JH Underground – news, sports and music blog from Jackson Hole, Wyoming news, sports and music blog from Jackson Hole, Wyoming

Today is the deadline to comment on the Bridger-Teton National Forest‘s boondoggle proposal to sell off public land on North Cache and build new offices and employee housing elsewhere.

Forest managers seek to develop public land at the popular Putt-Putt Trailhead at the end of East Hansen Avenue and Nelson Drive. The preferred alternative calls for bulldozing the trail and erecting 18 homes. The agency would pay for the development by selling 11 acres on North Cache — site of the existing forest headquarters — for what is likely to be a fraction of its pre-recession value.

E-mail comments must be submitted in rich text format (.rtf) or Word (.doc) to comments-intermtn-bridger-teton@fs.fed.us. The subject line should specify “Conveyance Project.”

As detailed here, this process has been a farce since journalists first exposed it.

Read More…

Posted under Economy, Environment, Politics, Sports

Tags: cache creek, hiking, mountain biking, national forest

Jackson Hole Mountain Resort will require some of its employees to wear helmets, under a settlement with a state workforce agency.

Staff who work in the terrain parks, halfpipe and the backcountry — including ski patrol — must don helmets, and top executives and managers will follow suit when skiing or riding at the resort at all times.

The settlement, announced today, follows the death of ski patroller Kathryn Miller Hess, who was on duty and not wearing a helmet when she fell in a backcountry chute last spring. The resort received a citation for the incident from the Wyoming Occupational Safety Hazard Administration.

The new policy goes into effect when the resort opens for the season Saturday. Scott Horn, the resort’s chief administrative officer, said in a release:

“We had productive meetings with OSHA, and as a result we will take the first step to providing and requiring helmets for our employees. We will continue on a course toward encouraging greater use of helmets amongst our employees over the coming years. Education on the use of helmets will become an integral part of our staff training, and we will offer resort-subsidized pricing on helmets for all our employees.”

Read More…

Posted under Business, Ski Resorts, Sports

Tags: gear, jackson hole mountain resort, skiing, snowboarding

Cheery news as we begin the holiday season: Wyoming is the third-happiest state in the nation!

And researchers say it’s because we’re rich, smart and sexually uninhibited:

New research suggests U.S. states with wealthier, better educated and more tolerant residents are also happier on average.

The reasoning is that wealthy states can provide infrastructure and so it’s easier for residents to get their needs met. In addition, states with a greater proportion of artists and gays would also be places where residents can freely express themselves.

Right.

The study was based on a poll in which residents rated their well-being last year. Findings were published in the December Journal of Research in Personality and reported by LiveScience, a feeder for MSN (one of those human-interest stories that appear when you sign out of Hotmail).

Likely not mentioned in any of the publications: Wyoming has the highest suicide rate in America, twice the national average.

Those who aren’t killing themselves are extremely happy, apparently. Perhaps the poll was skewed by ski bums in Jackson, euphoric after a big dump.

According to the researchers, the West is the best, with seven of the top 10 happiest states. West Virginia ranked last.

Posted under Economy, Humor, Wyoming

Tags: Media

Despite all the rad photos of early-season turns at Grand Targhee, the resort plans to open only its Shoshone chairlift and Papoose conveyor on Friday.

“While we have received over 80 inches of snow since the end of September, a few weeks of warm weather coupled with the low moisture content of the snow from this last storm cycle prevents us from opening the upper mountain at this time,” said General Manager F. Scott Pierpont. “We will open the remainder of our terrain as soon as conditions allow.”

Lift tickets will be priced at $39 for full day and $33 for half-day.

Beginning Friday, hiking will be permitted only before 9 a.m. on the Teton Vista Traverse. Peaked Mountain is closed.

Read More…

Posted under Ski Resorts, Sports, Weather

Tags: powder, skiing, snowboarding, targhee

Lost in all the screaming over health insurance reform has been a substantive dialogue about what’s actually proposed in the legislation and what it means for Wyoming residents.

A group of citizens has organized a community forum Sunday for a patient, thoughtful and respectful discussion of the facts.

Quite a novelty, in an age of fraud and hysteria on Faux News.

Gary Trauner, the two-time candidate for U.S. House, will serve as moderator. I’ve been privy to private discussions among a group in Jackson — Republicans and Democrats, convened by uber-conservative Foster Friess — and no one has been as knowledgeable and willing to broker a solution as Gary. It’s a shame we don’t have him to represent us and push for bipartisan reform in Congress.

After the jump is an editorial Gary has written about Sunday’s event, and the state of health care in general.

The forum runs from 2 to 4 p.m. at Snow King Resort.

Read More…

Posted under Democratic Party, Economy, Politics

Tags: barack obama, gary trauner, Media

She’s the Dutchess, and he’s the Duke.

Their royal hipster highnesses perform tonight at LMC, in case you haven’t yet heard on Jackson Hole Community Radio, where strains of their stripped-down indie rock have been flooding the airwaves. Greg Ashley, the duo’s producer, will play an opening set.

The show is presented by What’s Good Here? Productions, aka Matt Donovan and Neil Albert, the upstart promoters behind last summer’s Bait Shop concert series. Lately, everything good here seems to have been their invention, as the two have filled a void in the local music scene with the Mangy Moose dormant and the plug pulled on 43 North.

Read More…

Posted under Art, Music

Tags: hipsters, rock, WGH?