cream craving for more than a hundred years. Try a fresh lime freeze or a huckleberry milkshake. Corner Drug also has your weekend essentials and a full-service pharmacy. Hunting and fishing licenses and tackle available. [p. 65]

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Dining In Catering, Inc.

Bill Boney, Owner & Executive Chef 208-787-2667, toll-free 800-787-9178 diningincateringinc.com

Dining In Catering, Inc. is the region’s most experienced outdoor event catering company, receiving rave reviews for great food and service.

Owner and executive chef Bill Boney and his staff have catered the biggest events, weddings, and corporate retreats to take place in Jackson Hole and Teton Valley. Dining In Catering also offers a banquet location in Teton Valley—Wildwood Room, the gathering place for Teton Valley’s best events since 2003! [p. 51]

Forage Bistro & Lounge

285 Little Avenue, Suite A Driggs, ID 83422 208-354-2858 Open Daily Mon–Fri 11am–9pm, Sat and Sun 10am–9pm forageandlounge.com Forage Bistro & Lounge, specializing in seasonal regional cuisine with an emphasis on local ingredients, offers creative, chef-inspired lunch, brunch, and dinner daily. Enjoy half-priced bottles of wine every Wednesday, as well as Happy Hour food and drink specials daily from 3pm to 6pm. Americana cuisine like the Buffalo Ribeye Burgers, Lamb Enchiladas, House-made Desserts, and more, all served from our scratch kitchen. Visit our website for seasonal menu selections. Open kitchen with nothing to hide offers diners a unique experience in Teton Valley.

Grand Targhee Resort

Alta, WY 83414 800-TARGHEE (827-4433) grandtarghee.com

Mountainside dining with a menu designed around fresh local ingredients can be found at The Branding Iron Grill. Located at the base of Grand Targhee Resort, it’s the perfect stop after taking in the incredible views of the Tetons. Unwind at the Trap Bar and Grill after a day of activities in the high mountain air. Enjoy a pint of local beer and a plate of famous Wydaho Nachos while relaxing after your day’s adventures. You’ll always enjoy great food, great drinks, and great times! See you at the ’ghee. [BC]

Linn Canyon Ranch

1300 East 6000 South Victor, ID 83455 208-787-LINN (5466) linncanyonranch.com

Whether you are staying at Linn Canyon Ranch or just want to join us for dinner, the Sunset Dinner Ride is not to be missed! Friendly mountain horses will be waiting to take you for a leisurely guided ride through the foothills of the Tetons, winding through aspen groves and fields of wildflowers. After your ride, members of the Linn family will welcome you back to an elegant western evening at our historic lodge. Appetizers and music on the porch precede a gourmet dinner, after which we’ll gather around the bonfire to roast marshmallows and stargaze. [p. 10]

McDonald’s®

1110 West Broadway @ Hwy 22 Jackson, WY 83001 307-733-7444 Open Daily 5am–12am or later mcwyoming.com/6435 Fast, Affordable, and On Your Way! Whether you’re driving over the pass on your way to Grand Teton National Park or commuting to your job on the “other side,” make McDonald’s® a part of your day. We’re serving your breakfast favorites like the classic Egg McMuffin®, Egg White Delight McMuffin®, and McCafe™ beverages featuring Lattes, Mochas, and Frappes. Premium Salads, Real Fruit Smoothies, and Fruit and Maple Oatmeal are delicious choices to support your healthy, active lifestyle. Now serving All Day Breakfast. [p. 70]

Pendl’s Bakery & Café

40 Depot Street Driggs, ID 83422 (1 block northwest of the stoplight) 208-354-5623 Closed Mondays pendlspastries.com Looking for a Latte and fresh Apple Strudel? Find them at Pendl’s, where Kitzbuehel Konditor Fred Pendl has passed his baking traditions on to daughter Martha. From Nussknackers to Florentiners, Old World Austrian pastries and confections continue. Delectable Strudels and fruit-filled Danish pastries baked in-house daily, with homemade muffins, quiches, and cranberry granola rounding out your morning.

Relax in our beautiful backyard garden, savor a freshly roasted coffee or hand-crafted espresso drink, and start your day right at Pendl’s!

Seoul Restaurant

528 Valley Center Drive, Suite #4 Driggs, ID 83422 208-354-1234 Open every day except Wednesday, 11am–10pm seoulrestaurantdriggs.com Come in and try Seoul Restaurant, where authentic Korean food will surely fulfill your appetite. We serve hot pot soups such as Kimchi Jjigae, and Soon Do Boo along with dumpling soup and Jombong soup. Not in the mood for soup? We also have hearty meat entrees such as Galbi, Bulgogi, Dolsot Bibimbap, Sushi, and much more!

Located in north Driggs, Seoul Restaurant will definitely satisfy your appetite on summer days. We also offer takeout. [p. 63]

Tatanka Tavern

18 North Main, 3rd Floor of the Colter Building, Suite 315 Driggs, ID 83422 (208) 980-7320 Open Daily 12pm–12am tatankatavern.com

Tatanka Tavern offers wood-fired artisan pizza, salads, and the finest craft beers and wines. Our fire-kissed crust is the difference of artisan pizza making. Part lounge and part restaurant, here you can soak up the mountain air from our heated patio, bring in the family for a night out, or grab a seat at the bar and watch the game. Enjoy local favorites like Fungus Amongus and Piggy Smalls for lunch or dinner daily. Don’t miss trivia nights every Tuesday, or showcase your talent on Wednesdays during Karaoke night. [p. 59]

Teton Thai

18 North Main Street Driggs, ID 83422 208-787-THAI (8424) Lunch Mon–Fri 11:30am–2:30pm; Dinner every day 5:30–9:30pm tetonthai.com/driggs Voted “Best Restaurant, Teton Valley” by locals, Teton Thai offers something for everyone. Enjoy a variety of exotic dishes, from Crispy Duck Pad Gar Pow to Muslim-style Masaman Curry, all made from our family’s recipes first created in Bangkok. Sit at the kitchen counter and watch our chefs prepare your dish while you explore our eclectic beer and wine list. Dine in or take out. Try our other restaurant, Teton Tiger, located in downtown Jackson, Wyoming.

The Brakeman American Grill

27 North Main Street Victor, ID 83455 208-787-2020 Open Sun–Thurs 11:30am– 3:30pm and 5pm–9pm, Fri–Sat 11:30am–3:30pm and 5pm–10pm Freshly ground chuck is where The Brakeman Burger begins. We grind select cuts of beef daily here at The Brakeman and blend it with very special spices. We serve our burgers up on a terrific bun with the freshest lettuce, tomato, and red onion, and pair it with our fresh-cut fries.

Our customers insist we’ve got the best burger they’ve ever tasted!

We’re all about fresh at The Brakeman American Grill: crisp, tasty, and innovative salads, along with veggie burgers and other sandwiches.

Great atmosphere, terrific music. Dine in or take out.

The Royal Wolf

63 Depot Street Driggs, ID 83422 208-354-8365 Open seven days a week; serving lunch and dinner 11am–late theroyalwolf.com Since 1997, locals and visitors alike have enjoyed discovering this off-Main Street establishment offering a diverse menu of sandwiches, burgers, salads, appetizers, and entrées served in a casual, smoke-free, pub-style environment. Complementing our menu is a full bar serving all of your favorite beverages, including cocktails, wine, and a selection of regional microbrews on draft. Enjoy outdoor dining on our spacious deck during the summer. Daily food and beer specials, Wi-Fi, and billiards. Stop by to meet old friends and make new ones. Snow sagas and fish tales told nightly.

The Storehouse at Teton Springs Lodge & Spa 10 Warm Creek Lane Victor, ID 83455 208-787-7888 tetonspringslodge.com

Located at the Teton Springs Lodge, the Natural Retreats Storehouse is a bistro-style café offering local products and Starbucks Coffee in a relaxed and intimate setting. Stop by for breakfast to sample some of our fresh home-baked goods and then come back in the evening for a specialty cocktail when the café transforms into a wine bar. The Storehouse is also the perfect spot to host a private event or function, with the gorgeous backdrop of the majestic Tetons.

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dining guide

Three Peaks Dinner Table

15 South Main Street Driggs, ID 83422 208-354-9463 Open Tues–Sun 9am–10pm Daily happy hours 4pm–6pm threepeaksdinnertable.com Enjoy custom-cut steaks, fresh fish, and chops at this great downtown Driggs restaurant close to the stoplight. Boutique wine selection available for takeout or on-site enjoyment. Unique western-influenced menu with game meats, along with gluten-free and vegetarian options. Private in-home or on-site catering and cooking classes available. We feature locally made artwork in our unique, circa 1940s building. Open Tues–Sun 9am–10pm from Memorial Day through Labor Day and 10am–10pm the rest of the year. Visit our website or call for reservations.

Victor Emporium

45 North Main Street Victor, ID 83455 208-787-2221 Open seven days a week

Over one million served! For more than sixty-five years the Victor Emporium Old Fashioned Soda Fountain has served milk shakes, including the World Famous Huckleberry Shake. Gourmet coffee and espresso served daily. The Emporium is also a great place to pick up those unusual gifts. Where the locals meet before and after fishing! [p. 33]

Victor Valley Market 5 South Main Street Victor, ID 83455 208-787-2230 Open Daily 7am–9pm

Victor Valley Market is your local grocer and the place to get fresh seafood and choice meats in Teton Valley. Offering a unique selection of groceries, from organic and specialty items to your everyday needs, including a full selection of wine and beer. Our gourmet deli counter offers delicious house-made takeout dishes, along with sandwiches made with locally baked bread, fresh salads, house-made soups, and so much more! Victor Valley Market has all that you need to make a delicious meal, whether for eating in or picnicking out. [p. 27]

Warbirds Café/Teton Aviation Center

253 Warbird Lane Driggs, ID 83422 208-354-2550 Lunch 7 Days and Dinner Tues–Sat tetonaviation.com/warbirds-cafe Enjoy delicious food seasoned with spectacular views of the Tetons at Warbirds Café, located at the Driggs-Reed Memorial Airport, one mile north of downtown Driggs. A full bar and thoughtful wine list complement our contemporary bistro fare, which is enhanced by daily specials and occasional live music. Our window-banked dining room parallels the taxiway, where an impressive array of private planes arrive and depart throughout the day.

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lodging guide

Fin and Feather Inn

9444 South Highway 31 Victor, ID 83422 208-787-1007 finandfeatherinn.com

The Fin and Feather Inn is a small bed and breakfast in Teton Valley situated along the Teton Scenic Byway. We combine luxury and country hospitality, making for a very relaxing and comfortable stay.

Our three rooms feature Grand Teton views, spacious bedrooms, private bathrooms, dual-head showers, a deep soaking bathtub, HD/Direct TV, and free wireless Internet. Come stay at the Fin and Feather Inn and experience the wonderful adventures that Teton Valley has to offer, while staying at a quality bed and breakfast.

Grand Targhee Resort

Alta, WY 800-TARGHEE [827-4433] grandtarghee.com

After a day of hiking or mountain biking, it’s time to relax with the family in one of a variety of western-style slopeside accommodations. All lodging is located just steps away from an array of shopping, dining, and activities. For those who desire a more intimate family retreat, consider Grand Targhee Resort’s Vacation Rentals in Teton Valley, perfectly situated between Victor, Driggs, and the resort. Call 800-TARGHEE to book your stay. [BC, p. 29]

Grand Valley Lodging Property Management

PO Box 191, 158 N. First Street Driggs, ID 83422 800-746-5518 mail@grandvalleylodging.com grandvalleylodging.com Grand Valley Lodging is the premier property management company in Teton Valley, operating since 1992. We offer great rates on short term rentals that include vacation homes, cabins, and condominiums throughout the valley. We are also the largest long-term (six monthsplus) property management company in the valley, and can help you optimize income and maintain your property. With our extremely experienced team in the housing rental business, we are happy to discuss the management of your valuable investment in Teton Valley. [p. 58]

Linn Canyon Ranch

1300 East 6000 South Victor, ID 83455 208-787-LINN [5466] linncanyonranch.com

Our lodging combines the best of luxurious accommodations with nature’s simple pleasures. Sleep peacefully in one of our luxury platform tents, or indulge yourself in creature comforts and rustic elegance in our artisan-built timberframe cabin. Our guests feel relaxed and inspired in our cozy mountain sanctuary. When you make your lodging reservation, we will also book your riding and dining activities at the ranch. We are also happy to help you reserve off-site adventures such as floating, fishing, hiking, and sightseeing. [p. 10]

Natural Retreats Teton Springs Lodge & Spa 10 Warm Creek Lane Victor, ID 83455 855-231-7956 or 208-787-7888 tetonspringslodge.com

US News & World Report’s #1 Hotel in Idaho, this Natural Retreats destination offers fifty-one elegant guest rooms and suites, as well as luxury mountain log cabins. Nestled on the border of the Caribou-Targhee National Forest, the year-round resort has the best of summer and winter activities available, all in a gorgeous setting. The Stillwaters Spa & Salon offers a full range of services, and the Headwaters Club & Golf boasts two stunning courses. With a range of activities offered, this is the perfect destination for an unforgettable family vacation.

Teton Valley Cabins

34 East Ski Hill Road Driggs, ID 83422 208-354-8153 or 866-687-1522 stay@tetonvalleycabins.com tetonvalleycabins.com Nestled amongst mature cottonwoods, Teton Valley Cabins welcomes you for your special getaway, vacation home base, or family or group reunion. Quaint charm, rustic cabins, and affordable rates await you at Teton Valley Cabins, just one mile from Driggs, with its restaurants and shops. Enjoy our grounds complete with a new Jacuzzi, or explore Teton Valley from here. We are centrally located, with Grand Targhee Resort just up the road, and other recreational opportunities within a few minutes’ drive. Various room types are available. Our rooms are equipped with microwave, fridge, satellite TV, and Wi-Fi. [p. 8]

Teton Valley Lodge

3733 Adams Road Driggs, ID 83422 208-354-2386 flyfish@tetonvalleylodge.com tetonvalleylodge.com During your stay at Teton Valley Lodge, you can expect to fly fish on a different stretch of river every day. With more than twenty-five different sections of river on three blue-ribbon fisheries in Idaho, years of discovery await even the most experienced of fly fishermen. Prolific dry fly hatches on the South Fork of the Snake, Teton River, and Henry’s Fork offer you many opportunities for large trout. Experience Teton Valley and the surrounding area with us—you will never forget it. [p. IBC]

Teton Valley Realty Management

253 South Main Street Driggs, ID 83422 208-354-3431 mail@tvrmanagement.com vacationrentalstetonvalley.com We hope you will allow us to find that perfect home or condominium to make your vacation a memorable and extra-special one. All of our homes are nicely furnished, meticulously maintained, and fully equipped to accommodate your group at a fraction of what you would pay for a few hotel rooms. All homes come complete with linens, kitchen necessities, cable or satellite TV service, soaps, and paper products; some have high-speed Internet service. Basically, you receive all the conveniences of home, away from home. [p. 6] SUMMER 2016

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Fast, Affordable, and On Your Way. McDonald’s® of Jackson Hole

Open & Serving your favorites 5:00am - Midnight Daily

Free Wi-Fi

1110 W. Broadway, Jackson, WY • 1 mile west of Town Square

307-733-7444

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church directory 53 Depot Street | Driggs, ID 83422 | 208-354-WORD [9673] ccteton.org Visitors welcome. Our motto is to simply teach the Bible simply— and thus, our pattern of study is verse by verse, chapter by chapter, book by book, right through the Bible. Sunday service starts at 10am and typically consists of worship, teaching, and fellowship. Dress is nice casual and the service usually lasts about an hour. Children’s church and a nursery room are provided. Wednesday Bible study starts at 7pm and lasts about an hour; dress is casual. One block north of the stoplight in Driggs, then turn left (west) on Depot Street (opposite Wallace Street and the gas station); the church will be on your right.

Church in the Tetons | Pastor Karlin Bilcher

Driggs City Center | Driggs, ID 83422 | 208-354-HOPE [4673] churchinthetetons.org We gather for worship in the Driggs City Center at 9:15 on Sunday mornings. We celebrate the Lord’s Supper on the first Sunday of the month. On months with five Sundays we go out as the hands and feet of Jesus to serve our neighbors however we may. We are a biblically grounded, Christ-centered, mission-focused, witnessing community that exists to serve Teton Valley and the world to the glory of God. We are often described as authentic, relational, genuine, and honest.

Nursery is available for infants and toddlers two and under. Education is provided for kids three and over.

LDS Driggs Idaho Stake

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints | Teton Valley Wards Driggs I Driggs II Driggs III Tetonia I Tetonia II Victor I Victor II Victor III

Tom Hill Wade Treasure Mitch Blake Thomas Richins Jim Douglass Todd Dustin Val Kunz Stan Marshall

354-8211 354-8806 354-2379 456-2871 456-2362 787-2211 787-2026 787-3678

1pm 11am 9am 9am 11am 1pm 9am 11am

school directory

Calvary Chapel Teton Valley

Table Rock Christian School

1510 North Highway 33 | Driggs, ID 83422 | 208-354-9674 trcs.us TRCS students say they truly enjoy learning, and often find themselves a year or two ahead in key subjects when compared to those attending many other schools. We work to ensure that our students establish a joy for learning. We teach our students how to think, not what to think.

We utilize a challenging ‘Traditional Christian Education’ approach, borrowing from time-tested methods including Charlotte Mason, Spalding, McGuffey Readers, and the Bible. Our small but solidly established school boasts a tutoring-like, peaceful, and caring environment. If you have a K–5 student, we would enjoy receiving your inquiry.

Teton School District 401

District Office: 208-228-5923 tsd401.org Teton School District 401 strives to provide a safe and exceptional learning environment, where career and college readiness are the academic cornerstones of a relevant and progressive education. Our daily student focus is having Respect, being Responsible and Ready. [p. 62]

Teton High School

Grades 9–12 | 208-228-5924 tsd401.org As a four-year high school, THS strives to recognize the uniqueness of the individual in preparing him or her for a lifetime of learning.

THS provides a safe and academically focused learning environment, where students are challenged for career and college readiness.

St. Francis of the Tetons Episcopal Church

Basin High School

Join us for Sunday morning worship and Sunday School beginning at 10am. St. Francis of the Tetons Episcopal Church with the Rev. Deb Adams officiating welcomes worshippers of all walks of faith. In the shadow of the Tetons, this historic church offers an opportunity to experience God’s presence and join in fellowship, spiritual renewal, and service to others.

Basin High School is an alternative option for students who meet the state criteria for enrollment. Students obtain credits through a state-approved independent-study format, with assistance from certified staff.

20 Alta School Road | Alta, WY 83414 | 208-353-8100 sftetons@silverstar.com | stfrancis.episcopalidaho.org

Teton Valley Bible Church

265 North 2nd East | Driggs, ID 83422 | 208-354-8523 tetonvalleybiblechurch.org Teton Valley Bible Church welcomes everyone to join us on Sundays at 10:30am. Come ready to give your heart to Christ in worship through singing, the reading of Scripture, expository preaching, and meaningful fellowship. Sunday school for children and adults is at 9am. AWANA meets Wednesdays at 6:20pm throughout the school year. [p. 29]

Grades 9–12 | 208-228-5928 tsd401.org

Teton Middle School

Grades 6–8 | 208-228-5925 tsd401.org Teton Middle School is dedicated to providing a quality education through which students will grow in academic achievement, respect for themselves and others, self-discipline, integrity, honesty, and responsibility.

Teton Elementary Schools

Grades K–3 at Victor 208-228-5929 | Driggs 208-228-5927 | Tetonia 208-228-5930 | Rendezvous Upper Elementary grades 4–5 in Driggs 208-228-5926 tsd401.org The mission of the elementary schools of Teton School District 401 is to be integral in the partnership between school, home, and community in nurturing and encouraging all children to become productive citizens and lifelong learners.

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exposure

Ride On! JESSE BLUE SHEETS GETS AN EARLY START IN TACKLING THE MOUNTAIN BIKE TRAILS AT GRAND TARGHEE RESORT. PHOTOGRAPH BY JAMYE CHRISMAN

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