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

As luck would have it, I was supposed to be on the East Coast this weekend, first for the nuptials of dynamo blogger, radio reporter and former Jackson resident Lauren Whaley, and then a quick family visit, the highlight of which was a fishing trip off Long Island on Sunday. I pulled the plug once the scope of the storm and associated travel woes became apparent.

For a few days, culminating yesterday, it seemed there was a crazy convergence in the cosmos: smoke from the Red Rock Fire filling Jackson, the prospect of a major cyclone blasting New York, new moon, high tide, Mercury in retrograde. After I returned from cancelling my flight at Jackson Hole Airport, a friend and I were having coffee on the deck at Shades when power lines began to crackle and explode above us at the back of Snake River Grill.

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Posted under Economy, Environment, Weather

Tags: climate change, new york, travel

Last week an array of conservation groups released a report listing the top 10 places to save for species endangered by climate change. Among those places is Greater Yellowstone, where whitebark pine trees are under assault from a warming-enabled infestation of beetles.

The report underscores the importance of the work filmmaker David Gonzales, founder of The Snaz, has poured himself into for the past year. Rather than sitting idly while the forests wither, Gonzales formed the nonprofit TreeFight and has been recruiting volunteers to hike into the hills and help catalog and protect the most valuable remaining stands of whitebark pines around Jackson Hole. (He also has been recruiting models to show off the group’s T-shirts, proceeds from which pay for pheromone packets that ward off beetles.)

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Posted under Art, Environment, Media

Tags: center for the arts, climate change, conservation, films, national forest, nonprofits, wildlife

Winter is back in the Tetons, and it won’t be long before everyone’s fired up to ski the backcountry.

On Tuesday night, Winter Wildlands Alliance feeds the stoke with its signature event, the sixth annual Backcountry Film Festival, at Snow King Resort. The festival promotes the work of grassroots filmmakers who tell compelling and entertaining stories of backcountry, nonmotorized recreation and environmental preservation. All proceeds will benefit the Teton Pass Ambassador Program (via Friends of Pathways) and the Ski Cabin (via the Jackson Hole Ski Club).

Among the films to be shown are TreeFight‘s “Whitebark Warriors,” chosen as best environmental film, and “Deeper,” the latest from snowboarder Jeremy Jones and Teton Gravity Research, for which no lifts, helicopters and snowmobiles were used. “Deeper” was honored as best of festival.

The festival runs from 6 to 9 p.m. Admission is $10. Snake River Brewing will serve beverages, and there will be raffle prizes.

Posted under Environment, Sports

Tags: backcountry, climate change, conservation, skiing, snowboarding, teton gravity research, wilderness

On Thursday night, the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, filmmaker David Gonzales will give a presentation on the plight of the whitebark pine.

Vast stands of these majestic, centuries-old trees are dying across the greater Yellowstone ecosystem, their needles turned red, from an infestation of pine bark beetles and an exotic fungus called blister rust.

The die-off of this cornerstone species has grave implications for our forests, our wildlife and even our snowpack. David, winner of a Wyoming film award and impresario of The Snaz, has poured his considerable passion into documenting the trees and rallying to save some of the most critical stands.

“The sweeping devastation to this high-altitude species, whose seeds provide valuable nutrition to bears, birds and squirrels, and whose outspread canopies provide shelter for wildlife and shade for the snowpack, may be the most serious environmental calamity to befall the GYE in its recorded history,” he says.

“Seeing Red,” a symposium on the whitebark pine, starts at 7 p.m. at Center for the Arts. Doors open at 6. Admission is free, and beer and wine will be served.

Visit TreeFight.org to find out how to get involved.

Posted under Environment, Media

Tags: center for the arts, climate change, conservation, wildlife

Glacier National Park continues to lose its namesake ice at an alarming rate.

Two more glaciers in the park have shrunk enough that they no longer warrant names, bringing the total down to 25 from a high of 150 in 1850. Ice fields must be at least 25 acres to be considered a glacier and merit naming.

A U.S. Geological Survey ecologist says all the remaining glaciers could be gone by the end of this decade.

In Grand Teton National Park, the Teton and Middle Teton glaciers have lost more than 20 percent of their surface area since 1967, according to researchers from the University of Wyoming.

In the Wind River Range, of the 53 glaciers monitored by UW researchers since 1985, all 53 have decreased in size, one by as much as 75 percent.

While all of these glaciers have been melting since the end of the last ice age, it’s the pace of the melt-off that concerns scientists. It’s like the difference between a cup of coffee and snorting coke.

Posted under Environment

Tags: climate change, conservation, grand teton national park