Earlier this year, a prospective buyer signed a nonbinding letter of intent to purchase Snow King Resort. The resort was negotiating with the buyer, said to be JMI, a development company based in San Diego.

For weeks I’ve been hearing — via tips from readers — that Snow King Resort has been or is nearing a deal to be sold. Managing partner Manuel Lopez has been typically coy, either denying rumors or not responding to calls.

This week Lopez did reveal plans for more recreational amenities on the mountain, including two zip lines, yurts, some sort of roller coaster, a ropes course and bike park.

The News&Guide reports: “The plan to keep the ski hill financially viable focuses on five areas: an activity center near the hotel, a camp near the top of the Rafferty lift, a gateway into the property at the corner of Cache Street and Snow King Avenue, a yurt area on the south side of the mountain and another activity area at the summit.”

While it is heartening to hear the resort aims to honor its commitment to providing recreational facilities — after initially seeking to divest itself of the ski area while selling the hotel and development rights — this latest plan is a bit of a head scratcher.

Are zip lines and such really going to generate enough revenue to offset an annual operating loss purported to be $500,000 to $800,000 and debt exceeding $10 million? Although I like the idea of more yurts around Jackson Hole, a lot of the proposed amenities sound like gimmicks.

(Popular video of alpine coaster in Europe)

Maybe I’m naive and out of step with the latest trends in recreation. After all, Jackson Hole Mountain Resort is considering building a zip line. Recently a reader expressed concern about the “Disneyfication” of Jackson Hole. Do we really want this stuff on our Town Hill?

It’s a shame the town rolled over during negotiations between the resort and the community nonprofit Friends of Snow King. If the mayor and council had been willing to put the resort’s development rights on the table, instead of looking to bail out Lopez, we might already have conservation easements on some of the property at the base and a nonprofit running the ski hill.

The town has little in the way of regulatory authority over what sort of recreational amenities the resort can build. The Forest Service has final say, but recently passed legislation makes it easier for ski resorts to build these kinds of facilities.

To be clear: I live near and love the King, and I want the recreational part of the resort to succeed. That’s why I bought a pass last winter. But the community has to stay vigilant to make sure any deal is fair and keep our public land from being turned into an amusement park.

From Fish Creek to the Hudson, folks know a good breakfast.

Nora’s, the rustic eatery in Wilson, received a James Beard Foundation award Monday night at Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center, New York. The restaurant was one of five chosen as “America’s Classics” for “timeless appeal, beloved in its region for quality food that reflects the character of its community.”

The Empire State Building was lit in orange for the occasion. Restaurant founder Nora Tygum did not attend, but her daughter, co-owner Kathryn Tygum Taylor, accepted the award on behalf of the family.

A crew filmed this video for the Beard Foundation in March. A starring role goes to Nora’s huevos rancheros, after a hot plate of which I always go home, as Kathryn says, fulfilled.

Counter protester last year.

Now that Jackson has become a destination resort for anti-abortion protesters, residents are responding in creative ways.

First Brad Watsabaugh started a Facebook campaign called Protecting ElkFest with Love. Then an even bigger group formed, Jackson Hole United, that sought to deflect and defuse the first round of protests earlier this week.

The town’s decision to restrict free speech last summer backfired horribly, giving the zealots what they seek most: conflict. Having raised considerable publicity and cash following their organizers’ arrest, the crazies announced their intention to return to the Boy Scout antler auction and ElkFest on May 19. And even crazier crazies joined the fray this week.

Before Brad and Jackson Hole United took action, several of us had discussed exercising our right to free speech in concert with the protests. Send a message using the contact tab above if you want in. It ought to be amusing.

“Rather than feeding the hatred and ugliness that the abortion protestors thrive on, we will surround and drown them in love and compassion!” reads the purpose of Protecting Elkfest with Love. Add humor to the mix.

The group is distributing signs and T-shirts to counter the protests.

Jackson Hole United did an excellent job Monday helping parents steer clear of the protests with their kids, who were the intended targets for images purportedly of dead fetuses and such. The group has swelled to nearly 2,000 members, including those who oppose a woman’s right to choose abortion but deplore the protesters’ methods.

It should be noted that while media reports have characterized the protests as the work of outside groups, there are several residents actively aiding them, including none other than the vice chairman of the Teton County Republican Party, Jeremy Aughenbaugh.

“Hey OSA!” his wife wrote on the group’s Facebook page in June. “This is Felice and Jeremy up here in Jackson WY! We loved meeting you guys and catchn’ the vision! We are 100% commited as a Jackson chapter! We will be the forerunners! Big HUGS to all!”

The hugs Jackson Hole United and Protecting ElkFest will be giving under the banner of “Civility, Compassion, Love” ought to be more effective.

Because everyone needs to unleash their inner Frank the Tank from time to time.

Held during one of the biggest blizzards of the winter, the Gelande Quaffing World Championships hit new heights this year, as depicted in some of the acrobatic moves from the freestyle final round. David Stubbs takes us behind the scenes and into the thick of the foam-flying beer chugging competition.

I’m sending this out in tribute to MCA, Adam Yauch, of the Beastie Boys.
“Your mom busted in and said, ‘What’s that noise?’ …”

(Via A Vivid Eye)

Let there be rock: Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers plays alongside keyboardist Booker T. Jones at the 2009 New Orleans Jazz Fest. The Truckers will close Saturday night of Targhee Fest.

The 2012 Targhee Fest will have a decidedly Southern rock flavor.

Drive-By Truckers, Chris Robinson Brotherhood, Lucinda Williams and Trigger Hippy are among the artists added in recent weeks. In addition, reggae icon Toots and the Maytals will perform.

The eighth annual festival will be July 13-15 at the base of the Alta, Wyo., ski resort. Already announced performers include Black Joe Lewis and The Honeybears, J.J. Grey and Mofro, and Paul Thorn.

Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes at the Jackson Hole Music Festival in 2008. Robinson returns with a new band, and several of his Crowes mates also will perform at Targhee.

The Truckers last played Jackson Hole in 2006 with the Black Crowes, who have several alumni sprinkled throughout the Targhee lineup, led by Robinson. The Crowes singer is fronting his own new band. Also, Trigger Hippy features Jackie Greene, Joan Osborne, Crowes drummer Steve Gorman and ex-guitarist Audley Freed. Jam, anyone?

Lucinda Williams is a Grammy-winning singer-songwriter originally from Louisiana. Frederick “Toots” Hibbert, from Kingston, Jamaica, formed the Maytals in 1962. He played the Mangy Moose in Teton Village in 2003 and ’04.

Three-day passes are available for Targhee Fest for as little as $99. Targhee also is offering its summer music pass, good for both music festivals and lift access, for $179.

(Robinson photo by David Stubbs)

Rendezvous Lands Conservancy park is outlined roughly in green. The 40-acre property abuts the 11-acre BLM parcel to the south that is slated to be transferred to Teton County. Click to enlarge.

Around Christmas, as parties negotiated the final terms of a deal, I apprised venerable outdoors columnist and cult fishing legend Paul Bruun of efforts to create a park along the Snake River near Wilson.

“This is the biggest thing to happen for the river since …” I said, struggling to put the deal in perspective.

“Since forever,” Bruun finished the sentence for me.

The 40-acre property acquired by Rendezvous Lands Conservancy — located upstream of the Wilson bridge, on the northwest bank — will be a jewel for recreation, a place where the community can interact with the river in a setting likely nicer than the old Wilson Beach.

A partnership between the LOR Foundation and Jackson Hole Land Trust, RLC is moving swiftly to bring this dream to life.

The first step is to seek public input on what sorts of uses the park will accommodate. RLC has set up an online survey and will host an open house May 2 and 3 at Center for the Arts.

RLC envisions a “natural, passive” recreation site. Pierson Land Works is heading the design team. The land is adjacent to the 11-acre BLM parcel where the boat ramp is located, and the Highway 22 pathway bridge also will cross at this location. The survey only takes a few minutes to complete.

Levon Helm raps the skins with help from Galactic drummer Stanton Moore.

Back in 2010, I wrote about the anticipation of seeing Levon Helm perform at Jazz Fest. I had just watched The Last Waltz for the first time.

Helm and his band gave a set at the New Orleans Fairgrounds that was practically a mini-Last Waltz, with guest after guest coming out on stage to lend support and play with the revered drummer and mandolinist. Pianists Dr. John and Allen Toussaint, participants in the original farewell concert by The Band, were among the cast, along with Galactic drummer Stanton Moore, who pounded the skins alongside Helm for nearly the entire set.

Then 69, the gravelly voiced Arkansan had been battling throat cancer and looked frail, but his spirit was inextinguishable. His smile shone from behind the drum kit, and he played with an intensity that belied his condition.

“Oh, you don’t know the shape I’m in!” he bellowed to start the set. The Band classic was fitting on many levels, not only given his health, as the grin on his face suggested, but, this being a Sunday after a long weekend in New Orleans, for the audience as well.

For those of us who discovered the music nearly a generation after The Band’s heyday, The Last Waltz serves as a lesson in rock history. I don’t know that there’s ever been another musician who can sing and play drums the way Helm does during the documentary, so soulful and powerful.

Via David Swift, here’s how Charles Pierce, in an excellent piece for Esquire, described what he found a quintessentially American sound:

This was healing music, but it was in no way peaceful. Levon’s voice made sure of that. It was tough and sound and brooked no easy answers. … It was a Southern voice, certainly, but there was in it that universal sense that we are all in this great experiment together, that we hold a number of truths to be self-evident and the ones that Mr. Jefferson listed were only the very beginning of them.

That Helm was stricken with throat cancer wasn’t a total surprise, given that he and bandmate Robbie Robertson smoke a plantation’s worth of tobacco during the film. Right up to his final days, he refused to give up the fight.

Over the years “The Weight” became a universal hymn. This clip (featuring cameos from a few Jackson Hole expats) was filmed on a Sunday, and Levon took us to church.

(Photo via Galactic)

Tonight the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, American Rivers, Snake River Fund and a host of other nonprofits and businesses have teamed up to present the Wild and Scenic Film Festival at Center for the Arts. Admission is $5.

Eight of the nine films are shorts ranging from two to eight minutes. The longest is 45-minute “Kadoma,” about a wild and ultimately ill-fated river expedition in Central Africa. A synopsis follows after the jump.

Combining adventure with inspiration, the night is dedicated to the Don’t Frack the Hoback campaign. A coalition of conservation and sportsmen’s groups has been working together to protect the Hoback River headwaters from proposed natural gas drilling.

One of the other films to be screened is “The Fishman,” about a Montana resident who swims the Yellowstone River with fins, like a trout. Doors open at 6 p.m., and movies run from 7 to 9:30. More on the lineup can be found here.

The following is from the makers of “Kadoma:”

After more than a decade exploring Central Africa, Hendri Coetzee is a modern legend in the annals of African exploration. He walked nearly a thousand miles of Tanzanian coastline and led the first team down the entire length of the Nile through war-torn Sudan all the way to the Mediterranean. He returned to kayak solo the most difficult section of the river through the densest populations of hippos and crocodiles found anywhere on the planet.

Calling the Nile’s source at Lake Victoria home, he was well known and loved by the local people. On the eastern side of the river, they called him Kadoma for his bravery in the face of a river they fear and respect greatly. Along the western bank, locals speaking a different dialect call out the same name, but with a different meaning: Kadoma, the little bee that travels and improves lives everywhere it goes.

Solo on the Congo River in 2009, Hendri received an email from American expedition kayaker Ben Stookesberry. “It would be ludicrous,” Hendri said, “to take an American who you don’t know, and who has never been to Africa, into its very heart.” But a year later, he did just that.

Ben’s longtime kayaking partner, Chris Korbulic, joined the group as Hendri led the way from his home on the Nile overland through Rwanda in order to kayak into the heart of the Congo on a previously unnavigated waterway, the Lukuga River. Seven weeks into the expedition, deep in the DRC, tragedy struck as a monstrous African crocodile silently surfaced and pulled Hendri underwater, never to be seen again.

On Hendri’s final expedition, he takes us on a journey of mind and heart through parts of Africa seldom seen, where his own words will always ring true: “Some of the things that we’re about to witness are so intense and horrible that they should stop the show,” Hendri said, “but they don’t. People still laugh and dance. Yes the bad things happen, but so do the good things, the amazing things, and the show goes on.”

Transmission lines from a coal-fired power plant in southern Wyoming. Lower Valley faces tough decisions in the years ahead regarding what type of power it purchases and how it should distribute higher costs to members.

Last summer, readers reacted angrily when Lower Valley Energy decided to hike electricity rates in winter, rather than charge more to the heaviest consumers of power. The cooperative later backed down from the plan, but at least one commenter asked to be informed when board members are up for re-election.

Here’s your heads-up. Lower Valley has two seats open this spring, including the District 4 seat held by part-time Wilson resident Ted Ladd. The other seat is District 3, which includes Hoback Junction, Alpine, Little Horsethief Canyon and points south. Nancy Winters of Star Valley is the incumbent.

Ladd, who challenged former U.S. Rep. Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo., in 2004, has been spending a lot of time in California on business. He has attended recent energy meetings via Skype.

Denny Emory of Wilson has filed to run for the seat. Emory has been following the issues for years and has said the cooperative is not pricing power fairly, failing to charge more to the heaviest users who drive up the costs for everyone. Emory would make a fine addition to the board, and residents would have no trouble sharing ideas with him, as he can be found nearly every day at Nora’s.

Lower Valley is a member-owned cooperative. That means if you pay a LVE bill, you are also an owner. Any cooperative member residing in districts 3 or 4 is eligible to run for the board.

District 3 comprises all areas north of Lincoln County Road 119, east of Highway 89 through Alpine Junction and includes Hoback Junction north to Little Horsethief Canyon, as well as the Bondurant and Green River Lakes area.

District 4 comprises all areas north of the Teton/Lincoln county line and west of Highway 89 and Fall Creek, consisting of Crescent H and Indian Paintbrush. Grand Teton National Park serves as the northern boundary, including Wilson, Teton Pines, John Dodge and Teton Village.

Prospective board members must submit a petition with signatures from any 10 LVE members, regardless of which district they reside in. Petitions may be obtained by clicking here and must be returned to either LVE office (Jackson or Afton) by 5 p.m. April 27.

While everyone was at Teton Village on Saturday, grooving to the hip-hop of G. Love, blues guitarist John Mayer apparently made a guest appearance at the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar.

According to bar staff, Mayer joined Nathan Dean and The Damn Band and traded a few licks. “It was incredible, and John was one of the nicest people we have met at the Cowboy Bar,” the bar posted on its Facebook page.

What Mayer was doing in Jackson Hole is unclear. He recently canceled his spring tour, including a gig at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, because of a recurring throat ailment. He does not sing in the clip above.

Mayer apparently has been out West, filming a video for the song “Shadow Days” from his forthcoming album Born and Raised, due out May 22. He posted a photo on his tumblr blog Monday from Monument Valley, Utah.

It’s not uncommon for famous musicians to play the Cowboy. In 2010, Justin Timberlake made a cameo during a JH Snowboarder magazine party.

Update: Bartender Dusty Stolp confirms the pop star’s visit. Mayer filmed some shots in front of the Cowboy and then dined at the steakhouse. The band invited him up on stage, and he played the whole last set on lead guitar, Stolp said.