Any pipe dreams that journalists were going to be wined and dined in style during Powder magazine’s ski week at Jackson Hole quickly were dispelled by the buffet at Monday night’s opening reception: chicken wings and egg rolls.
With grease oozing out of our pores, we left Teton Village as the skies cleared and moonlight shone on the peaks. It seemed the dump cycle of recent days was over.
State Sen. Grant Larson, R-Jackson, killed a bill that would have stated Wyoming’s opposition to a national ID card.
Larson appears to have followed the direction of U.S. Rep. Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo., who co-sponsored the Real ID Act and pressured Wyoming lawmakers not to oppose it.
The Wyoming House overwhelmingly approved a joint resolution calling for repeal of Cubin’s legislation, but Larson made sure it did not move past the Senate committee he chairs, the Casper Star-Tribune reported.
The resolution stated that the Real ID Act will “enable the crime of identity theft by making the personal information of all Americans, including date of birth and signature, accessible from tens of thousands of locations.”
These guys have good timing.
Powder magazine is in Jackson Hole this week for its annual ski-demo junket. Representatives of 31 ski companies are on hand to let Powder scribes, local rippers and assorted p.r. types test the boards on some of the most challenging terrain in North America.
The goal is to ski as much powder and vertical as the legs can stand, consume as much free beer as the liver will tolerate, and sometime later assemble a buyer’s guide to the best 2007-08 ski gear.
And in a gift from the heavens, two feet of feathery-soft snow have fallen in the last two days, providing the best ski conditions of the season.
A Game and Fish officer counts the ungulates. Photo by Mark Gocke
Apparently, elk are getting along just fine despite the presence of wolves in northwest Wyoming. Wildlife managers recently counted 11,790 elk in the Jackson herd, 60 fewer than last year. In addition, the ratio of 25 calves per 100 cows is just about on par with the historical average.
The Jackson herd is Wyoming’s largest and lives in close proximity to a multitude of wolf packs in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks and the Teton and Gros Ventre wilderness areas.
Will these latest scientific figures stop state lawmakers and the governor from claiming that wolves are “savaging” wildlife? Probably not. But at least we know claims that the National Elk Refuge has been starving elk are pure fiction.
Ski photographer Jonathan Selkowitz returned home from the FIS World Ski Championships in Sweden in time to catch the biggest dump of the season.
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