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

“Did I land it?”

Hot on the heels of the Shit Girls Say meme comes Shit Skiers Say, produced by the hustling media team at Whistler Blackcomb.

Seeing as how Jackson Hole is the GoBro capital of the ski world, some of these lines ought to ring a bell.

Shit Everyone Says is fairly played out, but if I wanted to take the meme a step further (and perhaps score a book/TV deal), I’d compile a feed of mystic musings about snow and skiing, called Shit Theo Meiners Says.

(Video via readers Suzy Q and Fresh Tracks)

Posted under Entertainment, Humor, Ski Resorts, Sports

Tags: canada, Media, skids, skiing, snowboarding

Anyone up for a cruise down Antelope Flats?

I know, more contenders for a future Darwin Award. I guess you can get away with this sort of thing up in Canada, eh?

But I’ll take these loving folks over the insanity of the Park Service, which has rounded up about 550 wild bison in Yellowstone and is ready to slaughter them. On our dime. If only some GOP budget cutters were aware of this.

Kurt Repanshek weighs the merit of a park hunt as an alternative strategy.

Posted under Entertainment, Environment, Humor, Politics

Tags: bison, canada, montana, wildlife, yellowstone

An avalanche that killed two and nearly wiped out 200 snowmobilers west of Revelstoke, British Columbia, last weekend has prompted calls for closing the backcountry in times of high danger.

Royal Canadian Mounties also are investigating whether to press charges against event organizer “Ozone” Dave Clark of Calgary, who allegedly pressed ahead with the informal snowmobile competition called the Big Iron Shootout despite repeated avalanche warnings.

A crowd of sledheads had gathered for the Shootout on Boulder Mountain when high-marking ‘bilers triggered the massive slide. A wall of snow plowed into the crowd and sent spectators and sleds tumbling hundreds of feet. The pile of debris measured up to 15 feet deep, and the slide ran 1,100 feet in all.

Thirty-one people were injured, and the search and rescue effort cost an estimated $1 million.

Read More…

Posted under Crime, Deaths, Environment, Sports

Tags: avalanches, canada, rednecks, snowmobiles

Not exactly the news you want to hear as Jackson Hole prepares to christen its new tram. Here’s the AP take.

Fifty-three people were evacuated after a tower buckled near the bottom of the lift. At least one gondola car hit the ground and rolled over.

“The injuries reported were ‘minor,’ said Michelle Leroux, spokeswoman for Doppelmayr/Garaventa Group, the German company that built the Excalibur,” according to the Vancouver Sun.

Doppelmayr/Garaventa also happens to be the manufacturer of the new Jackson Hole Aerial Tram.

Posted under Ski Resorts

Tags: canada

Sunday’s New York Times Magazine has a vivid article about black bears and humans in close cohabitation in Whistler, Canada.

The account of 90 attempted home break-ins and 1,500 calls to the bear-conflict hotline this year makes our bruin troubles seem relatively tame.

By comparison, in Jackson Hole in 2007, there were roughly 175 reported conflicts — more than the total of the last five years combined.

The situation in Whistler may presage what’s to come as hundreds of housing units are built at Teton Village, but also offers a lesson in coexisting with Ursus americanus.

Worth noting from the story: “Of the estimated 900,000 black bears in North America, on average only one causes fatal injuries to a person each year.”

Yet in Jackson Hole this year we have killed at least 16 bears, not counting those hit by cars or shot by hunters.

As writer Darcy Frey notes, “The danger of an encounter between humans and black bears is still borne almost entirely by the bear.”

Posted under Environment

Tags: bears, canada, wildlife